The man was digging with a spade, while the woman sat at a spinning-wheel placed dangerously near the edge of the deep ditch which her husband had already dug.

Round the edge ran an inscription, which, after some study, Hilda made out to be the old distich: "When Adam delved, and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman ?" Hilda burst out laughing in spite of her self.
"Oh, it is wonderful!" she cried.

"Who ever heard of Eve with a spinning-wheel?
Where did this come from, Farmer Hartley?
I am sure it must have a history." "Wa-al," said the farmer, smiling, "I d'no ez 't' hes so to speak a hist'ry, an' yit there's allays somethin' amoosin' to me about that platter.

My father was a sea-farin' man most o' his life, an' only came to the farm late in life, 'count of his older brother dyin', as owned it.

Well, he'd picked up a sight o' queer things in his voyages, father had; he kep' some of 'em stowed away in boxes, and brought 'em out from time to time, ez he happened to think of 'em.