“He is already a Milton; but I don't believe he will ever be anything but a poet in name,” said Polly, working away while she talked.
“Did n't your mother ever let you wear the nice things that came?” asked Maud.
“No, she thought it was n't the thing for a poor minister's girls to go flourishing about in second-hand finery, so she did what I'm doing now, put away what would be useful and proper for us by and by, and let us play with the shabby, silk bonnets and dirty, flounced gowns. Such fun as we used to have up in our big garret! I remember one day we'd been playing have a ball, and were all rigged up, even the boys. Some new neighbors came to call, and expressed a wish to see us, having been told that we were pattern children. Mother called us, but we had paraded out into the garden, after our ball, and were having a concert, as we sat about on the cabbages for green satin seats, so we did n't hear the call, and just as the company was going, a great noise arrested them on the doorstep, and round the corner of the house rattled Ned in full costume, wheeling Kitty in a barrow, while Jimmy, Will, and I ran screaming after, looking like Bedlamites; for we were playing that Lady Fitz Perkins had fainted, and was being borne home senseless in a cab. I thought mother would kill herself with laughing; and you can imagine what a fine impression the strangers received of the model children.”
Maud was so tickled with this youthful prank that she unguardedly sat down to laugh on the edge of an open trunk, immediately doubled up, fell in, and was with difficulty extricated.
“People in the country have great deal nicer times than we do. I never rode in a wheelbarrow, I never sat on cabbages, and I don't think it's fair,” she said with an injured expression. “You need n't save any old silk gowns for me; I don't mean to be a fine lady when I grow up, I'm going to be a farmer's wife, and make butter and cheese, and have ten children, and raise pigs,” she added in one enthusiastic burst.
“I do believe she will if she can find a farmer anywhere,” said Fanny.
“Oh, I'm going to have Will; I asked him and he said, 'All right.' He's going to preach Sundays, and work on the farm the rest of the time. Well, he is, so you need n't laugh, for we've made all our plans,” said Maud with comical dignity as she tried the effect of an old white bonnet, wondering if farmers' wives could wear ostrich feathers when they went to meeting.
“Blessed innocence! Don't you wish you were a child, and dared tell what you want?” murmured Fanny.
“I wish I had seen Will's face when Maud proposed,” answered Polly, with a nod which answered her friend's speech better than her words.
“Any news of anybody?” whispered Fan, affecting to examine a sleeve with care.