“MIS' ELDERKIN'S PITCHER.”
E see, boys,” said Sam Lawson, as we were gathering young wintergreen on a sunny hillside in June,—“ye see, folks don't allers know what their marcies is when they sees 'em. Folks is kind o' blinded; and, when a providence comes along, they don't seem to know how to take it, and they growl and grumble about what turns out the best things that ever happened to 'em in their lives. It's like Mis' Elderkin's pitcher.”
“What about Mis' Elderkin's pitcher?” said both of us in one breath.
“Didn't I never tell ye, now?” said Sam: “why, I wanter know?”
No, we were sure he never had told us; and Sam as usual, began clearing the ground by a thorough introduction, with statistical expositions.
“Wal, ye see, Mis' Elderkin she lives now over to Sherburne in about the handsomest house in Sherburne,—a high white house, with green blinds and white pillars in front,—and she rides out in her own kerridge; and Mr. Elderkin, he's a deakin in the church, and a colonel in the malitia, and a s'lectman, and pretty much atop every thing there is goin' in Sherburne, and it all come of that 'are pitcher.”
“What pitcher?” we shouted in chorus.