“Now that’s real kind,” said Farmer Brown, going out.
“Th’ buggy?” repeated Mrs. Brown, coming out of the pantry with the bundle of cookies. “Well, I’m goin’, too, Jed. I don’t b’lieve there’s room for us all to set comfortable.”
Jedediah looked her all over. “’Twill be a close fit, maybe, but the wagon’s so heavy. Must you go, Mis Brown?”
“Jedediah Hubbard,” Mrs. Brown set down the cookies on the table, and looked at him hard. “I ain’t a-goin’ to give up that little gal a minute sooner’n I’ve got to,” she said decidedly. “An’ I’m goin’ to see her Ma.”
“All right, Mrs. Brown,” and Jedediah returned to his dinner.
But when the starting off arrived, there was a pretty bad time—Farmer Brown protesting there wasn’t “enough room to squeeze a cat in.” Mrs. Brown ended the matter by saying “There ain’t goin’ to be no cat,” and getting in she established herself, Phronsie on her lap, on one half of the leather seat of the top buggy.
“Where’s the boy goin’ to set?” demanded her husband, looking at her.
“I d’no about that,” said his wife, wrapping her shawl carefully around Phronsie. “Yes, you can carry the cookies, child. Men folks must look out for themselves,” she said coolly.
“It’s all very well for you to set there an’ tell me that,” said Farmer Brown in a disgruntled way, as he got in over the wheel, “but then, you’re a woman.”
“Yes, I’m a woman,” said Mrs. Brown composedly. “Oh, th’ boy can set on a stool in front. Jed, just bring out that little cricket from th’ settin’-room, will you?”