The dew sparkled on leaf and bush, the flowers were fragrant, the cool breeze fanned her cheek, and the bird chorus rose higher and higher. How could one be sad long on such a beautiful, God-made morning?
Impossible! Ruth plucked a spray of a flowering shrub for both graves, and laid them on the mounds tenderly, with a little prayer. Here slept the dead peacefully, and God had raised her up many, many friends!
The early chimneys were smoking in the suburbs of the town. A screen-door slammed now and then. One man whom she knew slightly, but who did not remember her, was currying his horse in an alley by his stable. Mrs. Barnsworth, notably the smartest housewife in Darrowtown, was starting already with her basket for market—and woe be to the grocer or marketman if the shops were not open when she arrived!
Stray cats ran along the back fences. A dog ran out of a yard to bark at Ruth, but then thought better of it and came to be patted instead.
And then, suddenly, she came in sight of the back garden of Miss True Pettis!
It was with that kind-hearted but peculiar spinster lady that Ruth had lived previous to being sent to the Red Mill. Miss Pettis was the neighborhood seamstress and, as she often had told Ruth, she worked hard “with both tongue and needle” for every dollar she earned.
For Miss True Pettis had something more than dressmaking to do when she went out “by the day” to cut and fit and run the sewing machine. Darrowtown folk expected that the seamstress should have all the latest gossip at her tongue’s end when she came to sew!
Now, Miss True Pettis often laid down the law. “There’s two kinds of gossip. One the Bible calls the seventh abomination, an’ I guess that’s right. But for shut-in folks like most housekeepers in Darrowtown, a dish of harmless gossip is more inspiritin’ than a bowl of boneset tea!
“Lemme have somethin’ new to tell folks about folks—that’s all. But it must be somethin’ kind,” Miss Pettis declared. “No backbitin’, or church scandal, or neighborhood rows. If Si Lumpkin’s cat has scratched Amoskeag Lanfell’s dog, let the cat and the dog fight it out, I say; no need for Si and Amoskeag, who have been friends and neighbors for years an’ years, gettin’ into a ruction over it.
“I never take sides in any controversy—no, ma’am! If ye can’t say a good word for a neighbor, don’t say nothin’ to me. That’s what I tell ’em. But if ye know anythin’ good about ’em, or they’ve had any streak o’ good luck, or the like, tell me. For the folks in this town—‘specially the wimmen folks that don’t git out much—is just a-honin’ for news, and True Pettis, when she goes out by the day, has gotter have a full and plenty supply of it.”