I do all I can, but land! 't ain't like havin' a woman in the
house from sunrise to set."
"There's nothing like that," agreed the wise young schoolmaster. "Now
let's play some more. Let's plan what we'd like to do to-morrow for all
the folks we know, and let's not give them a thing they need, but just
the ones they'd like."
Miss Susan put down her knitting again. She never could talk to the
schoolmaster and keep at work. It made her dreamy, exactly as it did to
sit in the hot summer sunshine, with the droning of bees in the air.
"Well," said she, "there's old Ann Wheeler that lives over on the
turnpike. She don't want for nothin', but she keeps her things packed
away up garret, an' lives like a pig."
"'Sold her bed and lay in the straw.'"
"That's it, on'y she won't sell nuthin'. I'd give her a house all
winders, so 't she couldn't help lookin' out, an' velvet carpets 't
she'd got to walk on."
"Well, there's Cap'n Ben. The boys say he's out of his head a good deal
now; he fancies himself at sea and in foreign countries."
"Yes, so they say. Well, I'd let him set down a spell in Solomon's
temple an' look round him. My sake! do you remember about the temple?
Why, the nails was all gold.
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