Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/37

 few days she was there, tryin' to get somethin out'n her. Italy, now … had she been there? Oh, yes, she adored Italy!" Virginia flushed at the echo of her own exaggerated accent. "Well, we'd like to know somethin' 'bout Italy. What did they raise there? Honest, Abby, you'd ha' thought we'd hit her side th' head. She thought and she thought, and all she could say was 'olives.' Nothing else? 'Well, she'd never noticed anything else … oh, yes, lemons.' Well, that seemed kind o' queer vittles, but you can't never tell how foreigners git along, so we thought maybe they just lived off'n olives and lemons; and Joel he asked her how they raised 'em, and if they manured heavy or trusted to phosphate, and how long the trees took before they began to bear, and if they pruned much, and if they had the same trouble we do, come harvest time, to hire hands enough to git in th' crop."

She paused. The other woman asked, "Well, what did she say?"

The echoes rang again to the old woman's great laugh. "We might as well ha' asked her bout the back side of th' moon! So we gave up on olives and lemons! Then Eben he asked her 'bout taxes there. Were they on land mostly and were they high and who 'sessed 'em and how 'bout school tax. Did the state pay part o' that? You see town meetin' being so all tore up every year 'bout taxes, Eben he thought 'twould be a chance to hear how other folks did, and maybe learn somethin'. Good land, Abby, I've set there and most died, trying to keep from yellin' right out with laugh to see our folks tryin' to learn somethin' 'bout foreign parts from that woman that's traveled in 'em steady for five years. I bet she was