“Well, good-bye. We ought to be friends, you and I, and we shall be friends in time.” And then he was gone.
Chapter Seven.
Home Again.
Fidelia did not have to take her homeward way through fields and woods this time. Jabez was waiting with his grandfather’s “team,” which was more than capable of taking her and all her belongings.
“All well, Jabez?” said Fidelia, as she caught sight of his smiling sunburnt face.
“Oh, yes, pretty much as usual! Miss Eunice is first-rate;” and with this satisfactory though rather indefinite assurance Fidelia had to content herself till all things were safely bestowed in the wagon, and they were on their way home. Then she did not need to ask questions. Jabez had the faculty of putting a good deal of information into a few words; and as she listened, Fidelia got a summary of all that had been said and done—or at least attempted—in town-meeting, church-meeting, and even in school meeting, with personal and domestic items of the neighbours thrown in here and there as he went on. He had an interested and appreciative listener, and he knew it and did his best to be at the same time comprehensive and brief.
“And the garden, Jabez? I hope that has been a success,” said Fidelia at last.
“Well, yes—pretty middling;” and then a brief but clear and satisfactory statement of the sowing and planting, the transplanting, watering, and hoeing which had followed; of what the bugs and worms had taken, and what had come to maturity; of how all had in general been disposed of, and the net results in dollars and cents.