She only
knew that Mrs. Hamlin's son, the captain with the sword, had said he
would bring her to her father, and now that he had run off taking all
the other men with him, she knew not what to do or which way to turn.
To her, thus perched up on the big horse, confused and scared by the
tumult, approached a tall, sallow, gaunt old woman, in a huge green
sunbonnet, and a butternut gown of coarsest homespun. Her features
were strongly marked, but their expression was not unkindly, though
just now troubled and anxious.
"I guess I've seen yew tew meetin," she said to Prudence. "Ain't you
Fennell's gal?"
"Yes," replied the girl, "I come daown to see father." Prudence,
although she had profited by having lived at service in the Woodbridge
family, where she heard good English spoken, had frequent lapses into
the popular dialect.
"I'm Mis Poor. Zadkiel Poor's my husban'. He's in jail over thar long
with yer dad. He's kinder ailin, an I fetched daown some roots 'n
yarbs as uster dew him a sight o' good, w'en he was ter hum. I thort
mebbe I mout git to see him. Him as keeps jail lets folks in
sometimes, I hearn tell."
"Do you know where the jail is?" asked the girl.
"It's that ere haouse over thar.
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