[Ill.u.s.tration: "A PARSNIP STEW"]

The wagon looked full of faces. On the front seat were a large man and two little boys; out of the gloom in the rear peered two women and a little girl. They were Mr. Wiggins, his wife and three children, and his mother. They were distant relatives of Mrs. Whitman's; they often came over to spend the day, and always unannounced.

Mr. Whitman came out clumsily and opened the barn doors, and Mr. Wiggins led the horse into the barn. "I hope you 'ain't got wet," Mrs. Whitman said. Nothing could have exceeded her cordiality; but all the time she was thinking of the parsnip stew, and how it surely would not go around now.

Ruth had not followed the others out to greet the guests. She stayed by the kettle and stirred the stew, and scowled. "I think it's downright mean for folks to come in this way, just dinner-time," said she to the uncles, who had not left their chairs. And they gave short grunts which expressed their a.s.sent, for neither of them liked company.

They watched soberly as Ruth stirred the stew, but they did not dream that there was not enough to go around.

When her mother and the guests entered, Ruth turned around and bobbed her head stiffly, and said, "Pretty well, thank you," and then stirred again. Serena helped the Wigginses take off their things. She untied old Mrs. Wiggins's pumpkin hood, and got her cap out of her cap basket and put it on for her. She also took off little Mary Wiggins's coat, and set her in a little child's arm-chair and gave her a kiss. Little Mary Wiggins, with her sober, chubby face and her rows of shiny brown curls, in her best red frock and her scalloped pantalets, was noticed admiringly by everybody but Ruth.

As soon as she could Ruth cornered her mother in the pantry. "Mother, what _are_ you going to do?" said she.

"I'm goin' to do jest the best I can," she whispered, severely. "I'm goin' to tell father an' Caleb an' Silas they mustn't take none of that stew; they can have some bread an' apple-sauce. I guess they'll git along."

"Well, I don't care," said Ruth, in a loud voice. "I think it's mean and a downright imposition on folks, coming in this way, just dinner-time."

"Ruth Whitman, if you care anything about me, you'll keep still. Now you get the salt-cup an' go out there, an' put some more salt in that stew.

It tasted dreadful flat, I thought. I jest tasted of it when they drove in. I've got to get out the other knives."

Ruth caught up a cup with a jerk. "Well, how much shall I put in?" she inquired, sulkily.

"Oh, quite a lot. You can tell. It was dreadful flat. Taste of it."

But Ruth did not taste of it. She scattered the contents of the cup liberally into the stew, gave it a stir, returned to the pantry, and set the cup down hard. "Well," said she, "I've put it in, and now I'm goin'."

"Ruth Whitman, you ain't goin' off to school without any dinner."

"I don't see as there is anything for dinner but bread and apple-sauce, and I'm sure I don't want any."

"I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself, actin' so."

"I think there are other folks that ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Before I'd go into folk's houses that way--"

"Ruth Whitman, they'll hear you!"

"I don't care if they do. I've got to go, anyway. It's late. I couldn't stop for dinner now if I wanted to."

She went through the kitchen, where Serena now tended the stew, only stopping to take her shawl off the peg.

"Why, you going?" Serena called after her.

"I've got to; it's late," replied Ruth, shortly. She faced about for a second and gave a stiff nod, which seemed directed at the stew-kettle rather than at the Wigginses. "Good-bye," said she. Then she went out.

It was raining with a hard, steady drizzle. Ruth had no rubbers nor water-proof--they were not yet invented. She sped along through the rain and mist. She had to walk half a mile to the little house where she taught the district school, and before she got there she felt calmer.

"I suppose I was silly to act so mad," she said to herself. "I know it plagued mother."

It was early in the spring; the trees were turning green in the rain.

Over in the field she could see one peach-tree in blossom, showing pink through the mist. "I suppose Mr. Wiggins couldn't work out to-day, and that's how they happened to come. They could have the horse. But they ought to have come earlier," reflected Ruth. "There are a good many of 'em for Mrs. Wiggins to get ready," mused Ruth. "There's old Mrs.

Wiggins and Johnny and Sammy and Mary and Mr. Wiggins."

By the time Ruth was seated at her table in the school-room, and the scholars were wriggling and twisting before her on their wooden benches, she saw the matter quite plainly from the Wiggins side. She made up her mind that she would behave just as well as she knew how to the Wigginses when she got home. She planned how she would swing little Mary out in the barn and play with the boys, and how she would help her mother get tea.

When school was done and Ruth started for home the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. The rain-pools in the road glittered, and she noticed a cherry-tree in blossom. When she reached home Serena met her at the door.

"Oh, Ruth Whitman!" she cried, "we have had such a time!"

Ruth stared. "What do you mean?" said she. "Where are the Wigginses?"

"They've gone. Mrs. Wiggins and old Mrs. Wiggins were dreadful mad. Oh, Ruth, you didn't do it on purpose, did you?"

"Do what on purpose?" said Ruth, pushing into the house, and looking around the empty kitchen in a bewildered way. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you know what you put into that parsnip stew?"

"No; I don't know of anything I put in but some salt, just before I went to school; mother told me to. Why?"

"Oh, Ruth, you put in--saleratus!"

"I don't believe it."

Ruth flew into the pantry, and came out with a cracked blue cup. "Here,"

said she--"here's the salt-cup, and this is the one I got it out of, I know."

"Taste of it," said Serena, solemnly.

Ruth tasted. "It _is_ saleratus," said she, looking at her sister in horror. "Did it spoil the stew?"

"It was--dreadful."

"I don't see how it happened," Ruth said, slowly, puckering her forehead, "unless mother dipped out some saleratus in the salt-cup to bring out in the kitchen when she mixed the sour-milk cakes for breakfast. I don't know anything about it, true's I live and breathe. I hope they didn't think I did such a mean thing as that on purpose."

"Well, I don't know as they really thought you did, but you know you did kind of jerk round, Ruth, and the Wigginses saw it."

"What did they say?"

"Well," said Serena, "we all sat down to the table, and mother had put on the bread and apple-sauce for the rest of us, and she helped the Wigginses to the stew. There wasn't more'n enough to go around, but she kept the cover over the dish so they shouldn't suspect, and all the rest of us said we wouldn't take any.

"Well, Mrs. Wiggins she tasted, and old Mrs. Wiggins she tasted. Then they looked at mother. Mother she didn't know what it meant, and she kept getting redder and redder. Finally she spoke up. 'Is there anything the matter with the stew?' says she.

"Then Mrs. Wiggins she pushed over her plate for mother to taste of the stew, and the first thing we knew they were all talking at once. Old Mrs. Wiggins said she'd noticed how we acted kind of stiff, and as if we wasn't glad to see them, the minute she come, and Mrs. Wiggins said she had, too, and she'd seen you put the saleratus into the stew, and she thought from the way you switched around you were up to something.

Mother she tried to excuse it off, but they wouldn't hear a word. They said it didn't look very likely that it was an accident, and they noticed none of us took any of it, and mother wouldn't tell them the reason for that. So they just got up and put on their things, and Mr.

Wiggins backed out the horse, and they went home. Mother asked them to come again, and she'd try and have a better dinner, but they said they'd never set foot in the house again if they knew it."

"Didn't anybody eat the stew?"