“Thank the Lord for her lively face!” agreed Caleb. “Maybe she oughtn’t to read a letter to a married woman,” explained Martha shyly, “being a girl without mother or sisters, brought up by her grandfather.” “But Cousin Caroline wouldn’t write naught improper.” “Of course not—but it mightn’t be proper for an orphan girl to read. Maybe it’s not even proper for you, and that’s why she addressed it to me.” Caleb felt as bemused as before a Bundock witticism. “Joulterhead!” said Martha, with a loving smile. “And you’ve had fourteen!” The letter fell from his nerveless fingers. “Cousin Caroline confined again!” And the clacking of all those innumerable infants filled the air—like the barking of the black geese on the wintry mud-flats. But he recovered himself. “Why, she’s a widow, not a pair.” “Widows can be re-paired,” said Martha. “Must have been a middlin’ bold man to goo courtin’ a family that size,” Caleb reflected. He picked up the letter and poised it in his hand. “Don’t feel as weighty as St. Paul’s letters,” he said. “The text doesn’t mean his letters were heavy,” explained Martha. “‘His letters, say they, are weighty and powerful’—that’s what I was reading you when the clock stopped. Any fool can write a heavy letter—he’s only got to write on a slate.” “That’s a true word,” said Caleb, admiring her. “Whereas,” pursued Martha, “the whole Bible has been got inside a nutshell.” “Lord!” said Caleb. “I suppose it was a cokernut!” “Not at all. Only a walnut.” “Fancy! But was there walnuts in the Holy Land?” “I didn’t say ’twas done in Palestine.” “Then there wasn’t walnuts there?” His face fell. “I don’t remember—oh, yes—Solomon asked his love to come into the garden of nuts.” “But it don’t say walnuts?” he inquired wistfully. “I can’t say it does.” “Then maybe there won’t be pickled walnuts in the New Jerusalem?” “Not all the righteous have your carnal appetite,” said Martha severely. “You just said Solomon’s sweetheart liked nuts,” said Caleb stoutly. “And dedn’t the Holy Land flow with milk and honey?” He had a vision of it, seamed and riddled like his native mud-flat, but with lacteal creeks and mellifluous pools. “You put me out so,” snapped Bundock, suddenly reappearing before the engrossed couple, “that I forgot to kill my two frogs after all!” And going to the Frog Cottage doorway, he knocked officially before opening it and committing the letter to the empty interior. “You’ll be witness that I delivered it constitutionally,” he said, “for I can’t be expected to come a third time.” “’Tis a windfall your coming a second,” cried Caleb eagerly, “bein’ as we can’t read the letter.” Martha made facial contortions to remind him that Bundock was barred. “’Tain’t you we want to read it,” he hurriedly added, “but when a letter comes all of an onplunge, time a man’s peacefully trimmin’ the werges, he ain’t prepared like. You haven’t got a moment—did, Oi’d be glad o’ your counsel on the matter.”