The Last of the Peterkins / With Others of Their Kin

by Lucretia P. Hale

But Mr. Dyer replied that he had no cart and horse to take the potatoes to Spinville with, and no time either. He had agreed to mow the deacon's off-lot, and he was not going to disappoint the deacon, even if he should get a couple of dollars by it; and he wasn't going to let his potatoes rot, when all Spinville was in want of potatoes. So Mr. Dyer set to work, and printed in large letters on a sheet of paper these words: "All persons in want of potatoes, apply to J. Dyer, Cranberry Lane, Wednesday, the fifteenth, after seven o'clock, A.M. Gratis."

The last word was added after Mr. Dyer had pasted the notice against the town hall of Spinville; for so many people came up to bother him with questions as to how much he was going to ask for his potatoes, that he was obliged to add this by way of explanation, or he would never have got to the deacon's off-lot Tuesday morning.

Wednesday morning, Mrs. Dyer sat by the front window, with her darning. She had persuaded Mr. Dyer to wait till Wednesday; for as for having all the people tramping through the yard when the clean clothes were out, she couldn't think of it; and she might as well get through the ironing, then she could have an eye on them. And how provoked they'd all be to come down all that way to Cranberry Hollow, to find only a bin of potatoes to divide among them all.

The little shed was full of potatoes, Mr. Dyer answered. And he had no idea many people would come, just the poorer ones; and as long as he had any potatoes to spare, he was willing they should take them.

But, sure enough, as Mrs. Dyer said, what a procession came! Poor Mrs. Jones's little girl, with a bag; Tom Scraggs, with two baskets; the minister's son, with a wheelbarrow; and even rich Mr. Jones, the selectman, with a horse and cart. Boys and girls, and old women, and middle-sized men, and every kind of a vehicle, from a tin tipcart to Mrs. Stubbs's carry-all.

Well, let them come, thought Mrs. Dyer. It would just show Mr. Dyer she was right, and he didn't often find that out. She should be disturbed by them soon enough when they found out that there was not more than half a potato apiece, and like enough, not that. Pretty business of Mr. Dyer, to take to giving away, when he had not more than enough to put into his own mouth, to say nothing of Jedidiah's! So she went on darning and thinking. What was her surprise, all of a sudden, to hear only shouts of joy as the people returned round the corner of the house! Poor Mrs. Jones's little girl gave a scream of delight as she held up her bag full of potatoes; the minister's son had hard work to push along his full wheelbarrow; rich Mr. Jones was laughing from the top of his piled-up cart; Tom Scraggs was trying to get help in carrying his baskets. Such a laughing, such fun, was never heard in Spinville, which is a sober place. And they all nodded to Mrs. Dyer, and gave shouts for Mr. Dyer, and offered Jedidiah rides in all their carts, those that had them, and asked Mrs. Dyer what they could do for her in Spinville. And Jedidiah tried to tell his mother, through the open window, how the more they took the potatoes out of the bin, the more there were left in it; and how everybody had enough, and went away satisfied, and had filled their pockets; and even one of the boys was planning a quill popgun for sliced potato, such as the worst boys had not dreamed of all summer. He was a bad boy from the Meadow.

"Well, Mr. Dyer!" said Mrs. Dyer, all day, and again when he came home at night.

Of course the Spinville people thought a great deal from this time of Mr. Dyer; and there was a town council held to consider what they should do to express their feelings to him. He had declined six times being made selectman, and he did not want to ring the bell as sexton. There did not seem to be anything in the way of an office they could offer him that he would accept.

At last Mr. Jones suggested that the best way to please the father was to give something to the son. "Something for Jedidiah!" exclaimed Mr. Jones. "The next time I go to New York, I'll go to a toy-shop; I'll buy something for Jedidiah."

So he did. He came home with the Noah's Ark. It was a moderate-sized ark, painted blue, as usual, with red streaks, and a slanting roof, held down with a crooked wire. It was brought to Jedidiah, one evening, just as he was going to bed; so the crooked wire was not lifted, for Mrs. Dyer thought he had better go to bed at his time and get up early and look at his ark. But he could not sleep well, thinking of his ark. It stood by his bedside, and all night long he heard a great racket inside of it. There was a roaring and a grunting and a squeaking,—all kinds of strange noises. In the moonlight he thought he saw the roof move; if the wire had not been so crooked it surely would have opened. But it didn't, not till he took it downstairs, and Mrs. Dyer had got out her ironing-board, that the animals might be spread out upon it; then Jedidiah lifted the roof.