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“I was talking about the Ashbys, wasn’t I? I do’ know’s I ever told you about the fight they had after their father died about the old house. Joseph was married to a girl he met in camp-meeting time, who had a little property–two or three hundred dollars–from an old great uncle that she’d been keeping house for; and I don’t know what other plans she may have had for spending of her means, but she laid most of it out in a husband; for Joseph never cared any great about her that I could see, though he always treated her well enough. She was a poor ignorant sort of thing, seven years older than he was; but she had a pleasant kind of a face, and seemed like an overgrown girl of six or eight years old. I remember just after they was married Joseph was taken down with a quinsy sore throat,–being always subject to them,–and mother was over in the forenoon, and she was one that was always giving right hand and left, and she told Susan Ellen–that was his wife–to step over in the afternoon and she would give her some blackberry preserve for him; she had some that was nice and it was very healing. So along about half-past one o’clock, just as we had got the kitchen cleared, and mother and I had got out the big wheels to spin a few rolls,–we always liked to spin together, and mother was always good company;–my brother Jonas–that was the youngest of us–looked out of the window, and says he: ‘Here comes Joe Ashby’s wife with a six-quart pail.’

“Mother she began to shake all over with a laugh she tried to swallow down, but I didn’t know what it was all about, and in come poor Susan Ellen and lit on the edge of the first chair and set the pail down beside of her. We tried to make her feel welcome, and spoke about everything we could contrive, seein’ as it was the first time she’d been over; and she seemed grateful and did the best she could, and lost her strangeness with mother right away, for mother was the best hand to make folks feel to home with her that I ever come across. There ain’t many like her now, nor never was, I tell ’em. But there wa’n’t nothing said about the six-quart pail, and there it set on the floor, until Susan Ellen said she must be going and mentioned that there was something said about a remedy for Joseph’s throat. ‘Oh, yes,’ says mother, and she brought out the little stone jar she kept the preserve in, and there wa’n’t more than the half of it full. Susan Ellen took up the cover off the pail, and I walked off into the bedroom, for I thought I should laugh, certain. Mother put in a big spoonful, and another, and I heard ’em drop, and she went on with one or two more, and then she give up. ‘I’d give you the jar and welcome,’ she says, ‘but I ain’t very well off for preserves, and I was kind of counting on this for tea in case my brother’s folks are over.’ Susan Ellen thanked her, and said Joseph would be obliged, and back she went acrost the pasture. I can see that big tin pail now a-shining in the sun.

“The old man was alive then, and he took a great spite against poor Susan Ellen, though he never would if he hadn’t been set on by John; and whether he was mad because Joseph had stepped in to so much good money or what, I don’t know,–but he twitted him about her, and at last he and the old man between ’em was too much to bear, and Joe fitted up a couple o’ rooms for himself in a building he’d put up for a kind of work-shop. He used to carpenter by spells, and he clapboarded it and made it as comfortable as he could, and he ordered John out of it for good and all; but he and Susan Ellen both treated the old sir the best they knew how, and Joseph kept right on with his farm work same as ever, and meant to lay up a little more money to join with his wife’s, and push off as soon as he could for the sake of peace, though if there was anybody set by the farm it was Joseph. He was to blame for some things,–I never saw an Ashby that wasn’t,–and I dare say he was aggravating. They were clearing a piece of woodland that winter, and the old man was laid up in the house with the rheumatism, off and on, and that made him fractious, and he and John connived together, till one day Joseph and Susan Ellen had taken the sleigh and gone to Freeport Four Corners to get some flour and one thing and another, and to have the horse shod beside, so they was likely to be gone two or three hours. John Jacobs was going by with his oxen, and John Ashby and the old man hailed him, and said they’d give him a dollar if he’d help ’em, and they hitched the two yoke, his and their’n, to Joseph’s house. There wa’n’t any foundation to speak of, the sills set right on the ground, and he’d banked it up with a few old boards and some pine spills and sand and stuff, just to keep the cold out. There wa’n’t but a little snow, and the roads was smooth and icy, and they slipped it along as if it had been a hand-sled, and got it down the road a half a mile or so to the fork of the roads, and left it settin’ there right on the heater-piece. Jacobs told afterward that he kind of disliked to do it, but he thought as long as their minds were set, he might as well have the dollar as anybody. He said when the house give a slew on a sideling piece in the road, he heard some of the crockery-ware smash down, and a branch of an oak they passed by caught hold of the stove-pipe that come out through one of the walls, and give that a wrench, but he guessed there wa’n’t no great damage. Joseph may have given ’em some provocation before he went away in the morning,–I don’t know but he did, and I don’t know as he did,–but at any rate when he was coming home late in the afternoon he caught sight of his house (some of our folks was right behind, and they saw him), and he stood right up in the sleigh and shook his fist, he was so mad; but afterwards he bu’st out laughin’. It did look kind of curi’s; it wa’n’t bigger than a front entry, and it set up so pert right there on the heater-piece, as if he was calc’latin’ to farm it. The folks said Susan Ellen covered up her face in her shawl and began to cry. I s’pose the pore thing was discouraged. Joseph was awful mad,–he was kind of laughing and cryin’ together. Our folks stopped and asked him if there was anything they could do, and he said no; but Susan Ellen went in to view how things were, and they made up a fire, and then Joe took the horse home, and I guess they had it hot and heavy. Nobody supposed they’d ever make up ‘less there was a funeral in the family to bring ’em together, the fight had gone so far,–but ‘long in the winter old Mr. Ashby, the boys’ father, was taken down with a spell o’ sickness, and there wa’n’t anybody they could get to come and look after the house. The doctor hunted, and they all hunted, but there didn’t seem to be anybody–‘twa’n’t so thick settled as now, and there was no spare help–so John had to eat humble pie, and go and ask Susan Ellen if she wouldn’t come back and let by-gones be by-gones. She was as good-natured a creatur’ as ever stepped, and did the best she knew, and she spoke up as pleasant as could be, and said she’d go right off that afternoon and help ’em through.