“You don’t say!” ejaculated Mrs. Weston, lifting her hands, and letting them fall upon her lap, thereby showing the surprise which Mrs. Hodgkins thought this piece of news deserved.
“Well, you see, it was this way,” continued the bearer of this pleasant bit of gossip; “it commenced with Miss Dayton’s doin’ a few little things fer him. Nobody b’lieved fer a minute that he’d come to Mrs. Gray’s, to the entertainment; but Miss Dayton asked him in her pretty way, and he hadn’t the heart ter refuse ter come, ’n’ he had such a nice evenin’, and heard her sing that Scotch song, and all, ’n’ he says now he’s made a great mistake stayin’ off by himself so long. An’ he’s been to Parson Spooner and, ef you’ll believe it, hired a whole pew, sayin’ he could well afford to; en’ he says that as there’s only one in his family, any one that wants ter can sit in his pew, any time.
“He says he always went ter church, though he calls it ‘kirk,’ or something like that, when he was a young man and lived in Scotland; an’ he says, rain or shine, we’ll see him in his place every Sunday, after this. When somebody asked him what made him think of goin’ ter church again, he drew that great rough hand of his across his eyes, and jist said, ‘It’s all the doin’ of that lass,’ meanin’ Miss Dayton. And let me tell yer somethin’ queerer than that! Did ye notice old Nathan Lawton the other night?
“My! how his eyes twinkled when the children were singin’. Ye know he’s dreadful fond of children; but ye know, too, ef ye know anything, that he’s tighter ’n the bark of a tree. Well, Miss Dayton heard say what a bad room fer heatin’ that schoolroom was, and how the little buildin’ was kind er fer off fer most of the children.
“Wal’, after we’d seen all the pictures, or what yer call ’ems, and she’d sung her song so sweetly, old Nathan spoke ter her, an’ thanked her for the pleasant evenin’, sayin’ he’d do most anythin’ ter obleege her, in return, as ye might say, fer his enjoyment; and I had ter laugh softly ter myself when she put her little white hand on his arm and said she thought nothin’ would please her so much as ter think, when she went home, that the children here would start ter school in a comfortable, warm room, ’specially ef it could be one that was handy for them all; and she asked him, as one of the see-lect-men, ter manage it some way.
“He just took one look at the smilin’ face lookin’ up at him, and then and there offered the use of that front room of his’n, and promised ter keep it roastin’ warm all winter, from his own woodpile. His house is just about the handiest ter every one of any house in town, and I do say that was a han’some offer.
“Any other folks might have asked him ’til they got tired askin’; but he couldn’t refuse her, ’n’ I don’t wonder. She’s just done us a world of good this summer, ’n’ in such an easy, pretty way that we’ve just enjoyed it.
“And now I’ve come ter what fetched me here ter day. Mrs. Gray said ter me that Miss Dayton never went to an apple-bee; and I was thinkin’ she got up that picnic, and that splendid evenin’ with the music,”—“and tab things,” said Prue,—“an’ I’ve been thinkin’ it’s ’bout time we got up somethin’ fer her,” said good Mrs. Hodgkins, and she beamed upon Mrs. Weston and Randy as she waited for their approval.
“I think so too,” said Randy and her mother together; “but do you think that she would enjoy an apple-bee?”
“Well, we couldn’t get up anything fine,” said Mrs. Hodgkins; “but they do say that our apple-bees are ’bout the best that they have anywhere ’round here.”