"Well, dear! anyhow you like to have it. But you ha'n't a jar in the house big enough for them, have you?"
"O I'll manage--I've got an old broken pitcher without a handle, grandpa, that'll do very well."
"A broken pitcher! that isn't a very elegant vase," said he.
"O you wouldn't know it is a pitcher when I have fixed it. I'll cover up all the broken part with green, you know. Are we going home now, grandpa?"
"No, I want to stop a minute at uncle Joshua's."
Uncle Joshua was a brother-in-law of Mr. Ringgan, a substantial farmer and very well to do in the world! He was found not in the house but abroad in the field with his men, loading an enormous basket-wagon with corn-stalks. At Mr. Ringgan's shout he got over the fence and came to the wagon-side. His face showed sense and shrewdness, but nothing of the open nobility of mien which nature had stamped upon that of his brother.
She made a long job of her bunch of holly.
"Fine morning, eh?" said he. "I'm getting in my corn stalks."
"So I see," said Mr. Ringgan. "How do you find the new way of curing them answer?"