able to continue. The sale of the figs would probably double the savings already in the work-box; she might even get eighty cents for
them; and that would make a dollar and fifty cents in all! A fig fell to the ground. "They're ripe," she thought; "they must be picked
to-morrow." She felt for the fallen fig in the darkness, and carrying it to the garden wall, placed it in a dry niche where it would keep
its freshness until she could send it to town with the rest. Then she went to the hen-house. "Smart of Nounce to save the eggs for me," she thought, laughing delightedly to herself over this proof of the girl's intelligence. "Granmar didn't need that omerlet one
bit; I left out two tremenjous lunches for her." She peered in; but could not see the hens in the darkness. "If Granmar'd only eat the things we do!" her thoughts went on. "But she's always possessed after everything that takes eggs. And then she wants the very best
coffee, and white sugar, and the best wine, and fine flour and meal and oil--my! how much oil! But I wonder if I couldn't stop eating
something or other, steader pestering myself about her? Let's see. I don't take wine nor coffee, so I can't stop them; but I could stop soup meat, just for myself; and I will." Thus meditating, she went slowly round to the open space before the house.
To call it a space was a misnomer. The house stood at the apex of the hill, and its garden by right extended as far down the descent
in front as it extended down the opposite descent behind, where Prudence had planted her long rows of vegetables. But in this front space, not ten feet distant from the house door, planted directly across the paved path which came up from below, was the cow-shed, the intruding offensive neighbor whose odors, gruntings (for it was now a pig-sty), and refuse were constantly making themselves perceptible to one sense and another through the open windows of the dwelling behind. For the house had no back windows; the small apertures which passed for windows were all in front; in that climate it was impossible that they should be always closed. How those odors choked Prudence Wilkin! It seemed as if she could not respect herself while obliged to breathe them, as if she had not respected herself (in the true Ledham way) since the pig-sty became her neighbor.
For fifty francs the owners would take it away; for another twenty or thirty she could have "a front yard." But though she had made
many beginnings, she had never been able to save a tenth of the sum. None of the family shared her feelings in the least; to spend precious money for such a whim as that--only an American could be capable of it; but then, as everybody knew, most Americans were mad. And why should Denza object to pigs?
Prudence therefore had been obliged to keep her longings to herself. But this had only intensified them. And now when at last, after
thinking of it for sixteen years, she was free to begin to save daily and regularly, she saw as in a vision her front yard completed as she would like to have it: the cow-shed gone; "a nice straight path going down to the front gate, set in a new paling fence; along the sides
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currant bushes; and in the open spaces to the right and left a big flowerin' shrub--snowballs, or Missouri currant; near the house a clump of matrimony, perhaps; and in the flower beds on each side of the path bachelor's-buttons, Chiny-asters, lady's-slippers,
and pinks; the edges bordered with box." She heaved a sigh of deep satisfaction as she finished her mental review. But it was hardly mental after all; she saw the gate, she saw the straight path, she saw the currant bushes and the box-bordered flower beds as distinctly
as though they had really been there.
Cheered, almost joyous, she went within, locking the door behind her; then, after softly placing the usual store of provisions beside
Granmar's bed (for Granmar had a habit of waking in the night to eat), she sought her own couch. It was hard, but she stretched
herself upon it luxuriously. "The figs'll double the money," she thought, "and by this time to-morrow I shall have a dollar and forty
cents; mebby a dollar fifty!" She fell asleep happily.
Her contentment made her sleep soundly. Still it was not long after dawn when she hurried down the hill to the town to get her supply of work from the shop. Hastening back with it, she found Granmar clamoring for her coffee, and Nounce, neatly dressed and clean (for so much Prudence had succeeded in teaching her), sitting patiently in her corner. Prudence's mind was full of a sale she had made; but she prepared the coffee and Nounce's broth with her usual care; she washed her dishes, and made Granmar tidy
for the day; finally she arranged all her sewing implements on the table by the window beside her pile of work. Now she could give
herself the luxury of one last look, one last estimate; for she had made a miracle of a bargain for her figs. By ten o'clock the men
would be up to gather them.
It was a hazy morning; butterflies danced before her as she hastened towards the loaded trees. Reaching them, she looked up. The
boughs were bare. All the figs had been gathered in the night, or at earliest dawn.
"Pipper!" she murmured to herself.
The ground under the trees was trampled.
Seven weeks later, on the 16th of November, this same Prudence was adding to her secreted store the fifteen cents needed to make
the sum ten francs exactly--that is, two dollars. "Ten francs, a fifth of the whole! It seems 'most too lucky that I've got on so well,
spite of Pipper's taking the figs. If I can keep along this way, it'll all be done by the Fourth of July; not just the cow-shed taken away,
but the front yard done too. My!" She sat down on a fagot to think it over. The thought was rapture; she laughed to herself and at herself for being so happy.
Some one called, "Mamma." She came out, and found Jo Vanny looking for her. Nounce and Jo Vanny were the only ones among the children who had ever called her mother.
"Oh, you're up there in the shed, are you?" said Jo Vanny. "Somehow, mamma, you look very gay."
"Yes, I'm gay," answered Prudence. "Perhaps some of these days I'll tell you why." In her heart she thought: "Jo Vanny, now, he'd understand; he'd feel as I do if I should explain it to him. A nice front yard he has never seen in all his life, for they don't have 'em here. But once he knew what it was, he'd care about it as much as I do; I know he would. He's sort of American, anyhow." It was the highest praise she could give. The boy had his cap off; she smoothed his hair. "'Pears to me you must have lost your comb," she said. "I'm going to have it all cut off as short as can be," announced Jo Vanny, with a resolute air.
"Oh no."
"Yes, I am. Some of the other fellows have had theirs cut that way, and I'm going to, too," pursued the young stoic.
He was eighteen, rather undersized and slender, handsome as to his face, with large dark long-lashed eyes, well-cut features, white teeth, and the curly hair which Prudence had smoothed. Though he had vowed them to destruction, these love-locks were for the
present arranged in the style most approved in Assisi, one thick glossy flake being brought down low over the forehead, so that it
showed under his cap in a sentimental wave. He did not look much like a hard-working carpenter as he stood there dressed in dark clothes made in that singular exaggeration of the fashions which one sees only in Italy. His trousers, small at the knee, were large and wing-like at the ankle, half covering the tight shabby shoes run down at the heel and absurdly short, which, however, as they
were made of patent-leather and sharply pointed at the toes, Jo Vanny considered shoes of