This bit of fencing amused Addison and Theodora very much; and I began to surmise that good-humored as grandmother habitually was, she yet had a will of her own and was determined to regulate her domain indoors in the way she deemed suitable.
"Well, we will boil the stuff out of doors this year," replied the Old Squire. "It is not the kind of perfumery women-folks like to smell," he added, teasingly.
"Now don't try to be funny about it," rejoined Gram severely. "I never ran you much in debt for perfumery, as you know. But I don't think it is quite fair for a man to bring such a nauseous mess as that into the kitchen to stew, then run off and leave it for the women-folks to stand over and stir, and finally leave the dirty kettle for them to scrub out the next day!"
"Hold on, Ruth! Hold on. You've let out a great deal more than I wanted you to, now!" cried the Old Squire. "I remember now, I did forget that kettle last year. 'Twas too bad. I don't blame you, Ruth Ann, I don't blame you in the least for grumbling about it."
With that Gram looked up and laughed, but still gave her head a slight toss.
I watched for a day or two a little anxiously, to see if she really cherished any resentment, but soon discovered that there was no real ill-feeling; it was only Gram's way of holding her ground and standing for her house rights.
As we went out to get shovels and the two baskets, I ventured to ask Addison, confidentially, whether Gram were really severe. "No!" said he. "She's all right. She touches the Old Squire up a little once in awhile, when he needs it; she always gets him foul, too. I suppose he doesn't try very hard to hold up his end, but she always floors him when they get to sparring. Then he will laugh and say something to patch things up again. O they never really quarrel. Gramp once said to me, as we were going out into the field together, after Gram had been touching him up, 'Addison,' said he, 'your grandmother was a Pepperill. They were nice folks; but they had spicy tempers, some of them. Old Sir William Pepperill, that led our people down to Louisburg, was her great-great-uncle. They were good old New England stock, but none of them would ever bear a bit of crowding; and I always take that into account.'"
Halstead came out and then went to search for a tool which they termed a "nigger hoe," a hoe with a narrow blade, such as, in the old plantation days of the South, the negroes are said to have used for turning over the turf of new fields.
Theodora came to the door of the wagon-house. "Going with us after poke?" Addison called out to her.
"I wish we could," she replied; "but we have lots to do in the house. Gram says that, as we were out all the forenoon, we must stay indoors the rest of the day."