It wuz at a wool-pickin' we wuz conversin', an' about this time I had to leave, though very reluctant, as I did enjoy a reg'lar set-to between Janey Burridge's aunts. Git 'em together, an' they use' ter make me think of a line of poetry in my readin'-book at school:

They were free an' loud of voice as a pack of hounds, an' when they didn't agree the din wuz tremenjus. Ther' wuz four of 'em, two bein' Burridges by birth, an' two havin' married inter the family. Certainly ther' wuz no porcity of aunts to look after Janey, but as if enough wuzn't as good as a feast, she always called me aunt too. I wuz no blood-kin to the child, but my husband wuz connected in a roundabout way with some o' the Burridges, so I wuz Aunt Fonie to most o' the young folks, an' I wuz that fussless in my natur' that I got on peaceable with the hull lot, though the aunts wuz as tryin' as seven years' aguy, an' Janey would make a sassy speech occasional. Fur instance, the day o' the wool-pickin', when I got home she wuz leanin' on the gate a-chattin' ter Roland Selph, who had been cock o' the walk on the perarer sence he got religion in the spring. Janey's sleeves wuz rolled up ter the shoulders, an' her arms wuz all dough, a- showin' she had jest left her bread in the pan to rise or fall as the Lord willed. “Bread an' beaux,” says I to her, speakin' mild but impressive, “has both to be treated with attention; but the Queen of England,” says I—“no, nor the Sar of Russia— couldn't 'tend to the two simultaneous.”

“Well, Aunt Fonie,” cries Janey, “if a person can't do two things at onct, what makes you think you can manage your business an' mine too?”

I won't deny that my feelin's wuz hurt. People ought ter be mighty careful what they say ter an isolate female whose partner is a-restin' with the worms.

But somehow I never could stay mad with Janey. She wuz such a cheerful person to have around: somethin' eternally goin' on wher' she wuz. She wuz as good as a breeze among leaves to set things a-goin'; an' she could turn out more work in a day than most of us in a week. She wuz powerful good-lookin' too, Janey wuz, with crisp black hair, cheeks like apples, an' a big, laughin' mouth full o' white teeth, that she akchilly thought as much of as if they wuz diamonds.

On a special Saturday Elick fetched home a letter from Eben Burridge to his pa, sayin' we might expect him by the 15th which wuz the following Sunday. Eben had been out in Kansas fur a couple o' years, seekin' a place to locate. It seemed he hadn't found one, however, fur the next day he arrove at home, like Duffey after the third round, confident an' smilin', as pompous an' self-satisfied a little man as ever I see. After dinner the boys came a-droppin' in as usual, an' what does he do but take the'r visits to hisself! When Janey come to the sittin'-room door to bid 'em to supper, ther' wuz as many as a dozen, lookin' at each other like gawks, but all very perlite to Eben, wantin' to curry favor with Janey.

“Now, I take this as kind, boys,” says Eben, quite affable, as we set round the table, “that you should all come so soon to see me. It takes the old perarer fur good fellows. I tell you, out yonder in Kansas it's scramble, scramble, an' everybody a-suspicionin' of everybody. If ther' wuz a conflaggeration of a neighbor's house, every man would be a-crowdin' in ter see what he could git fur hisself in the way o' pelf, instead o' helpin' to save a sufferin' fellow-creetur's goods.”

“Sho,” says Amos Burridge, “we ain't that bad, though neither air we what we use' ter be. Fifty years ago, when I settled here, you might talk. There wuzn't a merkenary man among us. No pullin' an' haulin' an' cat-scratchin' ter git ahead. Pervide enough ter eat fur yourself an' your stock, an' you could ride aroun' the balance o' the time.”

“I'm sure ther's a-plenty of visitin' nowadays,” says I, likin' always to hear my bob in conversation.

