"There's safety in a multitude of counsellors, you know, Aunt Mimy, and
I think on the whole I had best."
"Wal! ef that's yer delib'rate ch'ice betwixt Dr. Sprague an' me, ye kin du ez ye like. I never force my advice on no one, 'xcept this,—I'd advise Emerline there ter throw them socks inter the fire; there'll never none o' them be fit ter sell, 'nless she wants ter spread the disease. Wal, I'm sorry yer 've concluded ter hev thet old quack Sprague; never hed no more diplomy 'n I; don' b'lieve he knows cow-pox from kine, when he sees it. The poor young man's hed his last well day, I'm afeard. Good-day ter ye; say good-bye fur me ter Stephen. I'll call ag'in, ef ye happen ter want any one ter lay him eout."
And, staying to light her little black pipe, she jerked together the strings of her great scarlet hood, wrapped her cloak round her like a sentinel at muster, and went puffing down the hill like a steamboat.
Aunt Mimy Ruggles wasn't any relation to us, I wouldn't have you think, though our name was Ruggles, too. Aunt Mimy used to sell herbs, and she rose from that to taking care of the sick, and so on, till once Dr. Sprague having proved that death came through her ignorance, she had to abandon some branches of her art; and she was generally roaming round the neighborhood, seeking whom she could devour in the others. And so she came into our house just at dinner-time, and mother asked her to sit by, and then mentioned Cousin Stephen, and she went up to see him, and so it was.
Now it can't be pleasant for any family to have such a thing turn up, especially if there's a pretty girl in it; and I suppose I was as pretty as the general run, at that time,—perhaps Cousin Stephen thought a trifle prettier; pink cheeks, blue eyes, and hair the color and shine of a chestnut when it bursts the burr, can't be had without one 's rather pleasant-looking; and then I'm very good-natured and quick-tempered, and I've got a voice for singing, and I sing in the choir, and a'n't afraid to open my mouth. I don't look much like Lurindy, to be sure; but then Lurindy's an old maid,—as much as twenty-five,—and don't go to singing-school.—At least, these thoughts ran through my head as I watched Aunt Mimy down the hill.—Lurindy a'n't so very pretty, I continued to think,—but she's so very good, it makes up. At sewing-circle and quilting and frolics, I'm as good as any; but somehow I'm never any 'count at home; that's because Lurindy is by, at home. Well, Lurindy has a little box in her drawer, and there's a letter in it, and an old geranium-leaf, and a piece of black silk ribbon that looks too broad for anything but a sailor's necktie, and a shell. I don't know what she wants to keep such old stuff for, I'm sure.
We're none so rich,—I suppose I may as well tell the truth, that we're nearly as poor as poor can be. We've got the farm, but it's such a small one that mother and I can carry it on ourselves, with now and then a day's help or a bee,—but a bee's about as broad as it is long,—and we raise just enough to help the year out, but don't sell. We've got a cow and the filly and some sheep; and mother shears and cards, and Lurindy spins,—I can't spin, it makes my head swim,—and I knit, knit socks and sell them. Sometimes I have needles almost as big as a pipe-stem, and choose the coarse, uneven yarn of the thrums, and then the work goes off like machinery. Why, I can knit two pair, and sometimes three, a day, and get just as much for them as I do for the nice ones,—they're warm. But when I want to knit well, as I did the day Aunt Mimy was in, I take my best blue needles and my fine white yarn from the long wool, and it takes me from daybreak till sundown to knit one pair. I don't know why Aunt Jemimy should have said what she did about my socks; I'm sure Stephen hadn't been any nearer them than he had to the cabbage-bag Lurindy was netting, and there wasn't such a nice knitter in town as I, everybody will tell you. She always did seem to take particular pleasure in hectoring and badgering me to death.
Well, I wasn't going to be put down by Aunt Mimy, so I made the needles fly while mother was gone for the doctor. By-and-by I heard a knock up in Stephen's room,—I suppose he wanted something,—but Lurindy didn't hear it, and I didn't so much want to go, so I sat still and began to count out loud the stitches to my narrowings. By-and-by he knocked again.
"Lurindy," says I, "a'n't that Steve a-knocking?"
"Yes," says she,—"why don't you go?"—for I had been tending him a good deal that day.
"Well," says I, "there's a number of reasons; one is, I'm just binding off my heel."