The Potomac and Rappahannock 



laughed at his reply to my sister Rebekah. She had expressed her 

 sympathy for us because of the scorching sun, yet added: "But, 

 Moore, 'Man's work is from sun to sun, while woman's work is 

 never done.' " "Yes, Miss Becky — that's sometimes because they 

 never do it." (He had trotted her on his knee when an infant.) 



And I must tell you of another apt rejoinder given here. A 

 neighbor, who was a good farmer, but lacking in the esthetic, was 

 deprecating the amount of time and labor "wasted on these 

 flowers." Goaded by a positively dissenting view, he asserted, "I'll 

 bet there never was a day when all of the flowers here would buy 

 you a breakfast." "Perhaps not," was the rejoinder, "but in con- 

 struction I do not happen to be all stomach." 



I fear that I have allowed my memories to run on until I have 

 wearied you. "However," say I, "alas that a time should be at 

 hand when, with the country-folk, the struggle for a livelihood and 

 the scarcity of labor should ever exclude the cultivation of the 

 Beautiful!" 



Mary Mason Anderson Williams. 



[229] 



