Her quarry answered patiently, yet with a certain dogged resistance of her,-- "I dunno's there's anything to tell." "How'd it go off?" "'Bout as usual." "Did you speak?" "No." "Lead in prayer?" "No." "Wa'n't you _asked_?" "No." "Well, my soul! Was Roxy Cole there?" "Yes." "Did you fetch her home?" "No, I didn't!" Some mild exasperation animated his tone at last. The Widder detected it, and occupied herself with her tooth. "My soul an' body! I wonder if it's goin' to grumble all night long!" she exclaimed, bending lower over the blaze. "I've tried everything but a roasted raisin, an' I b'lieve I shall come to that." Heman rose, and opened the clock on the mantel; he drew forth the key from under the pendulum, and slowly wound up the time-worn machinery. In another instant, he would be on his way to bed; the Widder knew she must waste no time in hurt silence, if she meant to find out anything. She began hastily,-- "Did they say anything about the church fair?" "They ain't goin' to have it." "Not have it! Well, how _be_ they goin' to git the shinglin' paid for?" "They've got up the idee of an Old Folks' Concert." "Singin'?" "Singin' an' playin'." "Who's goin' to play?" "Brad Freeman an' Jont Marshall agreed to play fust an' second fiddle." Heman paused a moment, and straightened himself with an air of conscious pride; then he added,-- "They've asked me to play the bass-viol." The Widder had no special objections to this arrangement, but it did strike her as an innovation; and when she had no other reason for disapproval, she still believed in it on general principles. So altogether effective a weapon should never rust from infrequent use! "Well!" she announced. "I never heard of such carryin's-on,--never!" Heman was lighting a small kerosene lamp. The little circle of light seemed even brilliant in the dusky room; it affected him with a relief so sudden and manifest as to rouse also a temporary irritation at having endured the previous gloom even for a moment. "'Ain't you got no oil in the house?" he exclaimed, testily. "I wish you'd light up, evenin's, an' not set here by one taller candle!" He had ventured on this remonstrance before, the only one he permitted himself against his housekeeper's ways, and at the instant of making it, he realized its futility. "The gre't lamp's all full," said the Widder, warming her apron and pressing it to her poulticed face. "You can light it, if you've got the heart to. That was poor Mary's lamp, an' hard as I've tried, I never could bring myself to put a match to that wick. How many evenin's I've seen her set by it, rockin' back'ards an' for'ards,--an' her needle goin' in an' out! She was a worker, if ever there was one, poor creatur'! At it all the time, jes' like a silk-worm."