Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/125

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
FORTY YEARS SINCE.
113

receive the gifts of God with gratitude, and to enjoy them with a cheerful spirit. I know not that I recollect the names of all your children."

"It's no wonder that ye don't Ma'am, there's such a neest on 'em. They're as thick as hops round the fire this winter. There's Roxey and Reuey, they're next to Tim, and look like twins. They pick the wool, and card tow, and wind quills, and knit stockins and mittins for the fokes in the house; and I've brought some down with me to day, to see if they'll buy 'em to the marchants' shops, and let 'em have a couple o' leetle small shawls. Then there's Keziah, she 'ant but a trifle over six year old, and I recken she has a kind of a hard time on't; for she takes most o' the care o' the three youngest ones. Jehu is about as big as she is, and pretty obstropolous, so that I have to take him in hand, once in a while. Then there's young Tryphena, and the baby Tryphosa, who's rather tendsome, and Keziah's tied to 'em a'most every minute when she 'ant abed. So her Mammy is able to see to the cheese-tubs, for you know, sich a dairy as we have keeps a woman pretty tight to't. There's nine 'o the young ones, Ma'am, and as I said afore, the oldest is but e'en a just fourteen. Yet I should be sorry to have one less, though I should work off my fingers' eends clear to the bone to maintain 'em. I'm willin to slave for 'em, but I mean they shall do their part, and not grow up in idleness to laff, and make game of their old hard-workin' parents, and