“Now we’ll see, another summer, if we can’t have some butter that’s like butter, and not like soft-soap,” remarked Kitty complacently, when the unhappy Silas announced his task complete.

“And now I hope I can sleep in my bed o’ nights without hearing ‘Ice-house, ice-house!’ till I’m sick o’ the sound of ice,” muttered Silas, walking away.

It is not to be averred, however, that all this thrift was established without much commotion or many stormy scenes; and, not unfrequently, Mehitable Ross announced to her husband that “she wouldn’t stan’ it nohow, to be nosed round this way by a gal not so old as herself!” And Kitty “declared to gracious” that she “never saw such a topping piece as that Hitty Ross since she was born;” and, if “folks undertook to work for other folks, they ought to be willing to do the way they were told;” and she’d “rather do the whole alone than keep round after that contrary creature, seeing that she didn’t get the upper-hands as soon as her back was turned!”

But Dora, without appearing to listen or to look, heard all and saw all.  Dora, cheerful, energetic, and calm, knew how to heal, without appearing to notice the wound; had a faculty, all her own, of leading the mind, vexed with a thousand trifles, to the contemplation of some aim so grand, some thought so high, some love or beauty so serene, that it turned back to daily life calm and refreshed, and strengthened to do or to endure, with new courage.

“Somehow I felt ashamed of jawing so about that wash, when Dora came in, and put her hands into the tub, and, while she was rubbing away, began to tell what a crop of corn we’re going to have; and how the folks down South, the freedmen and all, might have plenty to eat, if every one did as well as we’re doing,” said Mehitable to her husband.

“Yes,” replied Seth:  “she stood by me there in the sun as much as an hour, and told the cutest story you ever heard about the Injins believing that corn is a live creter, and appeared once, in the shape of a young man named Odahmin, to one of the Injin chiefs called Hiawatha; and they had a wrastle.  Hiawatha beat, and killed the other feller, and buried him up in the ground; but he hadn’t more ’n got him under ’fore up he come agin, or ruther some Injin-corn come up:  but they called the green leaves his clothes; and the tossel atop, his plume; and the sprouts was his hands, each holding an ear of corn, that he give to Hiawatha, just as a feller that’s whipped gives another his hat, you know.”

“Do the Injins believe all that now?” asked Mehitable contemptuously.

“They do so.  But, I tell you, I never knew how those two rows got hoed while she was talking:  they seemed to slip right along somehow; and, after she was gone, the time seemed dreadful short till sundown, I was thinking so busy of what she said.”

“Guess you’d been cross ’cause that cultivator didn’t come; hadn’t you?” asked Mehitable slyly.