"Butter I know they've got, and milk, for I see Wilkins stop up
there this mornin' as I come down, and I wondered who on earth had
taken that God-forsaken little cottage. 'Twasn't occupied last
season. Cryin' right out loud, was she? She must 'a been all tired
out to make such a fuss over a tin o' huckleberry bread. I s'pose
she hasn't got many breakfasts in her life. Ten to one 'twas Myra
Tenny that disappointed her: it sounds like her. Always undertakin'
more 'n any one woman c'd possibly attend to, and then goin' back on
you. Pretty cross himself, was he? Well, they'd had words, most
likely. They take it hard at first. They ain't long married, of
course, if they're young as you say. Poor things. There, I guess
that's about all."
Luella closed the kitchen door softly and they hurried along the
trail.
"He's off as sound as a baby," she confided to Caroline, "sometimes
he'll sleep two hours, he's up so much in the night."
As the relief expedition neared the cottage, Henry D. Thoreau
bounded out to greet them, the girl behind him, still flushed and
swollen-eyed, but with her thick, reddish hair newly braided in a
crown around her head.
"Good afternoon," Luella called cheerily, "I hear you're in trouble
up here! You ought to let me known--I'm the one for jobs like this.
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