Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/259

Rh and saddles, empty bottles and jugs—a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends that nothing but a fire could ever dispose of. The master of The Hedges never gave away anything and never threw away anything and the consequence was his home was overflowing with useless and worn-out articles that were the despair of his orderly wife.

If she had had her way, Betsy would have taken matters in her own hands and cleared out the rubbish that littered the one room that she might have turned into a place where she could see her friends, but Elizabeth remembered too well the moment in her early married life when she had attempted to bring some order out of the chaos of this lumber room of her husband's and his fury and Mam' Peachy's remarks about the curiosity and interfering ways of the poor whites.

Rebecca Taylor was almost the only visitor who came to The Hedges. Sometimes she spent Saturday with Betsy and Jo, and Uncle Spot would drive over for her in the evening. On these occasions he would hitch his horse and sit on the front porch, talking shyly to Betsy. Sometimes the girl would ask him into the house, but something always happened to embarrass her when he complied. Either Mam' Peachy would