“My gorry!” exclaimed Widow Tobin, “them pore creatur’s looks as cheerless as little birch-trees in snow-time.  I hope they dresses ’em warmer this time o’ year.  Now, there! look at that one jumpin’ through the little hoop, will ye?”

“He couldn’t git himself through there with two pair o’ pants on,” answered Mr. Briley.  “I expect they must have to keep limber as eels.  I used to think, when I was a boy, that ’twas the only thing I could ever be reconciled to do for a livin’.  I set out to run away an’ follow a rovin’ showman once, but mother needed me to home.  There warn’t nobody but me an’ the little gals.”

“You ain’t the only one that’s be’n disapp’inted o’ their heart’s desire,” said Mrs. Tobin sadly. “’T warn’t so that I could be spared from home to learn the dressmaker’s trade.”

“’T would a come handy later on, I declare,” answered the sympathetic driver, “bein’ ‘s you went an’ had such a passel o’ gals to clothe an’ feed.  There, them that’s livin’ is all well off now, but it must ha’ been some inconvenient for ye when they was small.”

“Yes, Mr. Briley, but then I’ve had my mercies, too,” said the widow somewhat grudgingly.  “I take it master hard now, though, havin’ to give up my own home and live round from place to place, if they be my own child’en.  There was Ad’line and Susan Ellen fussin’ an’ bickerin’ yesterday about who’d got to have me next; and, Lord be thanked, they both wanted me right off but I hated to hear ’em talkin’ of it over.  I’d rather live to home, and do for myself.”

“I’ve got consider’ble used to boardin’,” said Jefferson, “sence ma’am died, but it made me ache ’long at the fust on ‘t, I tell ye.  Bein’ on the road’s I be, I couldn’t do no ways at keepin’ house.  I should want to keep right there and see to things.”

“Course you would,” replied Mrs. Tobin, with a sudden inspiration of opportunity which sent a welcome glow all over her.  “Course you would, Jeff’son,”—­she leaned toward the front seat; “that is to say, onless you had jest the right one to do it for ye.”

And Jefferson felt a strange glow also, and a sense of unexpected interest and enjoyment.

“See here, Sister Tobin,” he exclaimed with enthusiasm.  “Why can’t ye take the trouble to shift seats, and come front here long o’ me?  We could put one buff’lo top o’ the other,—­they’re both wearin’ thin,—­and set close, and I do’ know but we sh’d be more protected ag’inst the weather.”

“Well, I couldn’t be no colder if I was froze to death,” answered the widow, with an amiable simper.  “Don’t ye let me delay you, nor put you out, Mr. Briley.  I don’t know’s I’d set forth to-day if I’d known ’t was so cold; but I had all my bundles done up, and I ain’t one that puts my hand to the plough an’ looks back, ‘cordin’ to Scriptur’.”

“You wouldn’t wanted me to ride all them seven miles alone?” asked the gallant Briley sentimentally, as he lifted her down, and helped her up again to the front seat.  She was a few years older than he, but they had been schoolmates, and Mrs. Tobin’s youthful freshness was suddenly revived to his mind’s eye.  She had a little farm; there was nobody left at home now but herself, and so she had broken up housekeeping for the winter.  Jefferson himself had savings of no mean amount.