"Do you have garden tea-parties in Rumford?" Miss Flucker asked.
"No, not garden parties, but the ladies get together in a parlor, sip their tea, take pinches of snuff from each other's boxes, talk about the number of cheeses they have made, how much salt they put into the curd, how much yarn they have spun, how many yards of linen they have woven."
"Such a party must be very enjoyable," said Miss Quincy.
"Yes, I think they like to find out what everybody else is doing, and how they do it. Their tongues wag lively when they get to talking about what has happened and what they expect will happen; who was cried the Sunday before, and who probably will be the next Sunday."
The ladies smiled at Robert's vivacious conversation.
"Does the town clerk cry the proposed marriages?" Miss Shrimpton asked.
"Yes. The moment the minister finishes the benediction Sunday afternoon, Squire Fellows breaks in, shouting that marriage is intended between Hezekiah and Mehitable. Of course there are blushes on Mehitable's face, while Hezekiah looks kinder sheepish."
"Nearly all the old ladies carry their snuff-boxes in their pockets or work-bags. There's one lady, however, who does not--Aunt Hipsy Jenkins. Perhaps I ought to say she is well along in years, and that the town clerk never has cried her. She carries her nose as she pleases. She says if the Lord had intended it for a dust-hole, he would have put it on the other end up."
A merry peal of laughter rang through the garden--so joyful that several ladies and gentlemen joined the group, to hear what the young man from the country was saying.
"Her name," said Robert, by way of explanation, "is Hepsibah, but everybody calls her Hipsy."
"Evidently," said Isaac Coffin, "she is a lady who is up to snuff."
"You may be sure she never minces things, but speaks her mind, whether anybody likes it or not," Robert replied.
"Are the gentlemen invited to the tea-parties?" John Coffin asked.
"Not to the afternoon parties, neither are the young ladies; the old ladies like to be by themselves while sipping their tea. Perhaps they think it would not be dignified on the part of the gentlemen to devote the afternoons to gossip," Robert replied.
"Do not the young ladies meet?" Miss Shrimpton asked.