"I was thinking, a minute ago, of something I heard talked about in New York, aunt Lucy; and, afterwards, I was trying to find out by what possible or imaginable road I had got round to it."
"Could you tell?"
Fleda said, "No," and tried to bear her part in the conversation. But she did not know whether to blame the subjects which had been brought forward, or herself, for her utter want of interest in them. She went into the kitchen, feeling dissatisfied with both.
"Did you ever see potatoes that would beat them Elephants?" said Barby.
"Never, certainly," said Fleda, with a most involuntary smile.
"I never did," said Barby. "They beat all, for bigness and goodness both. I can't keep 'em together. There's thousands of 'em, and I mean to make Philetus eat 'em for supper such potatoes and milk is good enough for him, or anybody. The cow has gained on her milk wonderful, Fleda, since she begun to have them roots fed out to her."
"Which cow?" said Fleda.
"Which cow? why the blue cow there aint none of the others that's giving any, to speak of," said Barby, looking at her. "Don't you know the cow you said them carrots should be kept for?"
Fleda half laughed, as there began to rise up before her the various magazines of vegetables, grain, hay, and fodder, that for many weeks had been deliciously distant from her imagination.
"I made butter for four weeks, I guess, after you went away," Barby went on; "just come in here and see and the carrots makes it as yellow and sweet as June I churned as long as I had anything to churn, and longer; and now we live on cream you can make some cheesecakes just as soon as you're a mind to see! aint that doing pretty well? and fine it is put your nose down to it "