"Please tell it, if it's a story, papa," said the children.
"Not much of a story; only there were two old women who lived by themselves, and were so very poor that they had nothing in the world to eat but potatoes and salt. One day a friend went to see them, and when he sat down to their humble meal of roasted potatoes, he was moved with pity, and told them he was very sorry to see them so poor.
"Then one of the old ladies rolled up her eyes, and said, 'I was just a-thinkin', neighbor, that this meal is altogether too good for us, we're so unworthy! I only wish the potatoes was froze!'"
The children laughed.
"But I shouldn't like that old lady, though. I know how she looked: it was just this way," said Prudy, drawing down her mouth, and looking cross-eyed.
"She didn't want the potatoes frozed," added Dotty; "for if she did, she might have laid 'em out doors all night, and they'd have freezed as hard as a stick."
Grandma Read had a thought just then, though she did not express it. She was thinking what a contrast this cheerful family presented to another "burnt-out" family, who had this very day moved into a house across the street. The mother she had seen from the window, and she looked perfectly discouraged. The children were fretful, and it seemed as if they were all trying, with one accord, to see which could do most to make the new home disagreeable.
"I should say they freeze their potatoes," thought Mrs. Read.
She meant that, instead of trying to improve matters, they only made them worse.
After supper, just as the Parlins were sitting down for a quiet evening, the door-bell rang furiously, and shook for a minute afterwards, as if it were in an ague-fit. Who had come to break up the family harmony?