spruce wood atween them and all the rest of the world. They
never go away anywheres, except to church--they never miss
that--and nobody goes there. There's just old Thomas, and his
sister Janet, and a niece of theirs, and this here Neil we've
been talking about. They're a queer, dour, cranky lot, and I
WILL say it, Mother. There, give your old man a cup of tea and
never mind the way his tongue runs on. Speaking of tea, do you
know Mrs. Adam Palmer and Mrs. Jim Martin took tea together at
Foster Reid's last Wednesday afternoon?"

"No, why, I thought they were on bad terms," said Mrs.
Williamson, betraying a little feminine curiosity.

"So they are, so they are. But they both happened to visit Mrs.
Foster the same afternoon and neither would leave because that
would be knuckling down to the other. So they stuck it out, on
opposite sides of the parlour. Mrs. Foster says she never spent
such an uncomfortable afternoon in all her life before. She
would talk a spell to one and then t'other. And they kept
talking TO Mrs. Foster and AT each other. Mrs. Foster says she
really thought she'd have to keep them all night, for neither
would start to go home afore the other. Finally Jim Martin came
in to look for his wife, 'cause he thought she must have got
stuck in the marsh, and that solved the problem. Master, you
ain't eating anything. Don't mind my stopping; I was at it half
an hour afore you come, and anyway I'm in a hurry. My hired boy
went home to-day. He heard the rooster crow at twelve last night
and he's gone home to see which of his family is dead. He knows
one of 'em is. He heard a rooster crow in the middle of the
night onct afore and the next day he got word that his second