{"id":"01KG6YH4FS11GH2C0ZDZD1JJF3","cid":"bafkreigccyhjo3yyt55z5t2dajiknu7dkm4eegry2afmhotuhuem63isqe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5808,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 15","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":5736,"text":"But her paleness had still another and more secret cause--the paleness\r\nof a mother to be. A quiet, fathomless heart-trouble, too, couched\r\nbeneath the mild, resigned blue of her soft and wife-like eye. But\r\nshe smiled upon me, as apologizing for the unavoidable disorder of a\r\nMonday and a washing-day, and, conducting me into the kitchen, set me\r\ndown in the best seat it had--an old-fashioned chair of an enfeebled\r\nconstitution.\r\n\r\nI thanked her; and sat rubbing my hands before the ineffectual low\r\nfire, and--unobservantly as I could--glancing now and then about the\r\nroom, while the good woman, throwing on more sticks said she was sorry\r\nthe room was no warmer. Something more she said, too--not repiningly,\r\nhowever--of the fuel, as old and damp; picked-up sticks in Squire\r\nTeamster's forest, where her husband was chopping the sappy logs of the\r\nliving tree for the Squire's fires. It needed not her remark, whatever\r\nit was, to convince me of the inferior quality of the sticks; some\r\nbeing quite mossy and toadstooled with long lying bedded among the\r\naccumulated dead leaves of many autumns. They made a sad hissing, and\r\nvain spluttering enough.\r\n\r\n\"You must rest yourself here till dinner-time, at least,\" said the\r\ndame; \"what I have you are heartily welcome to.\"\r\n\r\nI thanked her again, and begged her not to heed my presence in the\r\nleast, but go on with her usual affairs.\r\n\r\nI was struck by the aspect of the room. The house was old, and\r\nconstitutionally damp. The window-sills had beads of exuded dampness\r\nupon them. The shriveled sashes shook in their frames, and the green\r\npanes of glass were clouded with the long thaw. On some little errand\r\nthe dame passed into an adjoining chamber, leaving the door partly\r\nopen. The floor of that room was carpetless, as the kitchen's was.\r\nNothing but bare necessaries were about me; and those not of the best\r\nsort. Not a print on the wall but an old volume of Doddridge lay on the\r\nsmoked chimney-shelf.\r\n\r\n\"You must have walked a long way, sir; you sigh so with weariness.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, I am not nigh so weary as yourself, I dare say.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, but I am accustomed to that; _you_ are not, I should think,\" and\r\nher soft, sad blue eye ran over my dress. \"But I must sweep these\r\nshavings away; husband made him a new ax-helve this morning before\r\nsunrise, and I have been so busy washing, that I have had no time to\r\nclear up. But now they are just the thing I want for the fire. They'd\r\nbe much better though, were they not so green.\"\r\n\r\nNow if Blandmour were here, thought I to myself, he would call those\r\ngreen shavings \"Poor Man's Matches,\" or \"Poor Man's Tinder,\" or some\r\npleasant name of that sort.\r\n\r\n\"I do not know,\" said the good woman, turning round to me again--as she\r\nstirred among her pots on the smoky fire--\"I do not know how you will\r\nlike our pudding. It is only rice, milk, and salt boiled together.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, what they call 'Poor Man's Pudding,' I suppose you mean?\"\r\n\r\nA quick flush, half resentful, passed over her face.\r\n\r\n\"We do not call it so, sir,\" she said, and was silent.\r\n\r\nUpbraiding myself for my inadvertence, I could not but again think to\r\nmyself what Blandmour would have said, had he heard those words and\r\nseen that flush.\r\n\r\nAt last a slow, heavy footfall was heard; then a scraping at the door,\r\nand another voice said, \"Come, wife; come, come--I must be back again\r\nin a jif--if you say I _must_ take all my meals at home, you must be\r\nspeedy; because the Squire--Good-day, sir,\" he exclaimed, now first\r\ncatching sight of me as he entered the room. He turned toward his\r\nwife, inquiringly, and stood stock-still, while the moisture oozed from\r\nhis patched boots to the floor.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 15"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGKG15EQNWSZXFWPM05","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH4FXC3P2EQ0HKHNQ5CRT","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH4FSXXQ7N9G4HCXPV5TD","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:51.481Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.981Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}