'Sh! you mustn't laugh!" she added, as the three young people broke into peals of laughter. "There! I'd ought not to have told. He didn't mean nothing improper, only to express resignation to the will o' Providence. Well, there! the tongue's an onruly member. And so you young ladies thought you'd like to see Bixby, did ye?" she added, for the third or fourth time. "Well, I'm sure! Bixby'd oughter be proud. 'T is a sightly place, I've always thought. You must go over t' the cemetery to-morrow, and see what there is to see."
"Yes, we did want to see Bixby," answered straightforward Hildegarde; "but we came still more to see you, Mrs. Brett. Indeed, we have a very important message for you."
And beginning at the beginning, Hildegarde unfolded the great scheme. Mrs. Brett listened, wide-eyed, following the recital with appreciative motions of lips and hands. When it was over, she seemed for once at a loss for words.
"I—well, there!" she said; and she crumpled up her apron, and then smoothed it out again. "I—why, I don't know what to say. Well! I'm completely, as you may say, struck of a heap. I don't know what Marthy's thinking of, I'm sure. It isn't me you want, surely. You want a woman with faculty!"
"Of course we do!" cried both girls, laughing. "That is why we have come to you."
"Sho!" said Mrs. Brett, crumpling her apron again, and trying not to look pleased. "Why, young ladies, I couldn't do it, no way in the world. There's my chickens, you see, and my cow, let alone the house; not but what Joel (that's my nephew) would be glad enough to take keer of 'em. And goin' so fur away, as you may say—though 't would be pleasant to be nigh Marthy—we was always friends, Marthy and me, since we was girls—and preserves to make, and fall cleanin' comin' on, and help so skurce as 'tis—why, I don't know what Marthy's thinkin' of, really I don't. Children, too! why, I do love children, and I shouldn't never think I had things comfortable enough for 'em; not but that's a lovely place, pretty as ever I see. I helped Marthy clean it one spring, and such a fancy as I took to that kitchen,—why, there! and the little room over it; I remember of saying to Marthy, says I, a woman might live happy in those two rooms, let alone the back yard, with all that nice fine gravel for the chickens, I says. But there! I couldn't do it, Miss Grahame, no way in the world. Why, I ain't got more'n half-a-dozen aprons to my back; so now you see!"
This last seemed such a very funny reason to give, that the three young people could not help laughing heartily.
"Martha has dozens and dozens of aprons, Mrs. Brett," said Hildegarde. "She has a whole bureau full of them, because she is afraid her eyes may give out some day, and then she will not be able to make any more. And now, just think a moment!" She laid her hand on the good woman's arm, and continued in her most persuasive tones: "Think of living in that pleasant house, with the pretty room for your own, and the sunny kitchen, and the laundry, all under your own management."
"Set tubs!" said Mrs. Brett, in a pathetic parenthesis. "If there's one thing I've allers hankered after, more 'n another, it's a set tub!"
"And the dear little children playing about in the garden, and coming to you with flowers, and looking to you as almost a second mother—"