"What's the matter with Mary, Mrs. Jardine?" asked old Katie, wonderingly.
"Her mother used to churn, she told me, and I suppose it brings it all back to her to see you churn," I said, with as straight a face as I could muster.
"Dear me!" said Katie, in high disgust. "I had a mother and she used to churn, but it doesn't turn me into salt water every time I hear the dasher going!"
Katie is a shrewd woman, so I said nothing in answer to that. Finally
Katie lifted her chin—a way she had—and added:
"I'm thinking it sits bad on her mind to see you in here with me, instead of with her!"
As I still said nothing, she apparently repented herself, for she said, a moment later:
"But Mary was mighty fond of her old father and mother. She keeps mementoes of them ahl over the place. She has now what she calls his Polean pitcher—"
"His what?"
"Shure I don't know! But she says it is. It's got a man on the outside, and you pours out of his three-cornered hat."
"Oh, yes," I said. "I remember now. What did you say she called it?"