“She acts awful queer, seems to me,” said Thankful.  “Not the way she did at first at all.  In the beginnin’ I had to plan pretty well to keep her from runnin’ in and sp’ilin’ my whole mornin’ with her talk.  Now she seems to be keepin’ out of my way.  What we’ve done to make her act so I can’t see, and neither can Emily.”

Captain Bangs, to whom this remark was addressed, laughed.

“You ain’t done anything, I guess,” he said.  “It ain’t you she’s down on; it’s your hired girl, the Imogene one.  She seems to be more down on that Imogene than a bow anchor on a mud flat.  They don’t hitch horses, those two.  You see she tries to boss and condescend and Imogene gives her as good as she sends.  It’s got so that Hannah is actually scared of that girl; don’t pretend to be, of course; calls her ‘the inmate’ and all sorts of names.  But she is scared of her and don’t like her.”

Thankful was troubled.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “Imogene is independent, but she’s an awful kind-hearted girl.  I do hate trouble amongst neighbors.”

“Oh, there won’t be any trouble.  Hannah’s jealous, that’s all the trouble—­jealous about Kenelm.  You see, she wanted him to come here to work so’s she could have him under her thumb and run over and give him orders every few minutes.  Imogene gives him orders, too, and he minds; she makes him.  Hannah don’t like that; ‘cordin’ to her notion Kenelm hadn’t ought to have any skipper but her.  It’s all right, though, Mrs. Barnes.  It’s good for Kenelm and it’s good for Hannah.  Do ’em both good, I cal’late.”

But when Kenelm announced that he wasn’t sure but that he should “heave up his job” in a fortnight or so, the situation became more serious.

“He mustn’t leave,” declared Thankful.  “August and early September are the times when I’ve got to have a man on the place, and you say yourself, Captain Bangs, that there isn’t another man to be had just now.  If he goes—­”

“Oh, he won’t go.  This is more of Hannah’s talk; she’s put him up to this leavin’ business.  Offer him another dollar a week, if you have to, and I’ll do some preachin’ to Hannah, myself.”

When Thankful mentioned the matter to Imogene the latter’s comment was puzzling but emphatic.

“Don’t you fret, ma’am,” she said.  “He ain’t left yet.”

“I know; but he says—­”

“He don’t say it.  It’s that sister of his does all the sayin’.  And she ain’t workin’ for you that I know of.”

“Now, Imogene, we mustn’t, any of us, interfere between Kenelm and his sister.  She is his sister, you know.”

“Yes’m.  But she isn’t his mother and his grandmother and his aunt and all his relations.  And, if she was, ’twouldn’t make no difference.  He’s the one to say whether he’s goin’ to leave or not.”

“But he does say it.  That is, he—­”

“He just says he ‘cal’lates.’  He never said he was goin’ to do anything; not for years, anyhow.  It’s all right, Mrs. Thankful.  You just wait and see.  If worst comes to worst I’ve got a—­”