"Ef hit hain't done turned plumb warm ag'in! Lord, that jest suits me to a T!"
Quick changes come in the weather in Kentucky, and when, at four o'clock the next morning after the visit of her whilom son-in-law, Mrs. Doggett poked her head from the door over which the gaunt pine leaned, a summer-like breeze met her thin cheek.
She began her preparations for a journey with a rejoicing spirit, and by the time the men arose, her gallon tin bucket of butter, and half-peck basket of eggs were weighed, counted, and safely packed under the seat of the rickety "no-topped" buggy that occupied the leaky shed,—formerly the kitchen of the house; her kitchen that shone with cleanliness was swept and dusted, and a hot breakfast of coffee, biscuit, and fried slices of a shoulder of fresh pork, smoked on the green-figured oil-cloth.
"You're up a half-hour ahead o' time, hain't you, Ann?" mumbled Mr. Doggett, with his face in the meal-sack towel which hung at the end of the kitchen mantel.
"Yes," assented Mrs. Doggett, "I am. I got to studdyin' in the night about pore Bob Ed House. Susie said when Gil wuz over thar last week, Bob Ed tuck a sinkin' spell, and they like to 'a' never brought him to! Sometimes they'll live deceivin' with consumption, but he might drap off any time and me never see him no more, so I tuck a notion I'd go today: I been threatenin' to go long enough. Jest step out and ring the bell fer me, will you?"
The boys had come in from the barn lot, and were on the porch, but the big farm bell that came to be her's when the Castles moved to town, and which she had had hung in the top of the highest locust in her back yard, was Mrs. Doggett's crowning glory of possessions; it gave her a certain feeling of equality with "well-off" people, and she would have sooner sat down to her table without plates, than to have omitted the ringing of the bell.
"Gona take Bob Ed anytheng to eat, Ma?" asked Dock, using a big biscuit for a gravy swab.
"I'm gona take him a sack o' sausage, and that squirrel Joey killed yistiddy, to make him a nice stew, and considerin' I have to pass the store, I thought I'd as well take my butter'n aigs. I've got ever'thing ready in the buggy, and jest as soon as somebody gits Big Money hooked up fer me, I'll be off. Hit's a good five miles over to Bob Ed's, hain't hit, Eph?"
"Six, nigh about," corrected her husband: "hit's a mile yonside town; but, old lady," he looked at her in surprise, "hain't you a goin' to take Lily Pearl?"
Mrs. Doggett looked out of the window, contemplating the clear sky.