“Ay. How is Mercy, and when did your mother hear from her last?”
Half an hour soon ran away, and so did the great stone pitcher of cider which the miller’s wife insisted upon producing, and the young men took leave, promising to be ready at an early hour for the evening’s frolic.
CHAPTER XXXI.
JENNEY’S MILL BY MOONLIGHT.
“For ’tis the twenty-first of June,
The merriest day in all the year,”
sang Jack Jenney, the younger brother of the mill and the miller, as to amuse his sister’s visitors he threw the great wheel into gear and set the machinery in motion. “Put in a grist, you young idiot, and don’t grind off the face of the stones,” growled Samuel, standing by, and not so hospitable as to forget business.
“Well, here’s Squire Pabodie’s Indian waiting—English, too, but that wants daylight. Here, bear a hand, Sam, with the Indian.” And the two young men poured the two bushels of gold-colored maize into the hopper, while little Hope Howland, bending over to see it drawn down the vortex of the cruel stones, cried,—