Deary me! I remember his coming to me in this very pantry--I don't know if it would be more than three months afore they were both taken--and, standing there, as it might be you, Miss Grace, and saying--'Jael,' he says, 'this window looks out on the yard,' he says; 'do you ever smell anything, Jael?
You are here a good deal.' 'Master John,' I says, 'I thank my Maker, my nose never troubles me; but if it did,' I says, 'I hope I know better than to set _my_self up to smell more than my neighbours.'-- 'To be sure, to be sure,' he says, looking round in a foolish kind of a way at the sink.
Then he says, 'Jael, do you ever taste anything in the water?
My wife thinks there's something wrong with the well.' 'Master John,' I says, 'with all respect to your good lady, she disturbs her mind a deal too much with books.

An ounce of ex-perience, I says, is worth a pound of book learning; and I'll tell you what my father said to them parties that goes round stirring up stinks, when they were for meddling with his farm-yard.

"Let wells alone," he says, "and muck-heaps likewise." And my father passed three-score years and ten, Master John, and died where he was born.' Well-a-day! I see your poor Pa now.

He stood and looked as puzzled as a bee in a bottle.

Then he says--'Well, Jael, my wife says Sunflowers are good against fevers; and there's no harm in sowing some.' Which he did that very afternoon, she standing by him, with her hand on his shoulder; but, bless ye, my dear! they were took long before the seeds was up.