“My bonny laddie is sleeping quietly,” said Blythe’s mother, as she came up to the gallery where the girls were sitting; “and as he does not need me I thought I would join you for a while,” she added. “I left Louisa in charge and she has promised to let me know when he wakens. What a dear, good, cheerful creature she is, and that big rough husband of hers is my delight. Isn’t it strange, girls, upon what a different plane one is willing to place oneself down here? Now at home, any one who murdered the king’s English and who lived as most of our neighbors do, would be considered impossible.”
“Alison and I have often spoken of that,” said Christine. “Look at dear old Hannah Maria Haley for example.”
“That is another peculiarity; every one here is old so and so. If it is a boy of eighteen who happens to be married, or a young woman of twenty-five who isn’t married, they are spoken of as old. Now Hannah Maria cannot be over thirty, yet everybody calls her ‘Old’ Hannah Maria.”
“I suppose it is because she is so fat and motherly,” suggested Alison. “She certainly is the best old soul.”
“There you go again,” laughed Mrs. Van Dorn. “It is a pity she has no children of her own to mother.”
“But what would the neighborhood do without her?” said Christine. “She is the dependence of everybody in trouble.”
“Yes, and after all, what a higgledy-piggledy house hers would be in which to rear children; chickens, hounds, cats, and sometimes even pigs, running in and out and no care at all for neatness and order.”
“It is so in lots of places,” Alison remarked.
“So it is. I thought when we first came down here that the household arrangements in the few places where we stopped must be the exception, but they are certainly the rule. I have seen as many as three beds in the main room where everything went on, cooking, sleeping and eating. It seemed perfectly dreadful to me then, but I found it was a matter of pride to set up as many beds as possible, the more beds, the more generous the accommodations, and I actually came to it myself when I found that I was expected to entertain any casual wayfarer who happened to want lodging.”
“I shall never forget what a delightful surprise your house was to us,” said Alison. “After staying at Hannah Maria’s it seemed a palace. I don’t see why so many want to live in such a lop-lolly way. John told us a great deal about it before we came and we stipulated for several things. We were determined to have our own milch cows, for one thing, so we could have good butter.”