It completed her
expression; it was as a very halo of Yankee saintship crowning the woman
who in despite of poverty and every discouragement had always hated, to
the very roots of her hair, anything like what she called a "sozzle;"
who had always been screwed up and sharp set to hard work. She couldn't
help the tumbledown fence; she had no "men-folks" round; and she
couldn't have paid for a hundred pickets and a day's carpentering, to
have saved her life. She couldn't help Prissy's hair even; for it would
kink and curl, and the minute the wind took it "there it was again;" and
it was not time yet, thank goodness! to harrow it back and begin in her
behalf the remarkable engineering which had laid out for herself that
broad highway across all the thrifty and energetic bumps up to
Veneration (who knows how much it had had to do with mixing them in one
common tingle of mutual and unceasing activity?) and down again from ear
to ear. Inside the poor little house you would find all spick and span,
the old floor white and sanded, the few tins and the pewter spoons
shining upon the shelf, the brick hearth and jambs aglow with fresh
"redding," table and chairs set back in rectangular tidiness.
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