fine groing weather
Smith
it said.
Now it is unlikely that in the whole round and range of conversational commonplaces there was one other greeting that could have induced the seamstress to continue the exchange of communications. But this simple and homely phrase touched her country heart. What did “groing weather” matter to the toilers in this waste of brick and mortar? This stranger must be, like herself, a country-bred soul, longing for the new green and the upturned brown mould of the country fields. She took up the paper, and wrote under the first message:
Fine
But that seemed curt; for she added: “for” what? She did not know. At last in desperation she put down potatos. The piece of paper was withdrawn and came back with an addition:
Too mist for potatos.
And when the little seamstress had read this, and grasped the fact that m-i-s-t represented the writer’s pronunciation of “moist,” she laughed softly to herself. A man whose mind, at such a time, was seriously bent upon potatos, was not a man to be feared. She found a half-sheet of notepaper, and wrote:
I lived in a small village before I came to New York, but I am afraid I do not know much about farming. Are you a farmer?
The answer came:
have ben most Every thing
farmed a Spel in Maine
Smith