FullReads

“All I want is jest the east corner of the back gall’ry, where the chimbly goes up. I’ll set up my cookin’-stove there, an’ my bed, an’ I’ll curtain it off with my sunflower quilt, to keep off the wind.”

“A cookin’-stove an’ a bed in the meetin’-house!”

“Mis’ Grout she give me that cookin’-stove, an’ that bed I’ve allers slept on, before she died. She give ’em to me before Mary Anne Thomas, an’ I moved ’em out. They air settin’ out in the yard now, an’ if it rains that stove an’ that bed will be spoilt. It looks some like rain now. I guess you’d better give me the meetin’-house key right off.”

“You don’t think you can move that cookin’-stove an’ that bed into the meetin’-house – I ain’t goin’ to stop to hear such talk.”

“My worsted-work, all my mottoes I’ve done, an’ my wool flowers, air out there in the yard.”

Caleb raked. Hetty kept standing herself about until he was forced to stop, or gather her in with the rowen hay. He looked straight at her, and scowled; the perspiration trickled down his cheeks.”If I go up to the house can Mis’ Gale git me the key to the meetin’-house?” said Hetty.

“No, she can’t.”

“Be you goin’ up before long?”

“No, I ain’t.”Suddenly Caleb’s voice changed: it had been full of stubborn vexation, now it was blandly argumentative.”Don’t you see it ain’t no use talkin’ such nonsense, Hetty?You’d better go right along, an’ make up your mind it ain’t to be thought of.”

“Where be I goin’ to-night, then?”

“To-night?”

“Yes; where be I a-goin’?”

“Ain’t you got any place to go to?”

“Where do you s’pose I’ve got any place?Them folks air movin’ into Mis’ Grout’s house, an’ they as good as told me to clear out. I ain’t got no folks to take me in. I dun’ know where I’m goin’; mebbe I can go to your house?”

Caleb gave a start.”We’ve got company to home,” said he, hastily.”I’m ‘fraid Mis’ Gale wouldn’t think it was convenient.”

Hetty laughed.”Most everybody in the town has got company,” said she.

Caleb dug his rake into the ground as if it were a hoe, then he leaned on it, and stared at the horizon. There was a fringe of yellow birches on the edge of the hay-field; beyond them was a low range of misty blue hills.”You ain’t got no place to go to, then?”

“I dun’ know of any. There ain’t no poor-house here, an’ I ain’t got no folks.”

Caleb stood like a statue. Some crows flew cawing over the field. Hetty waited.”I s’pose that key is where Mis’ Gale can find it?” she said, finally.

Caleb turned and threw out his rake with a jerk.”She knows where ’tis; it’s hangin’ up behind the settin’-room door. I s’pose you can stay there to-night, as long as you ain’t got no other place. We shall have to see what can be done.”

Hetty scuttled off across the field.”You mustn’t take no stove nor bed into the meetin’-house,” Caleb called after her; “we can’t have that, nohow.”

Hetty went on as if she did not hear.

The golden-rod at the sides of the road was turning brown; the asters were in their prime, blue and white ones; here and there were rows of thistles with white tops. The dust was thick; Hetty, when she emerged from Caleb’s house, trotted along in a cloud of it. She did not look to the right or left, she kept her small eager face fixed straight ahead, and moved forward like some little animal with the purpose to which it was born strong within it.

Presently she came to a large cottage-house on the right of the road; there she stopped. The front yard was full of furniture, tables and chairs standing among the dahlias and clumps of marigolds. Hetty leaned over the fence at one corner of the yard, and inspected a little knot of household goods set aside from the others. There were a small cooking-stove, a hair trunk, a yellow bedstead stacked up against the fence, and a pile of bedding. Some children in the yard stood in a group and eyed Hetty. A woman appeared in the door – she was small, there was a black smutch on her face, which was haggard with fatigue, and she scowled in the sun as she looked over at Hetty.”Well, got a place to stay in?” said she, in an unexpectedly deep voice.