"I didn't tell Aunt Keziah anything about it, 'cause, as she was sick, I was afeared 'twould worry her; but, afore I'd finished doin' the work up arter dinner, Uncle Higgins got cooled down a leetle atom, and went into aunt's room to see how she was. She mistrusted by his looks that everything wasn't raly right, so she says to him--
"'Did Tabitha make the rice puddin' to yer likin'?' says she.
"'I didn't eat any rice puddin',' says he. 'There was a mushy-lookin' thing on the table that she _called_ a rice puddin'; but it didn't look like an eatable to me.'
"'What appeared to be the matter with it?' says Aunt Keziah.
"'Why, one thing that ailed it was, there wa'n't a drop of whey in it; 'twas dry as a contribution-box, and you know I never eat sich puddin's.'
"'I guess you put a leetle too much rice in your puddin' accordin' to the other gred'ences,' says Aunt Keziah, the first time I went into the room arter Uncle Higgins was gone.
"'I put in jest as much as you said I must,' says I.
"'Well,' says she, 'Mr. Higgins told me 'twas too dry--that there wa'n't any whey in it.'
"'If that's all,' says I, 'I'll try my luck ag'in to-morrow, and make jest the same, on'y scant the rice the least mite that ever was.'
"'So do,' says Aunt Keziah. 'I rather guess you were a leetle too heavy-handed when you measured the rice.'
"Well, I do declare that I didn't think of anything but that tarnal rice puddin' all the arternoon; and, the minute I fell asleep at night, rice puddin's were settin' round in every direction, jest as thick as a swarm of bees. Once I thought I went to draw a pail of water, when up came a bucket full of rice puddin'. Then, ag'in, I thought I was starchin' some of Aunt Keziah's best caps, and found I'd been dippin' 'em in a mess of rice puddin', instead of starch. That was the way I was tormented all night long. My sleep didn't do me an atom of good; but, arter breakfast, I brightened up a little, and felt detarmined in my own mind, if there was any sich thing as makin' a rice puddin' that would suit Uncle Higgins, I would do it. So I went to work, and, the land o' massy! if I should live to be as old as Methuselah, and forty years on to the eend of that, I shall never forgit how I fussed and worried over that 'ere puddin'. If I measured the rice once, I raly b'l'eve that I measured it half a dozen times, so that, at last, I got to be so addle-pated that I could 'ave hardly told B from a broomstick.