“ 'Tain't the same kind. Folks drop in, ter be sure; but then they went fur a stayin' spell. The doors wuz made of split boards two or three inches too short, an' when you left home all you hed to do wuz ter throw a quilt over the top, an' then folks would know you wuz out, an' wouldn't holler.”

“Mighty funny way ter make a door!” says Elick Farley.

“Ther' wuz no winders, don't you see. Not a pane o' glass on the Nine-mile. I remember the first man that hed any made half his front door of glass; an' it wuz a sort o' guide: so many miles east or west o' the cabin with the glass door, folks would say.

“Wonder what they say about our house?” says Elick, stuffin' a laugh inter his throat with a piece of bread. “Reckon they talk about t'other side o' wher' Janey Black-Eyes lives.”

“Hold your jaw!” says Eben, fetchin' Elick a awful tweak o' the ear.

Elick squeals out: “Ho! you stuck-up Kansas grasshopper! Think the fellows come ter see you, do you? Ain't got sense enough to know they're after Janey! They didn't know you wuz looked fur. They comes every Sunday o' the world. Ho! ho! and you thought you wuz so pretty that you drawed the whole squad! Ef that ain't a joke I never!”

Them young men turned every color, from a pea-green to a grizzly gray. An' Eben looked red and furious from one ter another.

“Is this so?” says he, glarin' round. “Is it Janey you've come ter set up with?”

As luck would have it, he looked straight at Roland Selph, an' Roland sence he got religion had swore off from tellin' lies, though the boys wuz always tryin' to git him in a tight place where he couldn't speak the truth without a-hurtin' somebody's feelin's.

Howsomever, Roland laughed, good-humored, an' says he, “Wher' ther's honey you must look for flies, Eben.”

“Yes,” says Eben, very significant, an' lookin' as if he would like to bite somethin', “and wher' ther's flies you can look out fur fly-pizen. What have you to say fur yourself, Charley Winn?”

“I have ter say that I come a-courtin' Janey,” says Mr. Winn, as bold as brass; “an' she can take me or leave me any day she says the word.”

“Brother Eben,” cries Janey, her face afire, “I wish you wuz back in Kansas, that I do.”

“Very well,” says Eben, quite majestic, “I relieve you of my company fur the present. “An' out he stalks, puffin' like a mad gobbler.

“Boys, we'd better git our hats,” says Albert Thing.

They got up, and every last one of 'em slips away like a whip-tailed hound.

Janey burst out a-cryin', without waitin' to wash up the supper things.

“Of all the mean sneaks that ever wuz born, Ebenezer Burridge, you are the worst,” she said.

“Do you want your par eat out of house an' home?”

“Well, on my word! to count company's eatin'!”

“I should say so! A supper spread out fit fur a preacher! Two dishes of fresh, an' apple butter, an' a stack o' pies, an' dear knows what! I'll stand nothin' of the sort in my house.”

“Charley's goin' ter build, par,” says Janey—“three rooms an' a ell. It will be real nice beginnin' all fresh.”

Everybody seemed to think Janey had done well, and most had a warm word fur her. The aunts would try to fault Charley occasional, but they couldn't git the best o' Janey; an' neither could Eben when he fussed with her about wantin' to take so much o' the furniture out o' the house.

“It wuz my mother's furniture,” says she, “an' I mean ter have it.”

“Well, wozn't she my mother too?” snarls Eben. “D'ye think you have got a patent on her? Ther' won't be a thing left in the house for me and my girl to set up with.”

Neither one of 'em appeared to consider the old father as they wrangled over his things. I made up my mind, if Janey did make a clean sweep, I should unpack some of my own goods that I had stored in Peppertown, an' bring 'em over; for though a boarder I wuz human, an' my feelin's went out to Jed settin' there so peaceful, with his pipe an' his white head.

