"And the dear little window-panes are like an old-fashioned picture!"
"A right smart of 'em is cracked or burst entirely."
"O Jim! How very unromantic you are! But you cannot say but that the vines are beautiful!"
"I've heard they're fust-class for givin' folks the rheumatiz."
Dorothy's enthusiasm ebbed. Rheumatism was the one malady that sometimes affected mother Martha's health. But she was not to be dashed by forebodings, and pointing to the garden declared:
"You cannot say a thing against our garden, anyway. Think of all that room for roses and posies and everything nice!"
"Garden? I call it a reg'lar weed-patch."
Dorothy heaved a sigh which seemed to come from her very shoes.
"You're—you're perfectly horrid, Jim Barlow. But I heard you say, once, while we were working on that truck-farm, that the thing you most longed for—after your education—was to own land. Look yonder, all that ground, inside those big stone walls, is ours, ours! Mr. Barlow. Behold and envy! Even on that untilled land flowers grow. See them?"
"Pshaw! Them's mullein. Ain't no surer sign o' poor soil than a passel o' mullein stalks. Stuns and mullein—Your pa's got a job ahead of him! Now I'm goin' on. I was told to give this basket to Mis' Chester and this note I've got in my jumper pocket to Mr. I'd ruther you'd take 'em, only I was told; and we've stood here foolin' so long, I've got to hurry like lightnin'. Take care that dog!"