Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/117

Rh step, and his wipe on the coarse tow towel. In the long, dark kitchen stood a cross-legged table, and the family and guests sat down to a large pewter platter of smoking birds. "Pigeons, Jason?" said the doctor. "Yes: I went out on the wheat stubble early this morning, and I got a good shot: they are very plenty this fall," said Jason.

"You have roasted the birds to a turn, Mollie," said the doctor to Jason's wife. A pleased look crossed the woman's face; and feeling that she must do something — words failing her — she jumped up and brushed the whitening coals from the Dutch oven, and flopped into a pewter plate in a skilful manner a wheaten short-cake. This dainty was hastily prepared after the arrival of the doctor and Susanna. The old lady gave Jason's wife a grateful look when this was brought on. "Now, doctor," she said, "have some o' this short-cake. I think Mollie can't be beat makin' 'em; and have some o' this cheese. We made a few small ones, and they ain't very dry yit; but new cheese goes good with short-cake."

Susanna thought that there was never a dinner cooked that tasted so good as this: the long ride in the clear air had given her an appetite, and she was glad to see her grandfather enjoy it. The old lady had always known him: she said, "I remember when you fust started here, and Debby was putty proud when you begun to keep company with her; but that was a long time ago, wa'n't it, doctor?" — "Yes, Mrs. Grummet, you and I have reached the age of man," said the doctor. "I'm living on God's time now," said the old woman. "If I live till next Jinerwary, I shall be seventy-nine year old. You ain't quite so old, doctor?" — "No, I shall be seventy-eight next March." Susanna felt a pang of sadness when she looked at her grandfather. "How much longer should she have him?" "Not long," she feared; and she herself was a girl no longer, although people called her "a girl," and always would unless she was married.

She found herself dreaming, and hastened to talk with Jason's wife. "Are your children at school, Mrs. Grummet?" she asked. "Yes: we have only a few weeks of schoolin'; and it's way up in the north-west part, so they take their dinners."

The dinner had long been over, and the party had been talking around the table, when the doctor said, "Mollie, do you want me to bleed you to-day?" With a glance at her husband, Mollie said, "I don't care if you do, my head troubles me an awful sight; when I stoop over round the fire, I am terrible dizzy." — "All right, I'll bleed you." Turning to the old lady, he said, "I suppose you still have faith in cupping?" — "Yes indeed, I do," she said.

After attending to his patients, and when he had looked over Jason's crops, the doctor went in to call Susanna. She and the old lady were sitting in low chairs before the fire: they had evidently been talking very seriously. The old lady had been asking Susanna about John, and the trials she had passed through, and she wanted to console her.

Although a few years had sent their rain and snow on John Pendexter's unmarked grave in New Jersey, still it seemed to Susanna like a new death to have the smouldering ashes of her grief raked over by curious hands; but she bore the torture well, thinking that the old lady meant kindly. Her grandfather's voice was a welcome sound. As they rode out in the narrow lane,