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For I ain't sunk so low as to be that sympathetic that I'll stay to supper after the funeral just because I've helped at it. There's a time to mourn an' there's a time to eat, an' you better do one with the bereaved an' slip home to your own butt'ry shelf for the other, I say.
There are cobwebs all between the rafters an' everywhere else except on the shelves where Mother keeps the butter an' eggs an' other things that would freeze in the butt'ry upstairs. The apples are in bar'ls up against the wall, near the potater bin. How fresh an' sweet they smell!
You can put what's left of that mock mince pie on the top shelf in the butt'ry and you'd better heave a dish towel or sunthin' over it to keep the ants out. There's more ants in this house than there is dollars, a good sight. Betsy B., she's got a plan for keepin' of 'em out by puttin' sassers of brimstone round the shelves, but I told her, s' I, 'THEM ants don't care for no brimstone.
"Well, what do you advise doin'?" asked Miss Cummins nervously. "I don't feel comp'tent to advise, Vilda; the house ain't mine, nor yet the beds that's in it, nor the victuals in the butt'ry; but as a professin' Christian and member of the Orthodox Church in good and reg'lar standin' you can't turn 'em ou'doors when it's comin' on dark and they ain't got no place to sleep."
When he comes in at noon-time he washes up out by the pump, 'n' then he steps int' the butt'ry 'n' pours some cold tea out the teapot 'n' takes a drink of it, 'n' then a bite o' cold punkin pie 'n' then more tea, all the time stan'in' up to the shelf 'stid o' sittin' down like a Christian, and lookin' out the winder as if his mind was in Hard Scrabble 'n' his body in Buttertown, 'n' as if he didn't know whether he was eatin' pie or putty.
"So I made up my mind I'd take her to the cemet'ry. We done the work up first, an' 'Leven spried 'round for me, wipin' the dishes with the wipin' cloth in a bunch, an' settin' 'em up wrong places. An' I did hev to go in the butt'ry an' laugh to see her sweep up. She swep' up some like her broom was a branch an' the wind a-switchin' it.
As night come on things got wuss and wuss, for the wind blowed the roof off Mis Bascum's barn and stove in the butt'ry window; the brook riz and went ragin' every which way, and you never did see such a piece of work. "My heart was most broke by that time, and I knew I should give in 'fore Monday.
You're nothin' but a piece o' God's work that wants doin' over like a back yard or a poor piece o' road or a rubbish place, or sim'lar. An' this tidyin' up is what we're for, as I see it only some of us lays a-holt of our own settin' rooms an' butt'ry cupboards an' sullars an' cleans away on them for dear life, over an' over, an' forgets the rest.
We shall find everything we need in the well, the chimney, the butt'ry and the cellar. And here is the wedding supper all ready for us and I as hungry as a bear." "In the words of Mrs. Lukins 'it is very copasetic, and I begin to feel that I have made some progress in the study of Bim Kelso. Come, let's have our supper." "Not until you have broiled a piece of venison.
There are cobwebs all between the rafters an' everywhere else except on the shelves where Mother keeps the butter an' eggs an' other things that would freeze in the butt'ry upstairs. The apples are in bar'ls up against the wall, near the potater-bin. How fresh an' sweet they smell!
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