“Where’s thy baby, Ruth?” said Rachel.

“O, he’s coming; but thy Mary caught him as I came in, and ran off with him to the barn, to show him to the children.”

At this moment, the door opened, and Mary, an honest, rosy-looking girl, with large brown eyes, like her mother’s, came in with the baby.

“Ah! ha!” said Rachel, coming up, and taking the great, white, fat fellow in her arms, “how good he looks, and how he does grow!”

“To be sure, he does,” said little bustling Ruth, as she took the child, and began taking off a little blue silk hood, and various layers and wrappers of outer garments; and having given a twitch here, and a pull there, and variously adjusted and arranged him, and kissed him heartily, she set him on the floor to collect his thoughts.  Baby seemed quite used to this mode of proceeding, for he put his thumb in his mouth (as if it were quite a thing of course), and seemed soon absorbed in his own reflections, while the mother seated herself, and taking out a long stocking of mixed blue and white yarn, began to knit with briskness.

“Mary, thee’d better fill the kettle, hadn’t thee?” gently suggested the mother.

Mary took the kettle to the well, and soon reappearing, placed it over the stove, where it was soon purring and steaming, a sort of censer of hospitality and good cheer.  The peaches, moreover, in obedience to a few gentle whispers from Rachel, were soon deposited, by the same hand, in a stew-pan over the fire.

Rachel now took down a snowy moulding-board, and, tying on an apron, proceeded quietly to making up some biscuits, first saying to Mary,—­“Mary, hadn’t thee better tell John to get a chicken ready?” and Mary disappeared accordingly.

“And how is Abigail Peters?” said Rachel, as she went on with her biscuits.

“O, she’s better,” said Ruth; “I was in, this morning; made the bed, tidied up the house.  Leah Hills went in, this afternoon, and baked bread and pies enough to last some days; and I engaged to go back to get her up, this evening.”

“I will go in tomorrow, and do any cleaning there may be, and look over the mending,” said Rachel.

“Ah! that is well,” said Ruth.  “I’ve heard,” she added, “that Hannah Stanwood is sick.  John was up there, last night,—­I must go there tomorrow.”

“John can come in here to his meals, if thee needs to stay all day,” suggested Rachel.

“Thank thee, Rachel; will see, tomorrow; but, here comes Simeon.”

Simeon Halliday, a tall, straight, muscular man, in drab coat and pantaloons, and broad-brimmed hat, now entered.

“How is thee, Ruth?” he said, warmly, as he spread his broad open hand for her little fat palm; “and how is John?”

“O!  John is well, and all the rest of our folks,” said Ruth, cheerily.

“Any news, father?” said Rachel, as she was putting her biscuits into the oven.

“Peter Stebbins told me that they should be along tonight, with friends,” said Simeon, significantly, as he was washing his hands at a neat sink, in a little back porch.