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Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909

"A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches"

Town folks has got
the upper hand o' country folks, but with all their work an' pride
they can't make a dandelion. I do' know the times when I've set out to
wash Monday mornin's, an' tied out the line betwixt the old
pucker-pear tree and the corner o' the barn, an' thought, 'Here I be
with the same kind o' week's work right over again.' I'd wonder kind
o' f'erce if I couldn't git out of it noways; an' now here I be out
of it, and an uprooteder creatur' never stood on the airth. Just as I
got to feel I had somethin' ahead come that spool-factory business.
There! you know he never was a forehanded man; his health was slim,
and he got discouraged pretty nigh before ever he begun. I hope he
don't know I'm turned out o' the old place. 'Is'iah's well off; he'll
do the right thing by ye,' says he. But my! I turned hot all over when
I found out what I'd put my name to,--me that had always be'n counted
a smart woman! I did undertake to read it over, but I couldn't sense
it. I've told all the folks so when they laid it off on to me some:
but hand-writin' is awful tedious readin' and my head felt that day as
if the works was gone.
"I ain't goin' to sag on to nobody," she assured me eagerly, as the
train rushed along. "I've got more work in me now than folks expects
at my age. I may be consid'able use to Isabella. She's got a family,
an' I'll take right holt in the kitchen or with the little gals. She
had four on 'em, last I heared. Isabella was never one that liked
house-work.


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