Kate Douglas Wiggin

“ She jumped from her couch of anguish and remorse like an excited kitten, darted out of the house unmindful of the lightning, drove the Jersey calf under cover, chased the chickens into the coop, bolstered up the tomatoes so that the wind and rain would not blow the fruit from the heavily laden plants, opened the blinds and closed the windows.
“It comes from the east,” she cried, dancing up and down in a glow of childish glee—“it comes from the east, and it’s blowing in on Jennie’s side of the buggy!” ”

“ In course of time Pitt Packard moved to Goshen, Indiana, where he made a comfortable fortune by the invention of an estimable pump, after which he was known by his full name of W. Pitt Fessenden Packard. In course of time the impish and incredulous Jimmy Rumford became James, and espoused the daughter of a wealthy Boston merchant. His social advancement was no surprise to Huldah and her mother, for, from the moment he had left home, they had never dreamed of him save in conjunction with horned cattle, which is well known to signify unexampled prosperity. ”

“ Then the first thing I knew Pitt stood up so straight he looked more than ten feet tall, and says he, ‘If you don’t marry me a Friday, Huldah Rumford, you don’t marry me at all. You’re nothing but a mass of superstition, and if you’re so scared for fear it will rain on your wedding-bonnet a Saturday, you can stay home under cover the rest of your life, for all I care. I’ll wash the top buggy, put the umbrella under the seat, and take Jennie Perkins ”

“ The last thing she did was to tell Aunt Hitty Tarbox she’d as lief have Pitt bring one of the original Salem witches into the house as one of the Daniel Rumford tribe.”
“The land sakes!” ejaculated the widow, giving a desperate and impassioned plunge to the churn-dasher. “Now I know why I dreamt of snakes and muddy water the night before she come here to the Ladies’ Aid Club. Well, she’s seventy, and she can’t live forever; she can’t take Eben Packard’s money into the next world with her, either, and I guess if she could ’t would melt as soon as it got there.” ”

“ That these tables, though made out by one of the weaker sex, were accurate and authentic, he had reason to believe, because he kept a rigid account of the weather himself, and compared Huldah’s yearly record with his own. The weather in Pleasant River did not, it is true, agree absolutely with the weather in Goshen, but the similarity between Maine and Indiana Saturdays was remarkable. The first five years of Pitt’s married life Huldah had the advantage, and the perusal of her tables afforded Pitt little satisfaction, since it proved that her superstitions had some apparent basis of reason. ”

“ She looked out of the window to conceal her embarrassment, and busied herself with preparations for the dish-washing, so that she could talk with greater freedom.
“We’ve had words before this, plenty of times, but they did n’t amount to anything. Pitt’s good, and he’s handsome, and he’s smart; but he’s awful dictatorial and fault-finding, and I just ain’t goin’ to eat too much humble-pie before I’m married, for fear I won’t have anything else to eat afterwards, and it ain’t very fattening for a steady diet. And if there ever was a hateful old woman in the world it’s his stepmother. ”

“ I did n’t know then she had such a prejudice against signs, but since that time I’ve dragged ’em in every chance I got, just to spite her.”
“More fool you!” said her mother, beginning to move the dasher of the churn up and down with a steady motion. “You might have waited until she was your mother-in-law before you began to spite her. The first thing you know you won’t get any mother-in-law.”
“That’s the only thing that would console me for losing Pitt!” exclaimed Huldah. “If I can’t marry him I don’t have to live with her, that’s one comfort! ”

“ I vow I’ll never do it again.”
“That’s one o’ the signs I have n’t got so much confidence in,” said Mrs. Rumford, skimming the cream from a pan of milk into the churn and putting the skimmed milk on the table. “It don’t come true with me more ’n three times out o’ five, but there’s others that never fails. You jest hold on, Huldy; the dish-cloth and the rooster knows as much ’bout what’s goin’ to happen as your white petticoat does.”
“Jest about as much,” interpolated Jimmy, with his utterance somewhat choked by hot doughnut. ”

“ She did n’t say anything about fathers, but she did tell Almira Berry that no member of the church in good standing could believe in signs as you did and have hope of salvation. She said I was a chip of the old block, and had been raised like a heathen. It seems when I was over there on Sunday I refused to stand up and have my height measured against the wall, and I told ’em if you measured heights on Sunday you’d like as not die before the year was out. ”

“ In course of time, too, old Mrs. Rumford was gathered to her fathers after a long illness, in which Huldah nursed her dutifully and well. Her death was not entirely unexpected, for Hannah Sophia Palmer observed spots like iron rust on her fingers, a dog howled every night under Almira Berry’s window, and Huldah broke the kitchen looking-glass. No invalid could hope for recovery under these sinister circumstances, and Mrs. ”

“ Rumford philosophically. “Jennie Perkins has got a pug nose, and a good-sized mole on one side of it. A mole on the nose is a sure sign of bad luck in love-affairs, particularly if it’s well to one side. He’ll come back.”
But, as a matter of fact, the days went by, the maple-trees turned red, and Pitt Packard did not come back to the Rumford farm. His comings and his goings were all known to Huldah. She knew that he took Jennie Perkins to the Sunday-School picnic, and escorted her home from evening meetings. She knew that old Mrs. ”