Presently Gay was laid upon the old-fashioned settle, and Samantha
stationed herself where she could keep the flies off her by waving a
palm-leaf fan.

"Now, there's one thing more I want you to tell me," said she, after she
had possessed herself of Timothy's unhappy past, uncertain present, and
still more dubious future; "and that is, what made you ask for Miss
Marthy Cummins when you come to the door?"

"Why, I thought it was the lady-of-the-house's name," said Timothy; "I
saw it on her doorplate."

"But we ain't got any doorplate, to begin with."

"Not a silver one on your door, like they have in the city; but isn't
that white marble piece in the yard a doorplate? It's got 'Martha
Cummins, aged 17,' on it. I thought may be in the country they had them
in their gardens; only I thought it was queer they put their ages on
them, because they'd have to be scratched out every little while,
wouldn't they?"

"My grief!" ejaculated Samantha; "for pity's sake, don't you know a
tombstun when you see it?"

"No; what is a tombstun?"

"Land sakes! what do you know, any way? Didn't you never see a graveyard
where folks is buried?"

"I never went to the graveyard, but I know where it is, and I know