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“Caleb set great store by his mother; that’s one good thing about him,” said Amanda.

“He did for certain,” agreed Mrs. Benson. “If that girl he was engaged to hadn’t ‘a’ spoken disrespectful to her in his hearin’ there’d ‘a’ been a wife an’ children up there now an’ the place would ‘a’ looked diff’rent.”

“Not so very diff’rent! He didn’t lose much in Eliza Johnson. I guess he knows that by now!” remarked Amanda serenely; “though I s’pose ‘t was quarrelin’ with her that set him runnin’ down hill, all the same.”

“I never thought he cared anything about Eliza. She was determined to have him, an’ he was too lazy to say no, but you see in the end she only got her labor for her pains. The Kimball boys never had any luck with their love affairs. When Caleb an’ his mother was left alone, she was terrible anxious for him to marry. She was allers findin’ girls for him, but part of ’em wouldn’t look at him, and he wouldn’t make up to any of ’em.”

“I was livin’ in Lewiston those years,” said Amanda.

“I remember you was. Well, when old Mrs. Kimball broke her arm, Charles, the youngest son, that was a stage-driver, determined he’d get somebody for Caleb, for his own wife wouldn’t lift her finger to help ’bout the house. He saw a girl up to Steep Falls that he kind o’ liked the looks of, an’ he offered her a ride down to his mother’s to spend the day, thinkin’ if the family liked her she might do for Caleb. However, her eyes was weak an’ she didn’t know how to milk, so they thought she’d better go home by train. That would ‘a’ been fair enough for both parties, but when Charles drove her to the station he charged her fifteen cents an’ it made an awful sight o’ talk. She had a hot temper, an’ she kind o’ resented it!”

“I dare say ‘t wa’n’t so,” commented Amanda; “but everybody’s dead that could deny it, except Caleb, and he wouldn’t take the trouble.”

“It’s one of the days when he’s real drove, ain’t it?” asked Susan sarcastically, as she looked across the field to the wood-pile where a gray-shirted figure sat motionless. “If ever a man needed a wife to patch the seat of his pants, it’s Caleb Kimball! I guess it’s the only part of his clothes he ever wears out. He wa’n’t like that before his mother died; the wheels seemed to stop in him then an’ there. He was queer an’ strange an’ shy, but I never used to think he’d develop into a reg’lar hermit. She’d turn in her grave, Mis’ Kimball would, to see him look as he does. I don’t s’pose he gets any proper nourishment. The smartest man in the world won’t take the trouble to make pie for himself, yet he’ll eat it ‘s long ‘s he can stan’ up! Caleb’s mother was a great pie-baker. I can see her now, shovelin’ ’em in an’ out o’ the oven Saturdays, with her three great black lanky boys standin’ roun’ waitin’ for ’em to cool off.–‘Only one, mother?’ Caleb used to say, kind o’ wheedlin’ly, while she laughed up at him leanin’ against the door-frame.–‘What’s one blueb’ry pie amongst me?'”

“He must ‘a’ had some fun in him once,” smiled Amanda.

“They say women-folks ain’t got no sense o’ humor,” remarked Mrs. Benson, with a twitch of her thread. “I notice the men that live without ’em don’t seem to have any! We may not amount to much, but we’re somethin’ to laugh at.”

“Why don’t you bake him a pie now an’ then, an’ send it up, Susan?” asked Amanda.

“Well, there, I don’t feel I hardly know him well enough, though William does. I dare say he wouldn’t like it, an’ he’d never think to return the plate, so far away.–Besides, there never is an extry pie in a house where there’s a man an’ three boys; which reminds me I’ve got to go home an’ make one for breakfast, with nothin’ to make it out of.”