Children -- Death -- Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Farm life -- Juvenile fiction; Siblings -- Juvenile fiction
"Job Underhill rode down after him as hard as he could and
fetched him up on horseback."
"In time?" said Elizabeth.
"He was in time for everything but himself. It was too late
for him. But all the rest of the folks had the good of his
coming."
"Why what was there for him to do?" said Elizabeth.
"He finds enough to do -- or he's pretty apt to --whenever he
comes to a place," said Clam. "There was everybody to put in
order, about. There was Mr. Landholm hardly fit to live, he
was so willin' to die; and Winifred was crazy. She went and
crawled under one of the beds to hide when she thought he was
a comin'."
"When who was coming?"
"He -- Mr. Winthrop. And Karen was takin' airs -- _that_ aint out
o' the common -- but I'd a little liever have him master than
her mistress -- she wa'n't mine, neither."
"And where was Mr. Asahel?"
"He was there -- and good enough what there was of him; but he
won't never stand in other folks' shoes."
"Do you say Winifred was _crazy?_"
"She was so feared to see her brother come home!"
"Her brother Winthrop?"
"There wa'n't no other coming," said Clam.
"Poor thing!" said Elizabeth. "And you say he has brought her
down to Mannahatta?"
Clam nodded. "She don't think she's alive when he aint near
her; so he's took her down to live with him. I guess it's good
living with him," said Clam sagaciously. "I wish I did it."
"I must go and see her. Where is she?"
"She's wherever he's took her to."
"But where's that? -- don't you know?"
"It's to his house -- if you know where that is."
"Do you know what you've come here to do?" said Elizabeth
after a slight pause.
Clam shook her head.
"One thing I can tell you, first of all," said Elizabeth, --
"it is to mind what I say to you."
"Mr. Winthrop said I was to behave," said Clam with another
glimpse of her white teeth.
"Then don't shake your head any more when I speak to you. What
have you been doing at Wut-a-qut-o?"
"At Wuttle-quttle?" said Clam.
"At Wut-a-qut-o. What did you do there?"
"'Tain't the name of the place," said Clam. "They call it
Shah-wee-tah."
"Wut-a-qut-o is the name of the mountain -- it's all one. What
have you been used to do there?"
"Set tables --" said Clam considerately.
"What did Mrs. Landholm teach you?"
"She learned me 'most everything," said Clam. "What she
learned me most of all, was to have me read the Bible every
day, and do nothin' wrong o' Sundays, and never say nothin'
that wa'n't."
"That wasn't what?"
"That wa'n't _it_," said Clam. "Never to say nothin' that wa'n't
the thing."
"Why, did you ever do that?" said Elizabeth.
"Maybe I did," said Clam, considering her new mistress's
dressing-table. "Mis' Landholm was afeard on't."
"Well, you must be just as careful about that here," said
Elizabeth. "I love truth as well as she did."
"All kinds?" said the girl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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