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Tea being finished, the boy started homeward with a basket of fresh eggs and butter, a pound of cream and some early apples of a sort used for cider, but yet equal to the making of a pie. "As for the butter, 'tis Joan's churnin'," said Mary, "but you'd best not to tell your faither that, else, so like's not, he'll pitch it into the sea.
His axents jarred onto me, and mechanically I follered him into the Moorish Palace. One reason why I follered him so meekly and willin'ly, I didn't know but he would broach the subject of seein' them Persian wimmen dance. And I felt that I would ruther give a hull churnin' of fall's butter than to have his moral old mind contaminated with the sight.
And down a little ways from the house there's a cool springhouse, with clear, cold water wellin' up and ripplin' out over the clean, white sand, with crocks o' fresh milk setting in it with cream half an inch thick, and big jars o' buttermilk from the last churnin', and piggins o' fresh butter, and mebbe a big crock full o' smearkase. Si, do you like smearkase?"
But when the boss got out o' sight, Pretty Quick jest stood right still, swingin' his axe, an' blasphemin' so 't would freeze your blood, vowin' he wouldn't move till the logs did, if he stayed there till the crack o' doom. Jest then a great, ponderous log that hed be'n churnin' up an' down in the falls for a week, got free an' come blunderin' an' thunderin' down-river.
Ah have a twenty-doll ah bill 'roun som'ers, if hi could evah fin' hit. "Yes, ah had hit good. My mothah, she stayed on de plantation, too. She did de churnin' and she run de loom. She wuz a good weaver. Ah used ter help her run de loom.
"I sh'd think y' would," he replied, his eyes on her face, "I c'd stand the churnin' and housework, but when it comes it comes t' workin' outdoors in the dirt an' hot sun, gettin' all sunburned and chapped up, it's another thing. An' then it seems as if he gets stingier 'n' stingier every year. I ain't had a new dress in I d'-know-how-long.
It's the chair little Letty Lamson used to set in when she wa'n't more'n three year old, an' her mother used to keep her out under the sweet-bough tree in that little rocker whilst she was washin' or churnin'! What?" He paused, for Miss Letty had waved a frantic hand. The tears were running down her cheeks.
He was so mad, he was ready to bile over; and as it was he smoked in the sun, like a tea-kettle. His clothes stuck close down to him, as a cat's fur does to her skin, when she's out in the rain, and every step he took his boots went squish, squash, like an old woman churnin' butter; and his wet trowsers chafed with a noise like a wet flappin' sail.
So I went into the pantry to get it, and Aunt Mimy followed me, of course. "Them's nice-lookin' apples," said she. "Come from Stephen's place? Poor young man, he won't never want 'em! S'pose he won't hev no objection ter my tryin' a dozen," and she dropped that number into her great pocket. "Nice-lookin' butter, tew," said she. "Own churnin'? Wal, you kin du sunthin', Emerline.
"Dinna stir yer tea as if ye was churnin' butter, nor let on 'at the scones is no our am bakin'." "If Tibbie says onything aboot the china yer no' to say 'at we dinna use it ilka day." "Dinna lean back in the big chair, for it's broken, an' Leeby's gi'en it a lick o' glue this meenute." "When Leeby gies ye a kick aneath the table that'll be a sign to ye to say grace."
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