Page:Mary Rinehart - More Tish .djvu/90

 82  with Tish, I suggested that we make our annual pilgrimage the following day.

"What pilgrimage?" Tish demanded. She was at that time interested in seeing if a table could be set for thirty-five cents a day per person, and the meal was largely beans.

"For chestnuts," I explained.

"I don't think I'll go this year," Tish observed, not looking at either of us. "I'm not a young woman, and climbing a chestnut tree requires youth."

"You could get the farmer's boy," Aggie suggested, hopefully. Aggie is a creature of habit, and clings hard to the past.

"The farmer is not there any more."

We stared at her in amazement, but she was helping herself to boiled dandelion at the time, and made no further explanation.

"Why, Tish!" Aggie exclaimed.

"Aggie," she observed, severely, "if you would only remember that the world is hungry, you would eat your crusts."

"I ate crusts for twenty years," said Aggie, "because I'd been raised to believe they would make my hair curl. But I've come to a time of life when my digestion means more to me than my looks. And since I've had the trouble with my teeth"