"Parsnips out in the yard, ain't there?"
"Yes, but you'll have to do with a piece of pork, Nancy; I don't know anything about beef."
While Nancy went round the cellar, gathering in her apron the various roots she wanted, Ellen uncovered the pork barrel, and, after looking a minute at the dark pickle she never loved to plunge into, bravely bared her arm, and fished up a piece of pork.
"Now, Nancy, just help me with this churn out of the cellar, will you? and then you may go."
"My goodness! it is heavy," said Nancy. "You'll have a time of it, Ellen; but I can't help you."
She went off to the garden for parsnips, and Ellen quietly put in the dasher and the cover, and began to churn. It was tiresome work. The churn was pretty full, as Nancy had said; the cream was rich and cold, and at the end of half an hour grew very stiff. It splattered and sputtered up on Ellen's face and hands, and frock and apron, and over the floor; legs and arms were both weary; but still that pitiless dasher must go up and down, hard as it might be to force it either way she must not stop. In this state of matters she heard a pair of thick shoes come clumping down the stairs, and beheld Mr. Van Brunt.
"Here you are!" said he. "Churning! Been long at it?"
"A good while," said Ellen, with a sigh.
"Coming?"
"I don't know when."