Melindy was a very
pretty girl, and it was very good fun to see her blue eyes open and
her red lips laugh over my European experiences. Really, I began to be
of some importance at the farm-house, and to take airs upon myself, I
suppose; but I was not conscious of the fact at the time.
After a week or two, Melindy and I began to have bad luck with the
turkeys. I found two drenched and shivering, after a hail-and-thunder
storm, and setting them in a basket on the cooking-stove hearth, went
to help Melindy "dress her bow-pot," as she called arranging a vase of
flowers, and when I came back the little turkeys were singed; they
died a few hours after. Two more were trodden on by a great Shanghai
rooster, who was so tall he could not see where he set his feet down;
and of the remaining pair, one disappeared mysteriously,--supposed to
be rats; and one falling into the duck-pond, Melindy began to dry it
in her apron, and I went to help her; I thought, as I was rubbing the
thing down with the apron, while she held it, that I had found one of
her soft dimpled hands, and I gave the luckless turkey such a tender
pressure that it uttered a miserable squeak and departed this
life.
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