a very strong business woman."

"She got her training, likely, from that uncle in New York. He had the
business head. The old man had no more contrivance than one of the bulls
in his pastures. He could lock horns and stay there, but it wa'nt no
trouble to outflank him. More than once his brother Jacob got to the
windward of him in a bargain. He was made a good deal like his own land.
Winters of frost it took to break up that ground, and sun and rain to
meller it, and then't was a hatful of soil to a cartful of stone. The
plough would jump the furrows if you drew it deep. My arms used to ache as
if they'd been pounded, with the jar of them stones. They used to tell us
children a story how Satan, he flew over the earth a-sowing it with rocks
and stones, and as he was passing over our county a hole bu'st through his
leather apron and he lost his whole load right slam there. I could 'a'
p'inted out the very spot where the heft on it fell. Ten Stone meadow,
so-called. Ten million stone! I was pickin' stone in that field all of one
summer when I was fifteen year old. We built a mile of fence with it.

"Them quarries must have brought a mint of money into the country.
Different sort of labor, too. Well, the world grows richer and poorer
every year. More difference every year between the way rich folks and poor
folks live. I wouldn't know where I belonged, 't ain't likely, if I was to
go back there. I'd be way off! One while I used to think a good deal about
going back, just to take a look around. It comes over me lately like
hunger and thirst. I think about the most curious things when I'm
asleep--foolish, like a child! I can smell all the good home smells of a
frosty morning: apple pomace, steaming in the barnyard; sausage frying;
Becky scouring the brass furnace-kittle with salt and vinegar. Killin'
time, you know--makes you think of boiling souse and head-cheese. You ever
eat souse?" The packer sucked in his breath with a lean smile. "It ain't