Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

150 BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. bench for the other side of the porch, Mrs. Haller. We shall hold our conference there. How hungry I am!” ‘‘Dear heart alive! What would you like, miss? Some bread and nice sweet-milk fresh from butter-cups?” ‘‘Tnfusiton of butter-cups?” «‘Tor! there ain’t many butter-cups like my big black cow!” ‘*Oh!—bliss itself, signora! Better than the richest gob- let of wine expressed from grapes grown on the sunniest plank of Vesuvius!” «Did you say ‘ yes,’ miss?” ‘‘ Most decidedly, my friend. And may I have a tumbler for my sister? Ah, thank you! you are kind. But I shall explore a little longer before I awake her. Where does this lead to?” ‘‘Into the back yard, where the kitchen-stuff is; and yonder’s the stable; and this court is for everything—chop- ping, feeding fowls, cleaning vegetables, and all.” ‘Is kitchen-stuff fish, flesh, or fowl—mineral, vegetable, or nondescript, my dear Mrs. Haller?” ~ ‘Law sakes, I don’t know! only it’s the grass and stuff, _ and the apple-sass, and such-like. Would you like to see the chickens? Just open the door of that log-house and look into a half-barrel at them.” , ** Shades of Diogenes! juvenile philosophers! What little fuzzy things! Oh, you pet! You are the king of them, with vour little broad bill and twinkling eyes!” ‘* That’s the only chicking out of a brood of thirteen. Do you like hop-beer, miss?” “Very likely Ido. I never saw any.” “Not! You shall have a drink of it this very day. Why, where was you raised, I wonder?” ‘* Not on hop-yeast, you may be sure, my friend. Oh! there is the well! What a heavy, moss-grown bucket; and how cool the air is when I put my head down!” “Goodness gracious! Don’t fallin. See—are you fond of posies? Would you like to make a tisty-tosty of cow- slips? There’s lots back there in the old orchard.” To the old woman’s evident relief, I left the vicinity of the well, and ran through a wicket-gate into a little forest of old gnarled apple and peach trees. All at once I came upon an old man who was rolling down the grass with a heavy stone roller, and so intently comicbhbooks.co