"I don't want any boy but Norman."
"And up at Hubbard's they have a mortgage on him. They're trying to teach him how many black beans make five."
Ruth knitted her pretty forehead, then said disdainfully, "As if he didn't know!"
"Well, then, if a pig can eat a bushel of corn in twenty-four hours, how much fat will it put on his bones? This is a matter of great importance to Mr. Gurdon Hubbard. I think he has offered a prize for its solution," and he winked at me.
"A pig couldn't eat it," she said; "he would be a hog."
We both laughed at that.
"Now, young fellow, if you get lost in the snow, don't blame us. We've given you fair warning. 'Tain't likely the house will blow over, seeing as it stood the gale of last night. And, reely, I don't believe it will rain to-night and loosen the underpinning, and there's enough to eat."
In spite of this friendliness I had to tear myself away. But I did get stuck in more than one pile of snow and twice had to fight my way through showers of snowballs.
We never saw clear ground again until March. There was not much business doing and the men gathered in the warm taverns to play cards and swap stories and demolish political candidates, and praise or blame Old Hickory, as the President was termed who had fought his country's battles and served her for nearly eight years in the highest civil capacity. That the country would go to ruin without him was surely predicted; that he had brought her to the verge of ruin the other side claimed.
Every few days I was at the Gaynors', but the Little Girl had given up school. She knit stockings, she sewed and cooked, and we both concluded "The Lady of the Lake" was the loveliest of all lovely stories.