“An’ ever’ dish an’ pot to be washed, an’ the house to redd up, all before I can _begin_ a day’s work, an’ Lonie a-sulkin’ ’cause I want her to take holt o’ the sewin’ while I’m puttin’ up stuff, an’ Ben, he used to think there wuzn’t nobody but me--” Here her voice shook slightly and she tacked about rebelliously. “But I ain’t keerin’ what they all think, I’m goin’ by my _own_ feelin’s. An’ I’ve quit. I come to it up there in the late roas’in’-year patch. I went by there as I come from the ridge with this big bucket o’ gooseberries, which was heavy enough without a pile o’ roas’in’ years in my apern, but you said I must git another big mess ’fore the frost struck ’em heavy, an’ that field was plum full o’ pack-saddlers. One stung me ever’ time I laid my hand on a roas’in’ year. Hit hurts worse’n a hornet fer a minute, an’ it’s harder on a body’s temper than a hornet is. Hit makes you feel bad all over an’ inside too. An’ this mornin’ I put on them sandals you give me to easy my feet, an’ by four o’clock they had me broke off at the ankles. I reckon my feet take a different kind o’ easin’ from yorn. An’ here’s these gooseberries got to be legged ’fore I can git supper, so’s I can cook ’em while I’m bakin’ bread, an’ save stove-wood. Ben is rearin’ an’ pitchin’ all the time now ’bout me usin’ so much wood, an’ leavin’ me to git it mysef haf the time. I’m so tired I know I ain’t goin’ to sleep none to-night.” Then, with a desolation in her voice that made my eyes suddenly hot, she added: “My sleep is all I git.” I was stricken silent, and she began again. “They’re goin’ to bury Uncle Nathe Ponder to-morr’, an’----” “Oh, Serena, is Mr. Ponder dead?” “He died a Saturday. The Freemasons are comin’ out from Carson to bury him proper, an’ here I am tied up with fixin’ things to eat next winter! I ain’t had a chance to look inter the door at Uncle Nathe’s, an’ him been sick three months.” “He was a good man, by all accounts.”