Lizzie Graham plucked at the dry grass at her side. "That's so.
'Tain't one person's chore more 'an another's. But--there! If this
wa'n't Jonesville, I believe I'd let him stay with me till he finishes
up his machine."

"Why, Lizzie Graham!" cried Mrs. Butterfield, "what you talkin' about?
You couldn't do it--you. You ain't got to spare, in the first place.
And anyway, him an unmarried man, and you a widow woman! Besides,
he'll never finish it."

Lizzie's face reddened angrily. "Guess I could have a visitor as well
as anybody."

"Oh, I didn't mean you wouldn't be a good provider," Mrs. Butterfield
said, turning red herself. "I meant folks would talk."

"Folks could find something better to talk about," Lizzie said;
"Jonesville is just nothin' but a nest o' real mean, lyin' gossip!"

"Well, that's so," Mrs. Butterfield agreed, placidly.

Lizzie Graham put on her sunbonnet. "Better be gettin' along," she
said.

Mrs. Butterfield rose ponderously. "And they'd say you was a
spiritualist, too; they'd say you took him to get his ghost-machine
made."

"That's just what I would do," the other answered, sharply. "I ain't a