“I am. And I could have carried those parings to Sam’s hogs; but Sam would be lazier to-morrow than he is to-day. And I could have made vinegar out of them; but I’d have had to take Len from the field to bring back the barrel that Serena borrowed last year. And I could make jelly. But with all those fine jelly apples lying around in bushels on the ground, why should I save parings?” “You forgot beer,” said Aunt Janey. “Beer?” I faltered. I had elderberry wine, and blackberry cordial, and peaches brandied in brown sugar as dietetic allurements, but had made no provision for beer. “Best beer you ever drunk by a hickory fire in the dead o’ Jinniwary. Stir, gal, stir!” I stirred. “But I don’t drink beer,” said I brightening, “and nobody ought to now.” “You don’t eat pickle either--tomato-pickle, cabbage-pickle, beet-pickle, pickylilly, onion-pickle, pickle everything. An’ you _kain’t_ eat much p’sarves, but I noticed you had ’most all sorts when I looked over your stock.” “But the plain fruits and vegetables--everybody likes _them_.” “You’re a leetle short on some of ’em, ain’t you? Had a nice lot o’ beans to spile on you, didn’t you?” I had buried the contents of twelve large jars in the garden after dark, hoping that my influence as a conserver would not be diminished. How did she know? I looked up from my stirring and met a glance of Aspasian dubiety. She didn’t know. She had been guessing. But my start had betrayed me. As soon as I was caught, she became sincerely consoling. “Tut, gal, beans are always hard for a beginner. It was that run you took off at night, I reckon. I knowed when I passed you’d be in the night with it; an’ I knowed they’d spile, you was so flustered. It takes a ca’m sperret to put up beans to stay. Leather breeches is safer.” She took up her sack. “There’s a powerful lot o’ wild grapes this year.” “Is there?” I said, so dispiritedly that she put down her sack. “Biggest and juiciest I ever seen. A body ought to put up a lot o’ grapes. They’re so tonicky. An’ they make the nicest jelly there is for the sick. Tarty like. Apple jelly’s too tame for a stomach ’at’s off a bit. Not speakin’ agin yourn, seein’ you got such a power of it. An’ namin’ the sick, ain’t you never thought o’ puttin’ up mullin? There’s enough for Europe an’ Ameriky too in your new ground, an’ it’ll shore cure that winter cough people has--cure it right now. If you don’t mean to break off at all, if you ain’t goin’ to stop _anywheres_, if I’s you I’d fix up some good yarb medicines. You can send _them_ to the soldiers. There’s shumake for a swelled throat, an’ boneset for the ager, an’ pokeweed for rheumatiz, an’ spignet for consumption, an’ a lot more I’ll show you if you go home with me some time. Things to he’p folks, ’stead of a lot of stuff to chuck up the stomach an’ make ’em sicker. S’pose you go home with me right now.” “With so much to do?” I said. “Oh, I couldn’t!”