Charley Winn lost no time in gettin' his house put up, an' a good job it wuz—neat an' nice as a palace, with a bay-window an' plenty o' closets. Every evenin' Janey would go over to see how it wuz gittin' along, an' Charley would walk home with her, both of 'em lookin' as proud an' as pleased as if the whole o' the comin' wheat crop belonged to 'em. The weddin' wuz to be just after harvestin', that bein' a time when everybody took a restin' spell. Janey's weddin' frock wuz bein' made in Peppertown, an' Jed had made her a present of a whole bolt of domestic that we wuz makin' up as fast as possible. He wuz a mighty liberal man, Jed wuz, an' Janey's aunts said that her outfittin' would be the ruin of every girl on the perarer.

The wheat crop this year wuz a very stavin' one, and the farmers had considerable difficulty in gittin' help.

“I reckon you'll have to ride the reaper to-morrow, Janey,” says Eben, one night at supper, “if you can spare the time.”

“All right,” she said. “My work can wait, an' the wheat can't. It's already overripe.”

“I don't see how you can be so venturesome as to ride on the reaper,” says I.

“Janey is an old hand at helpin' in the crop,” says her pa. “When she wuzn't more'n half the size o' Elick here she rid the leadin' horse when we wuz a-thrashin' out the wheat.”

“Why, uncle, didn't you have a thrashin'-machine?” cries Elick, stickin' his knife between his teeth, an' proddin' a piece o' pork with his fork, simultaneous with stretchin' out his other hand for a biscuit.

“Machines wuz locked up then in some man's brain,” says Jed; “an' sometimes I wish they had never got out, fur it gives a poor man's pocket-book the swinney to buy one. The way we thrashed wuz to set the bundles in a ring about forty feet in diameter, I cal'late, an' ride around it, the horses' feet a-trampin' out the grain. An' when it wuz pretty well out we would sweep it up in a cloth.”

“I should think it would 'a been awful unclean.”

“Well, our biscuits wuz gritty sometimes,” says Jed, with a smile.

Long before sun-up the next mornin' Ebenezer gave us a call, for at harvest-time the sooner you could git things to goin' the better. In fact, durin' a very dry season, when the sun shone down hot an' fierce, an' the wheat wuz as brittle as broom straws, an' it wuz a sheer impossibility to bundle it without breakin', then the men would often have to work all night, so's ter take advantage o' the dew. 'Twan't no great hardship, however, with the big yellow harvest-moon a-shinin' in the sky, an' the air so cool an' pleasant. But it wuz powerful apt to bring on the chills.

When Janey jumped out o' bed at Eben's call she said she had a pain in her left eye, and wuz afeared she wuz goin' ter have a sty, to which she wuz subject occasional. We had a piece o' broken lookin'-glass in our room, an' takin' it in her hand, Janey went to the winder to examine her eye where she could ketch the first beam o' light. While she stood there, as evil doom would have it, Elick Farley passed by on his way ter feed the turkeys.

“Hi, Janey!” he calls, “you'd better come down-stairs an' git the breakfast, instid of a-primpin' an' a-fixin' an' a-lookin' in the glass as if you wuz goin' to a party.”

“You go about your business an' let me alone,” says Janey firin' up a little.

Then what does he do but commence a-dancin' up an' down, an' a-singin':

At this Janey turned real ugly. “See if I can't make you change your tune,” she cries. And without a moment's thought, I am sure, she flung the piece o' lookin'-glass square at Elick's head. It struck him on the forehead, an' he began to bleed and howl simultaneous. We ran down, considerably skeered; but the cut didn't turn out to be much, an' wuz soon salved and bound up. Elick's feelin's, however, wuz all agog. Many a black look he cast at Janey.

“I'll be even with you yet,” says he, “an' you mark my words.” But Janey on'y humped up her shoulders at him, an' went along to the wheat field.

Reapin' is hungry work, an' our harvesters could put away four meals a day quite comfortable. So along about eleven o'clock I fixed up a lunch of cold biscuit an' pork an' hoecake, an' a jug of cool buttermilk, an' went ter the field with it. Fur though I wuz a boarder, I wuz never above doin' any little chores to help the work along.

