Is there nothing I can do to repay you , Miss Belinda ? Please answer quickly , for I know the hour is almost over , ' cried Rosa , stamping with anxiety ; for , like all her sex , she wanted the last word . '' ` Yes , you can , ' I cried , as a sudden idea popped into my head . ` I 'll write down what you have told me , and send the little story to a certain paper I know of , and the money I get for it will pay your board . So rest in peace , my dear ; you will have earned your living , and may feel that your debt is paid . ' `` Before she could reply the clock struck one , and a long sigh of satisfaction was all the response in her power . But we understood each other now , and , cutting a lock from her mane for Miss Merry , I gave Rosa a farewell caress and went away , wondering if I had made it all up , or if she had really broken a year 's silence and freed her mind . `` However that may be , here is the tale , and the sequel to it is , that the bay mare has really gone to board at a first-class stable , '' concluded Miss Belinda . `` I call occasionally and leave my card in the shape of an apple , finding Madam Rosa living like an independent lady , with her large box and private yard on the sunny side of the barn , a kind ostler to wait upon her , and much genteel society from the city when she is inclined for company . `` What more could any reasonable horse desire ? '' VI . LUNCH . `` Sister Jerusha , it really does wear upon me to see those dear boys eat such bad pies and stuff day after day when they ought to have good wholesome things for lunch . I actually ache to go and give each one of 'em a nice piece of bread-and-butter or one of our big cookies , '' said kind Miss Mehitable Plummer , taking up her knitting after a long look at the swarm of boys pouring out of the grammar school opposite , to lark about the yard , sit on the posts , or dive into a dingy little shop close by , where piles of greasy tarts and cakes lay in the window . They would not have allured any but hungry school-boys , and ought to have been labelled Dyspepsia and Headache , so unwholesome were they . Miss Jerusha looked up from her seventeenth patchwork quilt , and answered , with a sympathetic glance over the way , -- `` If we had enough to go round I 'd do it myself , and save these poor deluded dears from the bilious turns that will surely take them down before vacation comes . That fat boy is as yellow as a lemon now , and no wonder , for I 've seen him eat half a dozen dreadful turnovers for one lunch . '' Both old ladies shook their heads and sighed , for they led a very quiet life in the narrow house that stood end to the street , squeezed in between two stores , looking as out of place as the good spinsters would have done among the merry lads opposite . Sitting at the front windows day after day , the old ladies had learned to enjoy watching the boys , who came and went , like bees to a hive , month by month . They had their favorites , and beguiled many a long hour speculating on the looks , manners , and probable station of the lads .
One lame boy was Miss Jerusha 's pet , though she never spoke to him , and a tall bright-faced fellow , who rather lorded it over the rest , quite won Miss Hetty 's old heart by helping her across the street on a slippery XXXXX .
Jerusha Merry Plummer day dears hour month ostler turnovers year