"I ain't doubtin' it. He's John Ogilvie's friend, and that's enough to satisfy me that he's worth a good deal."
They sat in silence for a while; then Mother Cary said, "Darlin', I'm a-goin' to tell you a little story. I ain't takin' it on me to advise you; but I jest want to tell you how, though you wouldn't guess it, maybe, I was once in the same kind of a shadder you be in now."
"Do tell me," Eleanor said.
"Well, when I was a little girl, lamb, I fell an' hurt my back, an' when I got better, two or three years afterward, I couldn't do nothin' but scrabble aroun', not even as good as I can now. An' I growed all crooked. It didn't make much difference for a while, I was that glad to be movin' at all. But as I growed up an' the other girls began to go places, an' I couldn't an' wasn't asked to, it did seem to me I jest couldn't live at all. There wasn't anythin' to look for'ard to. Then my father died, an' I went into the tin shop.
"It wasn't nice work, an' the big machines like to scared me to death at first, 'n I got cut, 'n once one o' the girls near me got some of her fingers cut off. In winter I had to go before light in the mornin' an' stay workin' till long after dark. Then I had sech a cough, an' one spring I had to quit work. The doctor, he asked me if I hadn't any kin in the country, an' I not knowin' what he was aimin' at told him I didn't know o' none 'xcept Ma's own aunt 't I'd never seen nor wrote to.
"Unbeknownst to me the doctor he wrote up here an' found out 't Aunt Marthy was a-keepin' house for her husband's nephew, an' she wrote back 't I was to come up an' spend the summer in the mountains. I cried at first, for I hadn't ever seen the country an' I didn't know Aunt Marthy, an' I was jest afeared to come. But the doctor he put me on the train, an' when I got to the station over there it was most dark—'bout as dark as it is now, I guess. There was a man on the platform, 'n I thought he was the biggest man I'd ever seen. When he come up to me he said, 'Why, you are a little mite! Guess they haven't been feedin' you much where you come from.' He had a big quilt in the wagon, an' he jest wrapped me all up in it an' lifted me in like I was a baby. I was that tired an' scared, an' I hadn't ever been taken keer of before, an' I jest up an' cried. He didn't ask me what was the matter, but he jest laughed at me an' made fun o' me, an' said if I acted like a baby he'd treat me like one, 'n he patted my hand, 'n tucked me all up, 'n talked to me all the way home. When Aunt Marthy met us at the door an' he carried me in the house in his arms, he said to her, 'Well, now, Aunt Marthy,' he said, 'we've jest got a baby to keer for, an' I'm a-goin' to help you do it.' An', honey, there hasn't been a day sence then that he hasn't taken keer o' me.
"There never was a summer like that one; seems like I never had been alive before. I never knew before how spring come, but I found out that year, Jim showin' me the first bluebirds an' bringin' in flowers. I jest thought he was next to God A'mighty, honey, an' I never once give a thought to me bein' a woman an' he bein' a man. I hadn't never had none o' the good times girls have, an' I guess I had come to forget I was a girl. By the time end o' summer come, Jim had gotten in the way o' carryin' me out with him everywheres, out to the barn, out to the wood-lot, out to the fields where he was a-workin'. I had grown strong enough to get aroun' like I do now, but Jim jest carried me 'roun' like he'd done that first night, an' Aunt Marthy 'n he wouldn't let me do a mite o' work.
"Then, when I'd got real well, I said somethin' one night about goin' back to the factory. We was at supper, an' Jim he jest put down his knife an' looked at me a minute. Aunt Marthy reached over an' put her hand over his, an' then he got up an' went out. I was that scared, not knowin' what I'd done, an' Aunt Marthy told me I'd better go out an' find him.
"So I up an' followed him, an' he was a-standin' outside, lookin' so big against that yaller sky, an' straight an' tall with his arms folded on his chest, a-frownin', with his lips drawn in like he does when somethin's upset him right smart.
"I touched him on the arm an' said, 'Jim!' an' with that he turned him right aroun' quick.