“Wal, next week, Huldy, she jist borrowed the minister’s horse and side-saddle, and rode over to South Parish to her Aunt Bascome’s,—Widder Bascome’s, you know, that lives there by the trout-brook,—and got a lot o’ turkey eggs o’ her, and come back and set a hen on ’em, and said nothin’; and in good time there was as nice a lot o’ turkey-chicks as ever ye see. “Huldy never said a word to the minister about his experiment, and he never said a word to her; but he sort o’ kep’ more to his books, and didn’t take it on him to advise so much. “But not long arter he took it into his head that Huldy ought to have a pig to be a fattin’ with the buttermilk. “Mis’ Pipperidge set him up to it; and jist then old Tom Bigelow, out to Juniper Hill, told him if he’d call over he’d give him a little pig. “So he sent for a man, and told him to build a pig-pen right out by the well, and have it all ready when he came home with his pig. “Huldy said she wished he might put a curb round the well out there, because, in the dark sometimes, a body might stumble into it; and the parson said he might do that. “Wal, old Aikin, the carpenter, he didn’t come till ’most the middle of the arternoon; and then he sort o’ idled, so that he didn’t get up the well-curb till sundown; and then he went off, and said he’d come and do the pig-pen next day. “Wal, arter dark, Parson Carryl, he driv into the yard, full chizel, with his pig. “‘There, Huldy, I’ve got you a nice little pig.’ “‘Dear me!’ says Huldy; ‘where have you put him?’ “‘Why, out there in the pig-pen, to be sure.’ “‘Oh, dear me!’ says Huldy, ‘that’s the well-curb—there ain’t no pig-pen built,’ says she. “‘Lordy massy!’ says the parson; ‘then I’ve thrown the pig in the well!’ “Wal, Huldy, she worked and worked, and finally she fished piggy out in the bucket, but he was as dead as a door-nail; and she got him out o’ the way quietly, and didn’t say much; and the parson he took to a great Hebrew book in his study. “Arter that the parson set sich store by Huldy that he come to her and asked her about everything, and it was amazin’ how everything she put her hand to prospered. Huldy planted marigolds and larkspurs, pinks and carnations, all up and down the path to the front door; and trained up mornin’ glories and scarlet runners round the windows. And she was always gettin’ a root here, and a sprig there, and a seed from somebody else; for Huldy was one o’ them that has the gift, so that ef you jist give ’em the leastest of anything they make a great bush out of it right away; so that in six months Huldy had roses and geraniums and lilies, sich as it would take a gardener to raise.