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Martha and Mary Turner came, swinging their lunch-basket between them, delightfully conscious that in its depths were stored three apple turnovers, one for each of them and one for Kitty Keehoty, who was never allowed to carry pie to school. With a child's fondness for the indigestible, she had once declared that Mrs.
There were sheaves and vines and branches everywhere, and those who observed could scarcely believe that the whole transformation, save and beyond the carving of the pumpkins, had been wrought by three pairs of young hands. What cared happy Kitty Keehoty that of all her crisp ten dollars there remained but thirteen cents?
"Well, 'Kitty Keehoty, wild horses wouldn't have drug it out of me to anybody else; but I don't mind lettin' on to you, just you, that I'd admire to be one. I'd like it real well. But, that's nuther here nor there. Likin' things an' havin' 'em is as different as chalk an' cheese. An' here we be to the woods. The best chestnut-trees is yender, the best shellbarks t'other way.
Kitty Keehoty, bless her! had put her small hand to the wheel of fortune and given it a whirl which was fast sending all good things his way. Then, if he was so favored, should his first official act be the punishment of a fellow townsman? A fishing townsman, at that?
Then, with sudden energy, he advised: "Don't you never let her set you a sewin' patchwork, Kitty Keehoty. It's all on a piece with knittin' mittens for the Hottentots a waste of time. A waste o' sinful time, I mean a sinful waste of Oh, hum!" She waited till he had cooled off from his own vexation, and then asked: "Uncle Moses, will you tell me all about Montgomery's father?"
As her own overture to a Sabbath peace, Susanna went to the foot of the stairs and called, in her cheerfullest voice: "Time to get up, 'Kitty Keehoty'!" "Oh, yes! Good morning, Susanna! I've been up ever so long much as ten minutes, I guess."
None of his fishing-mates, if given such a chance as she had, would have gone home till driven there; for the chestnuts had rattled out of their burrs at a fine rate when he had threshed the trees, and it was impossible that she should have gathered all or even many. "Why, little Keehoty! Tired a'ready?
"Didn't find what, 'Kitty Keehoty'? An' if you didn't yourself, lad, why, you was along at the time. How else But I'm sorry I used that hateful word. I don't blame you for your spunk. I'd knock a feller down 'at called me 'liar' to my face, even now, old an' bedrid' as I be. I take it back an' call it square if you will.
Find the axe. Pick up your basket. I feel so queer every little spell, an' I must get home. That shin-bone's broke, true as preachin', an' six seven my ribs, by the feel of 'em, for my foot wobbles 'round as if it was hung on a string, an' my side! The axe, Keehoty, the axe!" She found and brought it, weeping bitterly.
Moses laughed, too, as he was glad to do. He had had enough of gloom and grumble for that sweet Lord's Day, now so near its close. And though the story he was going to tell was anything but a bright one, he meant to tell it in such wise that his young listener should be the tenderer and more compassionate because of hearing it. "Well, Keehoty, it's ruther a long yarn.
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