Wall, I felt sorry for her: and I s'posed, that, married or single, she would have to wear stockin's; so I told her, that, besides her wages, she might have all the lamb's-wool yarn she wanted to spin while I was gone, after doin' the house-work.

She wus tickled enough as I told her.

“Why,” says she, “I can spin enough to last me for years and years.”

“Wall,” says I, “so much the better. I have mistrusted,” says I, “that Miss Gowdey wouldn't do much for you on account of that hardness about the grindstun; and knowin' that you hain't got no mother, I have laid out to do middlin' well by you and Ury when you get married.”

And she blushed, and said “she expected to marry Ury sometime—years and years hence.”

“Wall,” says I, “you can spin the yarn anyway.”

Philury is a real handy little thing about the house. And so willin' and clever, that I guess, if I had asked her to jump into the oven, and bake herself, she would have done it. And so I told Josiah.