H. Don’t go to puttin’ on airs, now. D’ye see them chimblys over there? (pointing R.).
A. Yes, aw do.
H. Well, then, make a bee-line for ’em. Them’s the chimblys to Farmer Leland’s house. (Exit A., R. H., solus.) If he’d been a civil feller, I’d ’a’ shown him the path. Now he’ll have to climb four rickety stone walls, and I dunno as how he can do it safely with them tight breeches on. But I must go to work. Tempus fuggit, as the schoolmaster says.
(Exit, L., with rake on his shoulder. Curtain falls.)
Scene II.—Mrs. Leland’s sitting-room. Caleb, sitting, R. C., peeling apples. Carrie, L. C., dusting furniture. Enter Aunt Hannah, R.
Aunt Hannah (in a complaining tone). Well, I declare, haint you begun your baking yet, Car’line? It’s nigh onto noon, and you won’t get dinner ready in season.
Car. Well, you know I can’t make my pies till the apples are ready. You’ll have to talk to Caleb. I’ve been trying to hurry him.
A. H. (to Cal., severely). I should be ashamed, if I was a boy, to be so long peeling a few apples.
Cal. Oh, what’s the use in hurrying? There’s plenty of time.
A. H. (testily). In my young days things didn’t go on so. Good house-keepers got their bakin’ done by eight o’clock in the morning. They didn’t spend all day in the kitchen, as they do now.