When Sara Barly had made the dress-maker comfortable
in the spare room, she went down to the kitchen in search of Anna. But
Anna was in the barn with Tabitha, the cat, whose new-born kittens
filled her with glee. Mrs. Barly stood in the middle of the kitchen,
as idle as her pots, and looked out through the window at the brown and
yellow fields. When she had tied her apron on, she felt dull and
tired; it seemed to her as if she were no longer virtuous, yet had not
received anything in return for what she had given. And because she
felt as if she had been cheated, she, also, lifted up her voice to God.
"Oh, God," she said, "all my life I never did anything like that."
By way of answer, she heard the low hum of the sewing machine, and the
alleluias of the dressmaker, singing as though she were in church.
Farmer Barly was down in the south pasture, with the schoolmaster's
friend, Mr. Tomkins; he wanted to put up a swinging gate between the
south field and the road. But all at once he felt like saying: "I
don't want a gate at all; I want a fence to shut people out.
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