"'How often amid the wild billows,
I dream of thy rest, sweet rest,
Sweet rest.'"
sang Vesty, with eyes darkly circled and sunken, and the beautiful, strong hand, labor-worn, and the thin old shawl fallen back from her shoulders.
There was a different tone now in the parting salutations of the Basins.
"I'm a-comin' up to help ye paper," said one woman to another; "ye got sick last year, and I'm a-comin', whether ye want me to or not."
"Oh, I want ye bad enough, Mar'ette."
But I knew what a struggle had been gone through with when I heard Miss Pray say:
"Car' Ann, if ye want to borry my ice-cream freezer I ain't a-usin' it for to-morrer."
Miss Pray alone of the Basins had acquired the monumental honor of possessing an ice-cream freezer, esteemed by others with a no less sacred jealousy than by herself; but she had hitherto refused all intimations tending toward social interchange and fellowship in the matter.
"Vesty's kind o' poorin' away," said one matron, looking wistfully after the girl.
"No wonder, with that great boy, and all she does. Aunt Low-ize tried to hold him, jest while Vesty was singin', an' she had to take him out and walk twict around Blueberry Hill t' keep him still; he's one o' this 'ere all-alive, jumpin' kind. I sh'd think he'd kill her."