`` Bring Leslie and Dick , too , if they can come . And so you 're going to Kingsport ? What a nice time you will have . I must give you a letter to a friend of mine there -- Mrs. Jonas Blake . '' `` I 've prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me , '' said Miss Cornelia complacently . `` It 's time she had a little holiday , believe ME . She has just about worked herself to death . Tom Holt can crochet beautifully , but he ca n't make a living for his family . He never seems to be able to get up early enough to do any work , but I notice he can always get up early to go fishing . Is n't that like a man ? '' Anne smiled . She had learned to discount largely Miss Cornelia 's opinions of the Four Winds men . Otherwise she must have believed them the most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne'er - do-wells in the world , with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives . This particular Tom Holt , for example , she knew to be a kind husband , a much loved father , and an excellent neighbor . If he were rather inclined to be lazy , liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farming he had not , and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work , nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him . His wife was a `` hustler , '' who gloried in hustling ; his family got a comfortable living off the farm ; and his strapping sons and daughters , inheriting their mother 's energy , were all in a fair way to do well in the world . There was not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the Holts ' . Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook . `` Leslie 's going to take him , '' she announced . `` She jumped at the chance .
She wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of her XXXXX this fall , and she did n't know how she was going to manage it .
assortment brook death eccentricity farming house hustler time wife work