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“Did they say anything about the, church fair?”

“They ain’t goin’ to have it.”

“Not have it! Well, how be they goin’ to git the shinglin’ paid for?”

“They’ve got up the idee of an Old Folks’ Concert.”

“Singin’?”

“Singin’ an’ playin’.”

“Who’s goin’ to play?”

“Brad Freeman an’ Jont Marshall agreed to play fust an’ second fiddle.” Heman paused a moment, and straightened himself with an air of conscious pride; then he added,–

“They’ve asked me to play the bass-viol.”

The Widder had no special objections to this arrangement, but it did strike her as an innovation; and when she had no other reason for disapproval, she still believed in it on general principles. So altogether effective a weapon should never rust from infrequent use!

“Well!” she announced. “I never heard of such carryin’s-on,–never!”

Heman was lighting a small kerosene lamp. The little circle of light seemed even brilliant in the dusky room; it affected him with a relief so sudden and manifest as to rouse also a temporary irritation at having endured the previous gloom even for a moment.

“‘Ain’t you got no oil in the house?” he exclaimed, testily. “I wish you’d light up, evenin’s, an’ not set here by one taller candle!”

He had ventured on this remonstrance before, the only one he permitted himself against his housekeeper’s ways, and at the instant of making it, he realized its futility.

“The gre’t lamp’s all full,” said the Widder, warming her apron and pressing it to her poulticed face. “You can light it, if you’ve got the heart to. That was poor Mary’s lamp, an’ hard as I’ve tried, I never could bring myself to put a match to that wick. How many evenin’s I’ve seen her set by it, rockin’ back’ards an’ for’ards,–an’ her needle goin’ in an’ out! She was a worker, if ever there was one, poor creatur’! At it all the time, jes’ like a silk-worm.”

Heman was perfectly familiar with this explanation; from long repetition, he had it quite by heart. Possibly that was why he did not wait for its conclusion, but tramped stolidly away to his bedroom, where he had begun to kick off his shoes by the time his sister-in-law reached a period.

The Widder had a fresh poultice waiting by the fire. She applied it to her cheek, did up her face in an old flannel petticoat, and then, having covered the fire, toiled up to bed. It was a wearisome journey, for she carried a heavy soapstone which showed a tendency to conflict with the candle, and she found it necessary to hold together most of her garments; these she had “loosened a mite by the fire,” according to custom on cold nights, after Heman had left her the field.

Next day, Heman went away into the woods chopping, and carried his dinner of doughnuts and cheese, with a chunk of bean-porridge frozen into a ball, to be thawed out by his noontime fire. He returned much earlier than usual, and the Widder was at the window awaiting him. The swelling in her cheek had somewhat subsided; and the bandage, no longer distended by a poultice beneath, seemed, in comparison, a species of holiday device. She was very impatient. She watched Heman, as he went first to the barn; and even opened the back door a crack to listen for the rattling of chains, the signal of feeding or watering.

“What’s he want to do that now for?” she muttered, closing the door again, as the cold struck her cheek. “He’ll have to feed ’em ag’in, come night!”

But at last he came, and, according to his silent wont, crossed the kitchen to the sink, to wash his hands. He was an unobservant man, and it did not occur to him that the Widder had on her Tycoon rep, the gown she kept “for nice.” Indeed, he was so unused to looking at her that he might well have forgotten her outward appearance. He was only sure of her size; he knew she cut off a good deal of light. One sign, however, he did recognize; she was very cheerful, with a hollow good-nature which had its meaning.