There was much pickling, preserving, and canning done in Aunt Eppie's kitchen, for she hated to see anything go to waste. The savory smell of catsup and chili sauce in the making and of vinegar cooking with spices to pickle the pears and peaches streamed out of the door and whetted the appetite of passers-by. It was impossible for Aunt Eppie's family to consume all these bottled delicacies during the winter. Hence her cellar was crowded with the accumulation of many years. Still she insisted on making more each year. When the plenitude of peaches or grapes or cucumbers was so great that it was a human impossibility to can them all, she gave of her surplus to the tenants, grudgingly, yet with a certain Lady Bountiful pleasure in bestowing favors, and always with many admonitions as to the sin of improvidence.
"It's a sin for sech things to go to waste," she would say. "I'm sure I've give away twenty bushel this year if I've give one. An' all the tenants could have 'em jes as plentiful as us if they'd only plant 'em an' tend 'em. I do think it's a shame for folks to live like hawgs from hand to mouth an' never plant a tree ner a bush ner hardly a tater to put in their mouths. Jes look at all these tenant houses! Not a fruit tree ner a berry bush ner hardly as much as a row o' beets an' cabbages! The shiftlessness of some folks is sech that it's a wonder the Lord A'mighty don't send a plague on 'em."
As the weeks went by Jerry began to follow Judith with his eyes and to think about her when she was not in sight. She seemed to have become all at once a much more interesting person than the little black-haired tomboy that he had played and quarreled with ever since he could remember. One October evening when he came up from work and Judith was in the barnyard milking, he lingered about after putting up the horses, pretending to tinker with the harness. It was past the time to go home and he was hungry as a bear; but something held him. Judith got up from the red and white cow and went to the Jersey, the milking stool in one hand, the bucket in the other. Jerry followed her with his eyes. She had on an old blue cotton dress with a long tear in one sleeve and her arms and neck were bare. Her arms and neck looked very beautiful to Jerry.
When she had finished milking the Jersey she got up, kicked the milking stool over toward the fence where the cows would not step on it, and turning to go to the house saw Jerry still pretending to work with the harness.
"Well, Jerry Blackford, hain't you got started fer home yet! Haow long d'ye think yer mammy'll keep yer supper hot fer ye?"
"Till I git there," answered Jerry, coming up beside her.
The horses, as soon as the harness fell from them, had gone at once to the horsepond and taken a long, satisfying drink, then trotted back to the barn to munch the good alfalfa hay that Jerry had pitched down for them. It had been a warm, lazy day. The sun had just set and the evening was still, blue and luminous. Three two-year-old colts that had been brought up for the night, feeling the stimulation of the cool air, began to frolic about the barnyard. They began by rolling in the loose straw and chaff, turning over and over on their backs and waving their hoofs foolishly in the air. Then one colt scrambled to his feet and raced to the gate, the others after him. Back they came from the road gate to the other gate leading into the field, then round and round the barnyard snorting and neighing, their heads and tails high, their manes flowing, their hoofs pounding rhythmically, their beautiful, strong, sleek bodies taut with the joy of the gallop. The work team, having eaten a good supper, trotted out from the barn and joined in the fun with as much zest as the colts.
In the middle of the barnyard stood Charlie, Uncle Ezra's old white mule. He was too old to do much work and was usually left out at pasture. To-night Uncle Ezra had brought him up because he was going to use him in the morning to help haul in corn fodder. Being old and white, he always looked rough and dirty; and he had an ugly bare spot on one shoulder where the harness had rubbed off the hair. His under lip had grown loose and flabby and sagged down, giving his face a sullen look. Isolated by his age and his kind, he stood perfectly motionless, his knees bent like those of an old man, his head low, his haunches slack, his whole body sagging, and took not the least notice of the horses galloping about him. In joyous madcap career they raced in front of him, behind him, all around him; but he neither stirred nor raised his head.
"That's haow folks is when they git old," said Jerry, looking meditatively at the ancient beast.
"Yaas, an' ain't he for all the world like Uncle Ezry? Seems to me them two has growed to look alike, they bin so long together."