"The ocean's a useful work o' nater, and she's fetched and carried and aimed a livin' for a good many more'n she's swallered up," said Cap'n 'Kiah.
"I expect this world ain't a vale of tears, nohow," said Uncle Peter in an aggrieved tone. "There is folks that knows more'n the hymn-book."
"Well, it is, and then ag'in it ain't, jest accordin' to the way you look at it. There's a sight more the matter with folks's p'int o' view than there is with the Lord A'mighty's world.—Now, Jo, if you've got that cretur o' yourn into ship-shape,—it always doos seem to me jest like a human cretur that's got the right p'int o' view, that fiddle doos,—jest give it to us lively."
Jo tuned up, with modest satisfaction, and two or three couples stood up to dance. Little Dr. Pingree was about to solicit Miranda's hand for the dance, when there came a knock at the door.
Miranda stuck her knitting-needle through her back-hair in an agitated and expectant manner. But it was not the lank figure of the book-peddler, her betrothed, that darkened the door. It was a forlorn woman, dripping with rain, with two small boys clinging to her skirts.
"I suppose poor folks have a right to come in here out of the rain," she said, advancing to the fire and seating herself with a sullen and dejected aspect.
Little Dr. Pingree, who felt the arrival to be very inopportune, nevertheless gallantly hastened to replenish the fire.
The poor-mistress hospitably offered to remove the visitor's wet wrappings, but she shook her head.
"I want to find the relatives of Ephrum Spencer," she said.
"You'll have to go a good ways," said Cap'n 'Kiah.