He thought he had never seen her cheeks so red. They made him think of the partridge-berries under the snow. She began her tale, looking indifferently at him as she proceeded, as if to convince them both that there was nothing peculiar in it all.
"Aunt Hill's an awful trial to mother."
Jerry took up his axe in one hand, and began absently chopping off a circle of bark about the tree. Stella was near saying, "Don't you cut your foot!" but she closed her lips upon the friendly caution and continued:—
"There's nothin' she don't get her nose into, and it just wears mother out."
"She's a great talker, seems if I remembered," said Jerry absently, wishing Stella would keep her hands under the shawl and not get them frozen to death. He was about to add that most women did talk too much, but somehow that seemed an unfortunate implication from one as unpopular as he, and he caught himself up in time. Stella was dashing on now, in the course of her obnoxious task.
"If anything's queer, she just goes at mother hard as she can pelt and keeps at her till she finds it out. And mother hates it enough when she's well, but when she's sick it's just awful. And now she's flat on her back."
"Course," said Jerry, in a comprehending sympathy. "Want I should carry your aunt Hill off to the Junction?"
"Why, you can't! She wouldn't go. You couldn't pry her out with a crowbar. She's made up her mind to stay till a week from to-morrow, and till a week from to-morrow she'll stay."
Jerry looked gloomily into the distance. He was feeling his own limitations as a seer.
"Well," he said, venturing a remark likely to involve him in no way, "I s'pose she will."