Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/39

 poor do-less critter with questions any more. How much do the summer folks down to th' village know 'bout the way we live? Well, they burst out laughin', of course. 'Well, then,' I says, tis plain to be seen that all they do in winter is to go off to some foreign part and do the same as here, so I says to them, same's I said to you, Abby, a while back, that they'd better save their breath to cool their porridge. But it's awful solemn eatin' now, without a word spoke."

The other woman laughed. "Why, you don't have to talk 'bout foreign parts or else keep still, do ye?"

"Oh, it's just so 'bout everythin. We heard she'd been in Washington last winter, so Eben he brisked up and tried her on politics. Well, she'd never heard of direct primaries, they're raisin such a holler 'bout in York State; she didn't know what th' 'nsurgent senators are up to near as much as we did, and to judge by the way she looked, she'd only just barely heard of th' tariff." The word was pronounced with true New England reverence. "Then we tried bringin' up children, and lumberin' an' roads, an cookin', an' crops, an' stock, an' wages, an' schools, an gardenin, but we couldn't touch bottom nowhere. Never a word to be had out'n her. So we give up and now we just sit like stotin' bottles, an' eat—an' do our visitin' with each other odd minutes afterward."

"Why, she don't look to be half-witted," said the other.

"She ain't!" cried Mrs. Pritchard with emphasis. "She's got as good a headpiece, natchilly, as anybody. I remember her when she was a young one. It's the fool way they're brung up! Everythin' that's any fun or intrust, they hire somebody else to do it for 'em. Here she