"
"You lead a very quiet life, apparently," said Miss Defourchet; for she
meant to see what was in all these dull trifles.
"Yes, thee might call it so. My old man farms; he has more skill that
way than me. He bought land in Iowa, an' has been out seein' it, an'
that freshened him up this spring. But we'll never leave the old place."
"So he farms, and you"--
"Well, I oversee the house," glancing at the word into the kitchen to
see how Bessy was getting on with the state dinner in progress. "It
keeps me busy, an' Bessy, (she's an orphan we've taken to raise,) an'
the dairy, an' Richard most of all. I let nobody touch Richard but
myself. That's my work."
"You have little time for reading?"
Jane colored.
"I'm not fond of it. A book always put me to sleep quicker than a hop
pillow. But lately I read some things," hesitating,--"the first books
Richard'll have to know. I want to keep him with ourselves as long as I
can. I'd like,"--her eyes with a new outlook in them, as she raised
them, something beyond Miss Defourchet's experience,--"I'd like to make
my boy a good, healthy, honest boy before _I_'m done with him. I wish I
could teach him his Latin an' th' others.
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