Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/47

 they would not hear of it: I must go home with them, and stay to supper, and see their mother. And when I said I could not walk back in the evening, Mary Tarbell said her husband was coming over, and would bring me on a pillion. You know, grannie, I don't get a ride very often, and I did want to go with them; but I said, 'No; I couldn't leave you alone. Not knowing where I was, you might be anxious.' And just then John English came down the road, with his little Mary on behind him; and they stopped them, and Mary said she was coming straight home, and she would run over and tell you where I was, and so I felt easy about that; but I shall give her a bit of a scolding for forgetting it. And, grandmother, it was lovely over there, and they were all so pleasant!"

"An' how wa' Goody Nurse?" inquired the listener.

"Well, she said she was pretty bad with the rheumatism, but she was as bright and cheery as a bird. She asked how you was, and if you had your rheumatism now; and I told her you did last winter, but you was