The children swung awhile in silence.  Presently Jimmy broke the quiet by remarking

“Don’t you all feel sorry for old Miss Pollie Bumpus?  She live all by herself, and she ’bout a million years old, and Doctor Sanford ain’t never brung her no chillens ’cause she ain’t got ‘er no husban’ to be their papa, and she got a octopus in her head, and she poor as a post and deaf as job’s old turkey-hen.”

“Job’s old turkey-hen wasn’t deaf,” retorted Lina primly; “she was very, very poor and thin.”

“She was deaf, too,” insisted Jimmy, “’cause it’s in the Bible.  I know all ’bout job,” bragged he.

“I know all ’bout job, too,” chirped Frances.

“Job, nothing!” said Jimmy, with a sneer; “you all time talking ’bout you know all ’bout job; you ’bout the womanishest little girl they is.  Now I know job ’cause Miss Cecilia ’splained all ’bout him to me.  He’s in the Bible and he sold his birthmark for a mess of potatoes and—­”

“You never can get anything right, Jimmy,” interrupted Lina; “that was Esau and it was not his birthmark, it was his birthstone; and he sold his birthstone for a mess of potash.”

“Yas,” agreed Frances; “he saw Esau kissing Kate and Esau had to sell him his birthstone to keep his mouth shut.”

“Mother read me all about job,” continued Lina; “he was afflicted with boils and his wife knit him a job’s comforter to wrap around him, and he—­”

“And he sat under a ’tato vine;” put in Frances eagerly, “what God grew to keep the sun off o’ his boils and—­”

“That was Jonah,” said Lina, “and it wasn’t a potato vine; it was—­”

“No, ’t wasn’t Jonah neither; Jonah is inside of a whale’s bel—­”

“Frances!”

“Stommick,” Frances corrected herself, “and a whale swallow him, and how’s he going to sit under a pumpkin vine when he’s inside of a whale?”

“It was not a pumpkin vine, it—­”

“And I ‘d jus’ like to see a man inside of a whale a-setting under a morning-glory vine.”

“The whale vomicked him up,” said Jimmy.

“What sorter thing is a octopus like what y’ all say is in Miss Pollie Bumpus’s head?” asked Billy.

“’Tain’t a octopus, it’s a polypus,” explained Frances, “’cause she’s named Miss Pollie.  It’s a someping that grows in your nose and has to be named what you’s named.  She’s named Miss Pollie and she’s got a polypus.”

“I’m mighty glad my mama ain’t got no Eva-pus in her head,” was Jimmy’s comment.  “Ain’t you glad, Billy, your Aunt Minerva ain’t got no Miss Minervapus?”

“I sho’ is,” fervently replied Miss Minerva’s nephew; “she’s hard ’nough to manage now like she is.”

“I’m awful good to Miss Pollie,” said Frances.  “I take her someping good to eat ’most every day.  I took her two pieces of pie this morning; I ate up one piece on the way and she gimme the other piece when I got there.  I jus’ don’t believe she could get ’long at all ’thout me to carry her the good things to eat that my mama sends her; I takes her pies all the time, she says they’re the best smelling pies ever she smelt.”