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Mrs. Whitman did not return until quite late; her married daughter Lucy Ann and her teething baby did not generally release her in very good season. When she came into the kitchen she found a great pan of parsnips all washed and scraped, and heard the news how the Wigginses were over their ill-tempers and were coming the next day. Mrs. Whitman dropped into a chair, her large mild face beamed, and tears stood in her eyes. “Well, I’m dreadful glad if we can patch it up,” said she; “I never had any fuss with any of my folks before in the world, and I hate to begin now. I’ve always thought a good deal of the Wigginses.” And her mouth quivered.

The next morning a parsnip stew of noble proportions was prepared. At eleven o’clock the great kettle, full to the rim, hung over the fire, and the room was cloudy with savory steam. The Wigginses were expected every minute. Uncles Silas and Caleb Whitman could be seen from the kitchen window out in the field with their brother bending over the plough furrows, and they kept righting themselves and looking at their old silver watches. At half-past eleven Mrs. Whitman and Serena began to think it was strange that the Wigginses did not come. At quarter of twelve there was a little stir out in the yard, and they ran to the windows. There was Mr. Wiggins with a wheelbarrow and an empty grain sack and a half-bushel basket of russet apples in it.

Mrs. Whitman and Serena stood wonderingly in the door. “Where’s the folks?” asked Mrs. Whitman.

Then Mr. Wiggins, standing by the wheelbarrow, explained how Hiram Green had had to use the horse for ploughing up in the six-acre lot, how he had promised to hire it to him, and his wife hadn’t known it, and how he had had to go to the store for grain with the wheelbarrow, and his wife had got him to stop and tell Mis’ Whitman she was dreadfully sorry it happened so, but she didn’t see how they could walk, and they would come over the first day they could have the horse; and she didn’t know but what Mis’ Whitman’s apples had give out, so she sent her over a few of their russets; they had ‘most two barrels left, and they were spoiling fast, and they wanted to get rid of them.

When Ruth came home from school she found an immense kettle of parsnip stew, her father and her uncles Silas and Caleb again forming a pleasant expectant semicircle before the fire, but no Wigginses. To-day the stew was seasoned daintily, and salt had taken the place of saleratus. There was no stint as to quantity, but there were not enough partakers. Mrs. Whitman filled a great bowl for Lucy Ann; she sent a dish over to the Whites; father and Caleb and Silas ate manfully, and passed their plates again and again; Serena and Ruth and their mother ate all they could, and the cat had her fill; but the Whitmans, with all their allies, could not eat their own share and that of the Wigginses. But the stew was delicious, and as the family ate, their simple homely little feud was healed, and the parsnip stew smoked in their midst like a pipe of peace.