So I went down cellar, and fished round in the pork-barrel and found quite a respectable piece. Coming up, just as my head got level with the floor, what should I see but Miss Jemimy pour all the sugar into her bag and whip the bowl back on the shelf, and turn round and face me as innocent as Moses in the bulrushes. After she had taken the pork, she looked round a minute and said,—
"Wal, arter all, I nigh upon forgot my arrant. Here's a letter they giv' me fur Lurindy, at the post-office; ev'rybody else's afeard ter come up here";—and by-and-by she brought it up from under all she'd stowed away there. "Thet jest leaves room," says she.
"For what?" says I.
"Fur tew or three uv them eggs."
I put them into her bag and said,
"Now you remember your promise, Aunt Mimy!"
"Lor' sakes!" says she, "you're in a mighty berry ter git me off. Neow you've got all you kin out uv me, the letter, 'n' the mitt'ns, I may go, may I? I niver see a young gal so furrard 'ith her elders in all my born days! I think Stephen Lee's well quit uv ye, fur my part, ef he hed to die ter du it. I don't 'xpect ye ter thank me fur w'at instruction I gi'n ye;—there's some folks I niver du 'xpect nothin' from; you can't make a silk pus out uv a sow's ear. W'at ye got thet red flag out the keepin'-room winder fur? 'Cause Lurindy's nussin' Stephen? Wal, good-day!"
And so Aunt Mimy disappeared, and the pat of butter with her.
I called Lurindy and gave her the letter, and after a little while I heard my name, and Lurindy was sitting on the top of the stairs with her head on her knees, and mother was leaning over the banisters. Pretty soon Lurindy lifted up her head, and I saw she had been crying, and between the two I made out that Lurindy'd been engaged a good while to John Talbot, who sailed out of Salem on long voyages to India and China; and that now he'd come home, sick with a fever, and was lying at the house of his aunt, who wasn't well herself; and as he'd given all his money to help a shipmate in trouble, she couldn't hire him a nurse, and there he was; and, finally, she'd consider it a great favor, if Lurindy would come down and help her.
Now Lurindy'd have gone at once, only she'd been about Stephen, so that she'd certainly carry the contagion, and might be taken sick herself, as soon as she arrived; and mother couldn't go and take care of John, for the same reason; and there was nobody but me. Lurindy had a half-eagle that John had given her once to keep; and I got a little bundle together and took all the precautions Dr. Sprague advised; and he drove me off in his sleigh, and said, as he was going about sixteen miles to see a patient, he'd put me on the cars at the nearest station. Well, he stopped a minute at the post-office, and when he came out he had another letter for Lurindy. I took it, and, after a moment, concluded I'd better read it.