“Abigail, teach not to children such play on words,” chided Mary Jane.
Abigail frowned and said, “You were not always so proper in your speech, Mary Jane, before John Lewis came a-courting.”
Mary Jane, flushed and flustered, knocked her cap awry, and accidentally wiped a floury hand across her cheek.
“Do you suppose that I shall be thus improved when someone comes a-courting me?” Abigail went on. “What do you think John Lewis may have made you? He has had time enough for many a turn of the hand. It is full three months since the whaler put out from Gloucester. Do you think that even a slow-witted fellow like your John may have speed in his fingers? Perchance he whittles faster than he talks?”
“Abigail,” Mary Jane interrupted, “the butter must have come. Run out to the well for fresh water. I will gather the butter while you are gone. Curb your saucy tongue, sister. Mistress Dodd is coming up the road with her pot of beans, and I would not have her hear your foolish gossip.”
“John wants the flint-lock, Mary Jane. Pass it down to me quickly. Oh hurry, kindly,” Abigail called as she tumbled in at the doorway. The little boys followed close at her heels. “The dog has dug out a woodchuck in the stone wall, near the flax patch, and John thinks he can pot him. Do hasten, Mary Jane! Your fingers were not always thumbs.”
The gun was loaded, for when it was wanted it was wanted quickly, and loading was no quick matter. Throwing it over her shoulder as John would have done, Abigail ran from the house.
Dorothy could not bear to have killed even a woodchuck who ate the flax plants. Mary Jane knew how the child loved all dumb creatures, and she sent her out into the south door-yard, patchwork in hand. Dorothy sat down on the door-step and sewed. She was setting patchwork blocks for Mary Jane’s new quilt. It was a “Job’s Trouble” pattern and there were in it many hexagonal blocks of real India chintz, and French calicoes that Jenny Lewis had given Mary Jane. Dorothy sewed over and over with painstakingly small stitches. But the spring day enticed her, and she stole away from her stint. She poked with a stick among the roots and dried leaves in the garden border, and thought eagerly of the colors and sweet odors soon to awaken there: hollyhocks and purple stocks, candytuft and pinks, Sweet William, by the door-step, and love-lies-a-bleeding, Queen Margarets, larkspur, tiger lilies and bouncing-bet, and sunflowers to be planted here and there with corn. Dorothy played only a few minutes, for conscience urged her to pick up the unfinished square of patchwork, and she soon went back into the house. Mary Jane bade her show Mistress Dodd into their mother’s room, for her own arms were deep in the butter-bowl.