I got to the field just as the reaper wuz comin' up. Janey wuz sittin' up high under the awnin' drivin', an' Charley Winn stood beside her, a-tyin' up the bundles very swift. Eben wuz stackin' up in a distant part o' the field, an' his par had stopped to rest under a big walnut-tree which wuz a sort o' landmark to people in those parts, it bein' the tallest tree on the Nine-mile, an' wuz ginerally known as “Burridge's walnut.” Here they gethered ter eat their lunch.

“Phew! but it's a hot day!” says Jed, takin' a long pull at the buttermilk, an' passin' the jug to Charley Winn.

“The wheat field is a mighty purty sight,” says I; for it wuz, with the yellow sun shinin' on the yellow waves o' grain, an' the path that the reaper had made lookin' as smooth an' clean an' hare as the dry line through the Red Sea.

Janey day there, her big eyes fixed on Charley's face. He stood up, twirlin' his hat, first on one foot, then on the other, an' lookin' powerful meachin', fur a fact.

“Charley,” begun poor Janey, “it's hard to come to this.”

“I'd like to kill that little devil!” cried Charley.

“Oh no, don't say that. Poor child! you know he ran away to his pa: you remember Lex Farley? Lex wrote a letter ter my father, expressin' a great deal o' concern. He said it seemed as if Elick's heart wuz fairly broke. Maybe he'll make a good man yet.”

“If he gits ter be the President, I don't see how that's ter make up ter me fur losin' you.”

“A-losin' me?” repeats Janey, very slow. “But I ain't dead, Charley, nor like ter die, the doctor says.”

That hat went round in Charley's fingers as if it wuz possessed. “But you know, Janey,” he stammered—“you know, a man hes to marry a woman ter do her shear o' the work. And you can't do anything.”

“True,” says Janey, speakin' very loud an' harsh, “I'm laid on the shelf. An' of course a man marries a woman ter have his meals cooked reg'lar, an' the harvestin' 'tended to, an' the lard tried out, an' the apple-butter made, an' the geese plucked, an' the house cleaned, an' the washin' done on Monday, an' the mendin' Saturday, an' the odd jobs on Sunday.”

“Exactly,” says he, noddin' his head, an' never mistrustin' —the gawk!—that any woman with feelin's above a dumb beast's would 'a liked fur her beau to add a little tenderness to that bill of pertikelers.

Janey swallered a few times, an' then said, quite nateral, “Of course, Charley, you will be marryin' some one else before a great while?”

“Oh yes,” he says. “My house is built, you know, an' I've already got my seed in that fifty-acre lot. I shell have to git me a wife by next harvest-time, you know.”

“An' have you made up your mind,” says Janey, very polite, “where you'll go a-courtin' next time?”

Don't talk to me about a man havin' any gumption! Charley Winn seemed quite pleased that Janey wuz takin' intrust in his marryin', an' says he, in a sociable kind o' way, as if he had been talkin' to his grandmother, “I have been thinkin' of Mahaly Thing.”

“She's powerful untidy,” says Janey. “They say she washes her hands an' makes up her bread in the same bowl. An' I know her kitchen is the sloppiest on the Nine-mile.”

“What do you think of Hatty Holman?”

“Oh, she would do,” says Janey, speakin' quite dry, “if you could keep two hired girls—one to do the work, an' one to wait on her. She's as lazy as a snail.”

“Well, ther's Evy Wait; she appears to be of a brisk, active natur'.”

“So much so that they say she can drink more hard cider than any girl on the perarer.”

Charley knit up his brows, ant looked as if the subject wuz gittin' very knotty.

“Suppose I wuz to ask one o' the Whiteside girls?” he suggested; “they are purty, and smart too.”

“Oh yes; and they'll give a kiss for the askin' to you or the next one that comes along.”