"Good reason why," retorted Samantha. "You always know where to find him 'cause he gen'ally hain't moved sence you seen him last. Gittin'

religion ain't goin' to help him much. If he ever hears tell 'bout the gate of heaven bein' open 't the last day, he won't 'a' begun to begin thinkin' 'bout gittin' in tell he hears the door shet in his face; 'n'

then he'll set ri' down's comf'table's if he was inside, 'n' say, 'Wall, better luck next time: slow an' sure 's my motto!' Good-mornin', Jabe,--had your dinner?"

"I ain't even hed my breakfast," responded Mr. Sloc.u.m easily.

"Blessed are the lazy folks, for they always git their ch.o.r.es done for 'em," remarked Samantha scathingly, as she went to the b.u.t.tery for provisions.

"Wall," said Laigs, looking at her with his most irritating smile, as he sat down at the kitchen table, "I don't find I git thru any more work by tumblin' out o' bed 't sun-up 'n I dew 'f I lay a spell 'n' let the univa.r.s.e git het up 'n' runnin' a leetle mite. 'Slow 'n' easy goes fur in a day' 's my motto. Rhapseny, she used to say she should think I'd be ashamed to lay abed so late. 'Wall, I be,' s' I, 'but I'd ruther be ashamed 'n git up!' But you're an awful good cook, Samanthy, if ye air allers in a hurry, 'n' if yer hev got a sharp tongue!"

"The less you say 'bout my tongue the better!" snapped Samantha.

"Right you are," answered Jabe with a good-natured grin, as he went on with his breakfast. He had a huge appet.i.te, another grievance in Samantha's eyes. She always said "there was no need of his being so slab-sided 'n' slack-twisted 'n' knuckle-jointed,--that he eat enough in all conscience, but he wouldn't take the trouble to find the victuals that would fat him up 'n' fill out his bag o' bones."

Just as Samantha's well-cooked viands began to disappear in Jabe's capacious mouth (he always ate precisely as if he were stoking an engine) his eye rested upon a strange object by the wood-box, and he put down his knife and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Well, I swan! Now when 'n' where'd I see that baby-shay? Why, 't was yesterday. Well, I vow, them young ones was comin' here, was they?"

"What young ones?" asked Miss Vilda, exchanging astonished glances with Samantha.

"And don't begin at the book o' Genesis 'n' go clean through the Bible, 's you gen'ally do. Start right in on Revelations, where you belong,"

put in Samantha; for to see a man unexpectedly loaded to the muzzle with news, and too lazy to fire it off, was enough to try the patience of a saint; and even David Milliken would hardly have applied that term to Samantha Ann Ripley.

"Give a feller time to think, will yer?" expostulated Jabe, with his mouth full of pie. "Everything comes to him as waits 'd be an awful good motto for you! Where'd I see 'em? Why, I fetched 'em as fur as the cross-roads myself."

"Well, I never!" "I want to know!" cried the two women in one breath.

"I picked 'em up out on the road, a little piece this side o' the station. 'T was at the top o' Marm Berry's hill, that's jest where 't was. The boy was trudgin' along draggin' the baby 'n' the basket, 'n' I thought I'd give him a lift, so s' I, 'Goin' t' the Swamp or t' the Falls?' s' I. 'To the Falls,' s' 'e. 'Git in,' s' I, ''n' I'll give yer a ride, 'f y' ain't in no hurry,' s' I. So in he got, 'n' the baby tew.

When I got putty near home, I happened ter think I'd oughter gone roun'

by the tan'ry 'n' picked up the Widder Foss, 'n' so s' I, 'I ain't goin'

no nearer to the Falls; but I guess your laigs is good for the balance o' the way, ain't they?' s' I. 'I guess they be!' s' 'e. Then he thanked me 's perlite's Deacon Sawyer's first wife, 'n' I left him 'n' his folks in the road where I found 'em."

"Didn't you ask where he belonged nor where he was bound?"

"'T ain't my way to waste good breath askin' questions 't ain't none o'

my bis'ness," replied Mr. Sloc.u.m.

"You're right, it ain't," responded Samantha, as she slammed the milk-pans in the sink; "'n' it's my hope that some time when you get good and ready to ask somebody somethin' they'll be in too much of a hurry to answer you!"

"Be they any of your folks, Miss Vildy?" asked Jabe, grinning with delight at Samantha's ill humor.

"No," she answered briefly.

"What yer cal'latin' ter do with 'em?"

"I haven't decided yet. The boy says they haven't got any folks nor any home; and I suppose it's our duty to find a place for 'em. I don't see but we've got to go to the expense of takin' 'em back to the city and puttin' 'em in some asylum."

"How'd they happen to come here?"

"They ran away from the city yesterday, and they liked the looks of this place; that's all the satisfaction we can get out of 'em, and I dare say it's a pack of lies."

"That boy wouldn't tell a lie no more 'n a seraphim!" said Samantha tersely.

"You can't judge folks by appearances," answered Vilda. "But anyhow, don't talk to the neighbors, Jabe; and if you haven't got anything special on hand to-day, I wish you'd patch the roof of the summer house and dig us a mess of beet greens. Keep the children with you, and see what you make of 'em; they're playin' in the garden now."

"All right. I'll size 'em up the best I ken, tho' mebbe it'll hender me in my work some; but time was made for slaves, as the mola.s.ses said when they told it to hurry up in winter time."

