"You may have your
birds, if you want 'em. I do re'lly long to go to meetin' an' see
folks go by up the aisle. Now, I will speak of it, Ann, whatever you
say. We need, each of us, a pair o' good stout shoes an'
rubbers,--ours are all wore out; an' we've asked an' asked, an' they
never think to bring 'em, an'"--
Poor old Mandana, on the trunk, covered her face with her arms and
sobbed aloud. The elder sister stood over her, and patted her on the
thin shoulder like a child, and tried to comfort her. It crossed Mrs.
Trimble's mind that it was not the first time one had wept and the
other had comforted. The sad scene must have been repeated many times
in that long, drear winter. She would see them forever after in her
mind as fixed as a picture, and her own tears fell fast.
"You didn't see Mis' Janes's cunning little boy, the next one to the
baby, did you?" asked Ann Bray, turning round quickly at last, and
going cheerfully on with the conversation. "Now, hush, Mandy, dear;
they'll think you're childish! He's a dear, friendly little creatur',
an' likes to stay with us a good deal, though we feel's if it 't was
too cold for him, now we are waitin' to get us more wood."
"When I think of the acres o' woodland in this town!" groaned Rebecca
Wright. "I believe I'm goin' to preach next Sunday, 'stead o' the
minister, an' I'll make the sparks fly. I've always heard the saying,
'What's everybody's business is nobody's business,' an' I've come to
believe it.
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