“My Willis, to be sure.  The gentleman that came here and fixed everything last December, paid Willis one hundred dollars to attend to it, and keep the weeds down.  He said he might come back unexpectedly almost any time, and that he did not want to see so much as a blade of grass in the walks; so you see Willis goes there every Saturday and straightens up things.  What is his name, and who is he anyhow?  He only told us he was a friend of yours, and that his mother had adopted you.”

“What sort of a looking person was he, Mrs. Wood?”

“Oh, child! if he is so good to you, I ought not to say; but he was a powerful, grim-looking man, with fierce eyes and a thick mustache, and hair almost pepper-and-salt; and bless your soul, honey! his shoulders were as broad as a barn-door.  While he talked I didn’t like his countenance, it was dark like a pirate’s, or one of those prowling cattle-thieves over in the coves.  He asked a power of questions about you and your Grandpa, and when I said you had no kin on earth, that I ever heard of, he laughed, that is, he showed his teeth, and said, ‘So much the better! so much the better!’ What is his name?”

“Mr. Murray, and he has been very kind to me.”

“But, Edna, I thought you went to the factory to work?  Do tell me how you fell into the hands of such rich people?”

Edna briefly acquainted her with what had occurred during her long absence, and informed her of her plans for the future; and while she listened Mrs. Wood lighted her pipe, and resting her elbow on her knee, dropped her face on her hands, and watched her visitor’s countenance.

Finally she nodded to her daughter, saying:  “Do you hear that, Bitha?  She can write for the papers and get paid for it!  And she is smart enough to teach!  Well! well! that makes me say what I do say, and I stick to it, where there’s a will there’s a way! and where there’s no hearty will, all the ways in creation won’t take folks to an education!  Some children can’t be kicked and kept down; spite of all the world they will manage to scuffle up somehow; and then again, some can’t be cuffed and coaxed and dragged up by the ears!  Here’s Edna, that always had a hankering after books, and she has made something of herself; and here’s my girl, that I wanted to get book-learning, and I slaved and I saved to send her to school, and sure enough she has got no more use for reading, and knows as little as her poor mother, who never had a chance to learn.  It is no earthly use to fly in the face of blood and nature!  ’What is bred in the bone, won’t come out in the flesh!’ Some are cut out for one thing and some for another!  Jerusalem artichokes won’t bear hops, and persimmons don’t grow on blackjacks!”

She put her brawny brown hand on Edna’s forehead, and smoothed the bands of hair, and sighed heavily.

“Mrs. Wood, I should like to see Brindle once more.”