She
never had no child o' her own, and she warmed up to Ruby more'n more
every day, and she loves her now much as she kin love anything.
"That fust winter we had a good deal o' snow and I made a pair o'
leggins for her out o' a deer's skin I'd killed, and rigged up a sled,
and I'd haul her after me wherever I went, and when school opened down
to the cross-roads I'd haul her down and bring her back if the snow
warn't too deep, and when summer come she'd go 'long jus' the same. I
taught her to fish and shoot, and often she'd stay out in camp with me
all night when I was tendin' the sugar-maples--she sleepin' on the
balsams with my coat throwed over her.
"Things went on this way till 'bout three years ago, when I see she
warn't gittin' ahead fast as she could, and I went for the old man to
send her to school down to Plymouth. Marm Marvin was willin', but Jed
held out, and at last he give in after my talkin' to him. So I hooked up
the buck-board and drove her down to Plymouth and left her, with her
arms 'round my neck and the tears streamin' down her face.
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