As Martha came from a county in old England of peculiarly equable climate, she lacked her usual energy in the New England August, and a sort of mental prickly heat usually settled upon her, more trying than the bodily variety. In fact, the most strenuous part of the season’s labour was over: the early chicks were already broilers; the next group were firm on their feet, and the late ones not yet to be set; while the old hens spent all their time kicking up the dust and moulting with a thoroughness sometimes embarrassing to the beholder. By this time also the jam and jelly gamut had been run through strawberries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and the rest, leaving only peaches, the spicy beach plums, and quinces for the future, so that Martha’s capable hands were fairly empty, save for the bit of housework, and what was that with a husband as canty and well-drilled as Timothy? Thus it came about that, into what should have been Martha’s vacation time, unrest entered, and each year she managed to worry herself and prod Timothy into the pursuit of some new scheme which, fortunately, generally came to an end with the first cool day of autumn. “The woman’s harvest spells” were what Timothy called this mild sort of summer madness, and in speaking of it to father, he once said: “Of coorse ye ken, Dochtor, that some weemen are mickle like their own settin’ hens: when busy season’s over, they’r nae content to scratch beetles in the bonny fresh grass in the pasture, and moult quiet like, but they must raise up dust and maak the feathers fly. Hecht! Dochtor, ye ken, ye ken, and naught said, I see it in yer eye!” In one of these temporary summer periods, Martha had become a convert to Christian Science, but backslid before winter, because she continued to have the nosebleed, for which she had paid no small sum to be cured by absent treatment, and about the failure of this method she expressed her mind freely. “Tush, tush, woman, and dinna fash yoursel,” said Timothy, with twinkling eyes. “Doubtless they meant ye weel, but their minds was na pooerful enoo to send the healin’ through sic braw oak trees as we hae hereaboot! Man has to stick up poles like birds’ twigs to catch this new no-wire telegraph, so mebbe had we a braw toor on the hoose to draw it down, yer nose might catch the benefit o’ their far-away healin’!” Then Martha sniffed and eyed her spouse dubiously, for his Scotch birth should have made it impossible for him to joke, even though constant contact with father and Evan had inoculated him with the tendency. The next August it was the Salvation Army that stirred Martha’s religious conscience, for she had two of these useful articles,—one that guided her actions as regards life in general, and another that was wholly devoted to the interests of her beloved Mr. Evan and his family.