Now, when country folks get out of salt pork, they are what I call middlin' poor." And Mrs.Perkins finished her speech with the largest pinch of maccaboy she could possibly hold between her thumb and forefinger.
"Miss Perkins," said an old lady who was famous for occasionally rubbing the widow down, "Miss Perkins, that's just as folks think.
It's no worse to be out of pork than 'tis to eat codfish the whole durin' time." This was a home thrust, for Mrs.Perkins, who always kept one or two boarders, and among them the school-teacher was notorious for feeding them on codfish.
Bridling up in a twinkling, her little gray eyes flashed fire as she replied, "I s'pose it's me you mean, Miss Bates; but I guess I've a right to eat what I'm a mind to.

I only ask a dollar and ninepence a week for boarding the school marm--" "And makes money at that," whispered a rosy-cheeked girlish-looking woman, who the summer before had been the "school-marm," and who now bore the name of a thrifty young farmer.
Mrs.Perkins, however, did not notice this interruption but proceeded with, "Yes, a dollar and ninepence is all I ever ask, and if I kept them so dreadful slim, I guess the committee man wouldn't always come to me the first one." "Mrs.Perkins, here's the pint," said Mrs.Bates, dropping a stitch in her zeal to explain matters; "you see the cheaper they get the school-ma'am boarded, the further the money goes, and the longer school they have.

Don't you understand it ?" Mrs.Knight, fancying that affairs were assuming altogether too formidable an aspect, adroitly turned the conversation upon the heroine of our story, saying how glad she was that Mary had at last found so good a home.
"So am I," said Mrs.Bates; "for we all know that Mrs.Mason will take just as good care of her, as though she were her own; and she's had a mighty hard time of it, knocked around there at the poor-house under Polly Grundy's thumb." "They do say," said Mrs.Perkins, whose anger had somewhat cooled, "They do say that Miss Grundy is mowing a wide swath over there, and really expects to have Mr.Parker, if his wife happens to die." In her girlhood Mrs.Perkins had herself fancied Mr.Parker, and now in her widowhood, she felt an unusual interest in the failing health of his wife.

No one replied to her remark, and Mrs.Bates continued: "It really used to make my heart ache to see the little forlorn thing sit there in the gallery, fixed up so old and fussy, and then to see her sister prinked out like a milliner's show window, a puckerin' and twistin', and if she happens to catch her sister's eye, I have actually seen her turn up her nose at her,--so--" and Mrs.Bates's nasal organ went up towards her eyebrows in imitation of the look which Ella sometimes gave Mary.

"It's wicked in me, perhaps," said Mrs.Bates, "but pride must have a fall, and I do hope I shall live to see the day when Ella Campbell won't be half as well off as her sister." "I think Mrs.Campbell is answerable for some of Ella's conduct," said Mrs.Knight, "for I believe she suffered her to visit the poor-house but once while Mary was there." "I guess she'll come oftener now she's living with a city bug," rejoined Mrs.Perkins.
Just then there was the sound of carriage wheels, and a woman near the door exclaimed, "If you'll believe it there she is now, going right straight into Mrs.Mason's yard." "Well, if that don't beat me," said Mrs.Perkins.