Page:McClure's Magazine volume 4.djvu/98

Rh scraper, and wash their hands and faces with water dipped from the rain-barrel. Their faces shone like brown marble when they came in.

It was five o'clock when Mrs. Hanna, with a sigh, began rolling the lace she had crocheted around the spool, preparatory to taking her departure.

—"BLESS THESE KIND PEOPLE—BLESS 'EM, OH, LORD GOD!"

"Well," she said, "I must go. I had no idy it was so late. How the time does go, talkin'. Just see how well I've done—crocheted full a yard since dinner-time! My! how pretty that hop-vine looks. 'T makes awful nice shade, too. I guess when Mis' Lane planted 't she thought she'd be settin' under it herself to-day—she took such pleasure in it."

The ladies were sitting on the front porch. It was cool and fragrant out there. The shadow of the house reached almost to the gate now. The bees had been drinking too many sweets—greedy fellows! and were lying in the red poppies, droning stupidly. A soft wind was blowing from Puget Sound and turning over the clover leaves, making here a billow of dark green and there one of light green; it was setting loose the perfume of the blossoms, too, and sifting silken thistle-needles through the air. Along the fence was a hedge, eight feet high, of the beautiful ferns that grow luxuriantly in western Washington. The pasture across the lane was a tangle of royal color, being massed in with golden-rod, pink-weed, yarrow, purple thistles, and field daisies; the cottonwoods that lined the creek at the side of the house were snowing. There was a wild syringa near the gate, throwing out spray upon spray of white, delicately scented, gold-hearted flowers.

Mrs. Bridges arose and followed her guest into the spare bedroom.

"When they goin' to take her to the poor-farm?" she asked, abruptly.

"Day after to-morrow. Ain't it awful? It just makes me sick to think about it. I couldn't 'a' eat a bite o' dinner 'f I'd stayed at home, just for thinkin' about it. They say the poor old creature ain't done nothin' but cry an' moan sence she know'd she'd got to go."

"Here's your bag," said Mrs. Bridges. "Do you want I should tie your veil?"

"No, thanks; I guess I won't put it on. If I didn't have such a big fam'ly, an' my own mother to keep, I'd take her myself b'fore I'd see her go to the poor-house. If I had a small fam'ly an' plenty o' room, I