‘I don’t rightly know myself which one ’twas. Miss Culver she said it was the blue chintz one, but I don’t recollect as they had no blue sofy; I don’t seem to know exactly what they did have. Hannah never was just the same to me after we had that tiff over the raspberry jam she and I made for the church sale; but I aint goin’ to bring that up agin her, now she’s laid low; I shall go up there just the same in their time of trouble.’ ‘I s’pose the sofy must have been a new one, or they wouldn’t have been so keen to save it.’ ‘I guess ’twas;--seems as if these doughnuts wouldn’t never brown; it’s always so when you’re in a hurry.’ ‘I guess I’ll ask Maria about that sofy,’ said Jane; ‘it’s likely that she’ll tell all she knows when she gets used to the situation; I always thought Maria was a sight nicer than she seemed. I know once she came near tellin’ me how they made that soft soap, that special kind you know, so white, and it keeps like jell, year after year; ’twas at a sewin’-bee, and Maria she warmed up and was just goin’ to tell me, when Hannah she came in, and Maria she shet up as quick as anythin’. It was sort of curious how she knuckled down to Hannah. Did you ever think Hannah was sort of set?’ added Jane, in a low, mysterious tone. ‘Hannah _set_! She was sotter’n a meetin’-house, and you know it, Jane Peebles, for all you sided with her about that raspberry jam.’ Widder Luke’s eyes flashed as she lifted the kettle of hot fat. She got in a good stroke on an old score, and Jane did not dare to retort. Soon after twelve she and Jane Peebles were walking through the lane towards the Fifes’--there was a Sunday air about their dresses, but a Monday decision in their faces; the reporting in hill towns is done mostly by such volunteers, and one must ‘git up airly’ for the first news. Widder Luke carried a plate of doughnuts as a neighborly tribute to the occasion. At the Corners the women paused a moment; they could see from where they stood the black skeleton of the burned barn silhouetted against the sky, beyond ‘Huckleberry Hill.’ Just then Si Briggs came along in his spring wagon, with two strange ladies on the back seat. They took the right-hand road that led to the old Keys place, and as they passed, Mr. Briggs drew his reins with an osh-sh-sh to his horse. ‘Won’t you get in and ride up the hill?’ Widder Luke and Miss Peebles decorously hesitated a moment, and then climbed over the wheel and sat on either side of Mr. Briggs, who settled himself leisurely between the two women with neighborly familiarity. Then pointing backward with the butt-end of his whip to indicate and introduce his passengers, he said: ‘These ladies were pretty well disappointed to find the Keys house burnt up; they come all the way from--where did you say ’twas you come from?’ ‘We came down from the Adirondacks,’ said Rita. ‘We wanted to call on Miss Hannah and Maria, and if possible to get a sketch of the house, to paint a picture of it.’