"Ef you'd jest go along and try a coat on, Pa, like I want you to, you might git a better fit and be better suited too," remonstrated Miss Lucy mildly, although her lips trembled, as she carefully folded the coat, and laid it on a bottom shelf of the press, and smoothed the wrinkle on the bed where the bundle had lain. "And Pa," she added, "Brother and Sister Avery's a comin' out this evenin' to stay all night. I told 'em you'd be awful glad,--you got so lonesome a settin' 'round since you'd had the rheumatism so bad and the doctor told you not to work any." "Why'n't you git some crackers, Lucy, ef you knowed comp'ny was comin'?" asked Miss Nancy. "We won't have no time to bake no lightbread between now and the time they git here, and we ought to have somethin' to eat with the beef soup." "I did," replied Miss Lucy following her sister to the big, low-ceiled kitchen whose woodwork, cupboard shelves, biscuit board, and puncheon floor were alike white and immaculate with much scrubbing. Miss Nancy emptied the sugar into its jar and poured out the crackers. "Why'n't you git square crackers?" she grumbled, as the round soda biscuits rattled in the tin can. "They didn't have none, Nancy, where I took the butter, no kind but the round ones," explained Miss Lucy: "I didn't have no time to go nowhere else then, it was so late, and I had to go around through Plumville to get the money the colored woman owed me on the last dress I made her. I wanted to order that safety razor for Pa for Christmas, with the money." She lowered her voice, so the old man, partially deaf, could not hear. "Then I wouldn't go back through town; I thought I ought to save the mare all the pullin' I could. The apples I took made a right heavy load goin'--" "I don't thenk you tried to save her much," broke in her father tartly, laying a scant armful of stovewood by the little cracked stove whose high polish would have led even a stove-dealer to strike off ten years from its real age: "that thar mar's mighty nigh into the thumps. I lay you driv' her too fast!" "Why, Pa, I walked her all the way back from town." Miss Lucy's voice was gently deprecative. "Wall, hit's a good theng you did, because she's got a shoe off, and her foot's all turned up like a cheer rocker now." "The stock seems to be enjoyin' their stalks. Who foddered for you today, Pa?" ventured Miss Lucy, thinking to divert his thoughts. "Whar's your mem'ry, Lucy Ann?" fretted Mr. James. "Didn't I go down to Doggett's yistiddy and git Marshall to promise to come? He's the only one o' the Doggetts that I can ever git to do anytheng fer me. He's been about more'n the others, a workin' up thar in Ohawo, and he's learnt the value of a promise. Old Man Doggett'll promise you anytheng when he hain't got no notion he's goin' to have time to do hit,--he's so afeerd o' bein' disagreeable, then he'll tell you he hated hit awful, but he jest possible couldn't come!"