Page:Orange Grove.djvu/320

 "I found her cryin' to-night," said Kate to Milly, as she came home one evening, "and 't wan't nothin' neither. I should have cheered her up pretty quick but there was an old croaker there, I don't know who she was, that was as mournful as Job's widder. She sat there with her hands clinched, the corners of her mouth hangin' down, and her eyes lookin' straight into the fire as if all the light there was in 'em would have to come from there. She fetched a long sigh, and says she, "That's the way when folks get married; gals never know when they're well off. This world's full o' trouble."

"If this world's full o' trouble," says I, "then it don't make no difference whether we are married or single, we've got to have it any way."

"She fetched another sigh, changed her hands, puttin' the one that was underneath on top, pressed her lips a little closer together, then opened her mouth with a voice that sounded as if it had run away from the tombs, 'Young woman,' says she, 'it'll do for you to laugh now, but when you get to be as old as I am and see all your ancestors comin' up round you as thick as weeds in a garden, not mindin' their ways to walk as they'd ought to in the straight and narrer path I fetched my children up to walk in, may be you won't feel like laughin' then.'

"I chuckled away to myself, thankful enough to see her get up to go when she had said that, and she hadn't more'n got to the door when Jenny come and took hold of my arm, smilin' like a fresh peach, and says she, 'I am so glad to see you, for I wanted to make some hasty puddin' and I didn't know anything