Two hours later, Miss Vilda looked from the kitchen window and saw Jabez Sloc.u.m coming across the road from the garden. Timothy trudged beside him, carrying the basket of greens in one hand, and the other locked in Jabe's huge paw; his eyes upturned and shining with pleasure, his lips moving as if he were chattering like a magpie. Lady Gay was just where you might have expected to find her, mounted on the towering height of Jabe's shoulder, one tiny hand grasping his weather-beaten straw hat, while with the other she whisked her willing steed with an alder switch which had evidently been cut for that purpose by the victim himself.

"That's the way he's sizin' of 'em up," said Samantha, leaning over Vilda's shoulder with a smile. "I'll bet they've sized him up enough sight better 'n he has them!"

Jabe left the children outside, and came in with the basket. Putting his hat in the wood-box and hitching up his trousers impressively, he sat down on the settle.

"Them ain't no children to be wanderin' about the earth afoot 'n' alone, 'same 's. .h.i.tty went to the beach;' nor they ain't any common truck ter be put inter 'sylums 'n' poor-farms. There's some young ones that's so everlastin' chuckle-headed 'n' hombly 'n' contrairy that they ain't hardly wuth savin'; but these ain't that kind. The baby, now you've got her cleaned up, is han'somer 'n any baby on the river, 'n' a reg'lar chunk o' sunshine besides. I'd be willin' ter pay her a little suthin'

for livin' alongside. The boy--well, the boy is a extra-ordinary boy. We got on tergether's slick as if we was twins. That boy's got idees, that's what he's got; 'n' he's likely to grow up into--well, 'most anything."

"If you think so highly of 'em, why don't you adopt 'em?" asked Miss Vilda curtly. "That's what they seem to think folks ought to do."

"I ain't sure but I shall," Mr. Sloc.u.m responded unexpectedly. "If you can't find a better home for 'em somewheres, I ain't sure but I'll take 'em myself. Land sakes! if Rhapseny was alive I'd adopt 'em quicker 'n blazes; but marm won't take to the idee very strong, I don't s'pose, 'n'

she ain't much on bringin' up children, as I ken testify. Still, she's a heap better 'n a brick asylum with a six-foot stone wall round it, when yer come to that. But I b'lieve we ken do better for 'em. I can say to folks, 'See here: here's a couple o' smart, han'some children. You can have 'em for nothin', 'n' needn't resk the onsartainty o' gittin'

married 'n' raisin' yer own; 'n' when yer come ter that, yer wouldn't stan' no charnce o' gittin' any as likely as these air, if ye did.'"

"That's true as the gospel!" said Samantha. It nearly killed her to agree with him, but the words were fairly wrung from her unwilling lips by his eloquence and wisdom.

"Well, we'll see what we can do for 'em," said Vilda in a non-committal tone; "and here they'll have to stay, for all I see, tell we can get time to turn round and look 'em up a place."

"And the way their edjercation has been left be," continued Mr. Sloc.u.m, "is a burnin' shame in a Christian country. I don' b'lieve they ever see the inside of a school-house! I've learned 'em more this mornin' 'n they ever hearn tell of before, but they're 's ignorant 's Cooper's cow yit. They don' know tansy from sorrel, nor slip'ry ellum from pennyroyal, nor burdock from pigweed; they don' know a dand'lion from a hole in the ground; they don' know where the birds put up when it comes on night; they never see a brook afore, nor a bull-frog; they never hearn tell o' cat-o'-nine-tails, nor jack-lanterns, nor see-saws. Land sakes! we got ter talkin' 'bout so many things that I clean forgot the summer-house roof. But there! this won't do for me: I must be goin'; there ain't no rest for the workin'-man in this country."

"If there wa'n't no work for him, he'd be wuss off yet," responded Samantha.

"Right ye are, Samanthy! Look here, when 'd you want that box you give me to fix?"

"I wanted it before hayin', but I s'pose any time before Thanksgivin'

'll do, seein' it's you."

"What's wuth doin' 't all 's wuth takin' time over, 's my motto," said Jabe cheerfully, "but seein' it's you, I'll nail that cover on ter night or bust!"

SCENE IX.

_A Village Sabbath._

"NOW THE END OF THE COMMANDMENT IS CHARITY, OUT OF A PURE HEART."

It was Sunday morning, and the very peace of G.o.d was brooding over Pleasant River. Timothy, Rags, and Gay were playing decorously in the orchard. Maria was. .h.i.tched to an apple-tree in the side yard, and stood there serenely with her eyes half closed, dreaming of oats past and oats to come. Miss Vilda and Samantha issued from the mosquito-netting door, clad in Sunday best; and the children approached nearer, that they might share in the excitement of the departure for "meeting." Gay clamored to go, but was pacified by the gift of a rag-doll that Samantha had made for her the evening before. It was a monstrosity, but Gay dipped it instantly in the alembic of her imagination, and it became a beautiful, responsive little daughter, which she clasped close in her arms, and on which she showered the tenderest tokens of maternal affection.

Miss Vilda handed Timothy a little green-paper-covered book, before she climbed into the buggy. "That's a catechism," she said; "and if you'll be a good boy and learn the first six pages, and say 'em to me this afternoon, Samantha 'll give you a top that you can spin on week days."

"What is a catechism?" asked Timothy, as he took the book.