"Yes, and such a good one! He is a great help to me."
"Waal, he orter be; some boys o' twelve airns their own livin', don't ye know?"
"Yes; and Morton can do something when it comes warmer, but he needs more schooling yet, though, indeed, he often does odd jobs on a Saturday that bring in a little. He's an industrious boy, and I want him to have a good education."
"Waal, as to thet, some folks thinks too much o' book-larnin', I say! Your fayther didn't hev much o' it to boast on, an' see what a good pervider he was. Books is well enough, but sense is better, an' forehandedness is best o' all."
As she talked, her needles clicked sharply amid the clouded blue yarn of her half-formed sock, and her eyes, almost as sharp, kept roving about, while the uneasy nose seemed determined to root out anything that might escape them. Just then Molly came in breezily, her curls flying, and her cheeks a bright pink, and, seeing the visitor, managed, all in one instant, to give Sara a lightning glimpse of a most disgusted little visage, even while she turned with a dimpling smile to say,—
"Why, Mrs. Updyke, is it you? Then that must be why Zeba Osterhaus and Betty Pulcher were crossing the street in front of your house; I guess they couldn't get in."
"Crossin' the street—where? Jest below?" beginning to wind up her yarn hurriedly. "Hed they railly been to my haouse?"
"Well, I'm not sure, but I think so; I didn't ask 'em where they'd been."
"And be they to thet little stuck-up Mis' Gurney's naow?"
"They went in there—yes."