There was an anxious, restless ring in her voice, too.
"I'm glad to hev such a time, I'm sure," said she. "We need it bad
enough, any time, Lord knows!--but it seems a queer season o' the year
for't. When we've had 'em before it's generally been along in the winter.
I never heered of an awakenin' before right in the midst o'
tater-buggin'."
Aunt Patty was not intentionally irreverent. Life, with her, had been so
narrow and hard pressed, always a painful reckoning of times and seasons.
The allusion to "tater-buggin'" gave Grandpa an opportunity of a sort of
which he had not been slow to avail himself lately--to engage in a little
old-time, secular conversation. His voice, however, as it sounded from
the south doorway, was impressive enough for any subject.
"Grists on 'em, this year!" he said.
"Heaps!" Aunt Patty responded, readily. "I don't see how ever the
children could be speered to go to school now, anyway. Randal had all
eight o' hisn out yesterday, with a four-quart pail apiece, and him and
Lucindy pickin' into the half-bushel besides; and Rodney told Bede, for
the livin' truth, he'd seen a lantern movin' around last night right in
the dead o' night, and he looked out and it was the Dean and Abbie Ann
out tater-buggin', and everybody knows they wasn't out in the daytime, it
was so dreadful hot.
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