“She had a changeable silk, yellow and blue, made with a surplus front; and when she wore that, the ground wasn’t good enough for her to walk on, so some folks used to say; but I never thought Sally was a bit proud or lifted up; and if any body was sick there was no better-hearted creature than she; and then, she was always good-natured as the day was long, and would sing all the time at her work.  I remember, along before she was married, she used to sing one song a great deal, beginning

    ‘I’ve got a sweetheart with bright black eyes;’

and they said she meant William McMicken by that, and that she might not get him after all—­for a good many thought they would never make a match, their dispositions were so contrary.  William was of a dreadful quiet turn, and a great home body; and as for being rich, he had nothing to brag of, though he was high larnt and followed the river as dark sometimes.”

Mrs. Hill had by this time prepared her currants, and Mrs. Troost paused from her story while she filled the kettle and attached the towel to the end of the well-sweep, where it waved as a signal for Peter to come to supper.

“Now, just move your chair a leetle nearer the kitchen door, if you please,” said Mrs. Hill, “and I can make up my biscuit and hear you, too.”

Meantime, coming to the door with some bread-crumbs in her hands, she began scattering them on the ground and calling, “Biddy, biddy, biddy—­chicky, chicky, chicky”—­hearing which, a whole flock of poultry was around her in a minute; and, stooping down, she secured one of the fattest, which, an hour afterward, was broiled for supper.

“Dear me, how easily you get along!” said Mrs. Troost.

And it was some time before she could compose herself sufficiently to take up the thread of her story.  At length, however, she began with—­

“Well, as I was saying, nobody thought William McMicken would marry Sally May.  Poor man! they say he is not like himself any more.  He may get a dozen wives, but he’ll never get another Sally.  A good wife she made him, for all she was such a wild girl.

“The old man May was opposed to the marriage, and threatened to turn Sally, his own daughter, out of house and home; but she was headstrong, and would marry whom she pleased; and so she did, though she never got a stitch of new clothes, nor one thing to keep house with.  No; not one single thing did her father give her when she went away but a hive of bees.  He was right down ugly, and called her Mrs. McMicken whenever he spoke to her after she was married; but Sally didn’t seem to mind it, and took just as good care of the bees as though they were worth a thousand dollars.  Every day in Winter she used to feed them—­maple-sugar, if she had it; and if she had not, a little Muscovade in a saucer or some old broken dish.

“But it happened one day that a bee stung her on the hand—­the right one, I think it was—­and Sally said right away that it was a bad sign; and that very night she dreamed that she went out to feed her bees, and a piece of black crape was tied on the hive.  She felt that it was a token of death, and told her husband so, and she told me and Mrs. Hanks.  No, I won’t be sure she told Mrs. Hanks, but Mrs. Hanks got to hear it some way.”