"Why, Mr. Droop," she exclaimed, "whatever's the use o' you goin' back to 1876! Why don't ye jest set up as the inventor o' this machine? I'm sure thet ought to make yer everlastin' fortune!"
"Oh, I thought o' that," he said. "But it's one thing to know how to work a thing an' it's a sight different to know how it's made an' all that. The future man tried to explain all the new scientific principles that was mixed into it—fer makin' power an' all—but I couldn't understand that part at all."
"An' besides," exclaimed Phœbe, "it's a heap more fun to be the only ones can use the thing, I think."
"Yes—seems like fun's all we're thinkin' of," said Rebecca, rising and moving toward the kitchen. "We're jest settin' round doin' nothin'. I'll finish with the breakfast things if you'll put to rights and dust, Phœbe. We can't make beds till night with the windows tight shut."
These suggestions were followed by the two women, while Droop, picking up the newspaper which Rebecca had brought, sat down to read.
After a long term of quiet reading, his attention was distracted by Rebecca's voice.
"I declare to goodness, Phœbe!" she was saying. "Seems's if every chance you get, you go to readin' those old letters."
"Well, the's one or two that's spelled so funny and written so badly that I haven't been able yet to read them," Phœbe replied.
Droop looked over his paper. Phœbe and her sister were seated near one of the windows on the opposite side.
"P'raps I could help ye, Cousin Phœbe," he said. "I've got mighty strong eyesight."