and we 'll have a lovely time when we 're all grown up and the mortgage is paid off."
"All finished? Oh, you mean you 've come away?"
"No, I mean they 're all over and done with; our family 's finished. Mother says so, and she always keeps her promises. There has n't been any since Mira, and she's three. She was born the day father died. Aunt Miranda wanted Hannah to come to Riverboro instead of me, but mother could n't spare her; she takes hold of housework better than I do, Hannah does. I told mother last night if there was likely to be any more children while I was away I 'd have to be sent for, for when there 's a baby it always takes Hannah and me both, for mother has the cooking and the farm."
"Oh, you live on a farm, do ye? Where is it?—near to where you got on?"
"Near? Why, it must be thousands of miles! We came from Temperance in the cars. Then we drove a long ways to cousin Ann's and went to bed. Then we got up and drove ever so far to Maplewood, where the stage was. Our farm is away off from everywheres, but our school and meeting-house is at Temperance, and that 's only two miles. Sitting up here with you is most as good as climbing the meeting-house steeple. I know a boy who's been up on our steeple. He said the people and cows looked like flies. We have n't met any people
