The Country of the Pointed Firs

I thought by the polite absent-minded smile on Mrs. Todd's face this was no new story. “Little Louisa was a beautiful child; yes, I always thought Louisa was very pretty,” Mrs. Todd said. “She was a dear little girl in those days. She favored your mother; the rest of you took after your father's folks.” “We did certain,” agreed Mrs. Fosdick, rocking steadily. “There, it does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance that knows what you know. I see so many of these new folks nowadays, that seem to have neither past nor future. Conversation's got to have some root in the past, or else you've got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears a person out.” Mrs. Todd gave a funny little laugh. “Yes'm, old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of,” she said, and we gave an affectionate glance at each other which Mrs. Fosdick could not have understood, being the latest comer to the house. XIII. Poor Joanna ONE EVENING my ears caught a mysterious allusion which Mrs. Todd made to Shell-heap Island. It was a chilly night of cold northeasterly rain, and I made a fire for the first time in the Franklin stove in my room, and begged my two housemates to come in and keep me company. The weather had convinced Mrs. Todd that it was time to make a supply of cough-drops, and she had been bringing forth herbs from dark and dry hiding-places, until now the pungent dust and odor of them had resolved themselves into one mighty flavor of spearmint that came from a simmering caldron of syrup in the kitchen. She called it done, and well done, and had ostentatiously left it to cool, and taken her knitting-work because Mrs. Fosdick was busy with hers. They sat in the two rocking-chairs, the small woman and the large one, but now and then I could see that Mrs. Todd's thoughts remained with the cough-drops. The time of gathering herbs was nearly over, but the time of syrups and cordials had begun.