porch, and a great sweet-brier bush thereby; while up the hill-side
behind stretched a high picket fence, enclosing huge trees, part of
the same brook I had crossed here dammed into a pond, and a
chicken-house of pretentious height and aspect,--one of those model
institutions that are the ruin of gentlemen-farmers and the delight of
women. I had to go into the farm-kitchen for the poultry-yard key.
The door stood open, and I stepped in cautiously, lest I should come
unaware upon some domestic scene not intended to be visible to the
naked eye. And a scene I did come upon, fit for Retzsch to
outline;--the cleanest kitchen, a dresser of white wood under one
window, and the farmer's daughter, Melinda Tucker, moulding bread
thereat in a ponderous tray; her deep red hair,--yes, it was red and
comely! of the deepest bay, full of gilded reflections, and
accompanied by the fair, rose-flushed skin, blue eyes, and scarlet
lips that belong to such hair,--which, as I began to say, was puckered
into a thousand curves trying to curl, and knotted strictly against a
pretty head, while her calico frock-sleeves were pinned-back to the
shoulders, baring such a dimpled pair of arms,--how they did fly up
and down in the tray! I stood still contemplating the picture, and
presently seeing her begin to strip the dough from her pink fingers
and mould it into a mass, I ventured to knock. If you had seen her
start and blush, Polder! But when she saw me, she grew as cool as you
please, and called her mother. Down came Mrs. Tucker, a talking
Yankee. You don't know what that is. Listen, then.

"Well, good day, sir! I'xpect it's Mister Greene, Miss Smith's
cousin. Well, you be! Don't favor her much though; she's kinder dark
complected. She ha'n't got round yet, hes she? Dew tell! She's
dre'ful delicate. I do'no' as ever I see a woman so sickly's she looks
ter be sence that 'ere fever. She's real spry when she's so's to be