“I’d never have got out of that pool if it hadn’t been for Lucas,” she repeated; “unless I could have drunk up the water and walked ashore that way! And o-o-oh! wasn’t it cold!”
“Hope you’re not going to feel the effects of it later,” said her sister, still anxious.
“I’m all right,” assured the confident ’Phemie.
“I dunno as it’ll be fit for you gals to stay in the old house to-night,” urged Mrs. Pritchett. “You’ll hafter have some wood cut.”
“I’ll do that when I take their stuff up to Hillcrest,” said Lucas, eagerly, but flushing again as though stricken with a sudden fever.
“There are no stoves in the house, I suppose?” Lyddy asked, wistfully.
“Bless ye! Dr. Polly wouldn’t never have a stove in his house, saving a cook-stove in the kitchen, an’ of course, that’s ate up with rust afore this,” exclaimed the farmer’s wife. “He said open fireplaces assured every room its proper ventilation. He didn’t believe in these new-fangled ways of shuttin’ up chimbleys. My! but he was powerful sot on fresh air an’ sunshine.
“Onct,” pursued Mrs. Pritchett, “he was called to see Mis’ Fibbetts–she that was a widder and lived on ’tother side of the ridge, on the road to Adams. She had a mis’ry of some kind, and was abed with all the winders of her room tight closed.
“‘Open them winders,’ says Dr. Polly to the neighbor what was a-nussin’ of Mis’ Fibbetts.
“Next time he come the winders was down again. Dr. Polly warn’t no gentle man, an’ he swore hard, he did. He flung up the winders himself, an’ stamped out o’ the room.