Nathaniel, or Nat, as he preferred to be called, was a shrewd-looking, lank young man, younger than his length of limb and huge fists would indicate. He spoke in a high key with a slow, soft drawl and was not backward in asking questions, though he vouchsafed replies to those Miss Helen put to him, and by reason of which she learned that he was Miss Phebe’s sole assistant except when the apples were to be gathered or some other crop should be brought in.
“Me and her runs the place,” said Nat. “She works as good as a man when it comes to some things. No, marm, she ain’t no hired girl. I fetch in the milk; she tends to it. I look after the stawk, caow, and three hawses; she tends to the fowls. We got a sight of apples last fall, great crawp. I tended to gittin’ of ’em in, she tended to shippin’ of ’em. Taters same way. Yes, marm, we got a pretty good garden, not so smart-looking as old Adam Souleses maybe, but I ain’t ashamed of it. First corn I put in, didn’t the crows get every namable bit? Wal, I rigged up a scarecrow and got out my shotgun, so I guess the second crawp’ll stay where it was put. Your folks raise a sight of corn down your way, don’t ye? Use it, too, I hear. I ain’t a mite stuck on corn bread myself. She makes good sody biscuits, though the old lady does complain she makes ’em too precious big. I like ’em that way. Don’t have to say ‘Pass them biscuits,’ so often, or if they’re on the other side of the table you don’t have to rise every few minutes to fork one over. It’s a right sightly place, ain’t it?” He pointed with his whip to a low white house whose barn was in such close proximity as to be literally under the same roof. An extensive apple orchard, whose blossoming was just over, stretched for some distance on one side. Two poplars stood in front of the house and a weeping willow upon the modest lawn around which the roadway extended. “That’s our tater patch.” Nat indicated a field which they were passing. “We grow ’em big up here.”
“They’re not the only things you grow big,” Miss Helen could not forbear saying with a glance at the display of ankle below the blue jeans.
Nat burst into a loud guffaw. “That’s right I swan it don’t seem as if I’d ever stop growing, and these here pants hitches up higher every time they come out of wahsh. Look at them sleeves, too.” He stretched out a mighty arm which showed several inches of red wrist below the band. “I won’t come of age for three years nearly, and look at me, bigger’n git out. My grandfather was just that way, growed and growed till they had to pile bricks on his head to keep him down so he could stand up in the settin’-room.” He gave a wink over his shoulder at Jack, who was taking this all in.
“What became of your grandfather?” asked Jack, standing up and hanging on the seat where her aunt sat. “Did he keep on growing?”
“No, he stopped short of six foot six, and when he died there wa’n’t no coffin big enough for him. Had to send to Portland and have one made special. They didn’t surmise he’d need it so soon or they might have had it ready beforehand so’s not to put the funeral off like they had to.”
“Did he die suddenly?” asked Jack, interested in this lugubrious subject.
“Yes, marm. Died awful suddent. Got up as well as you or me, eat his breakfast, tended to his hawse, white hawse he had, come in the house, fetched a few hacks and went.”
Jack sidled over toward her aunt and whispered, “What does he mean by hacks? Did he keep a livery stable?”
Miss Helen could scarcely keep her face sufficiently grave to whisper back: “No, dear, he means he coughed once or twice.”