`` You 're a clever girl , Prue -- and you 've got enough decision for two -- but you 'll never get the better of Uncle Abimelech . '' `` We 'll see , '' I said resolutely , and up to the garret I went . I shut the door and bolted it good and fast to make sure . Then I piled some old cushions in the window seat -- for one might as well be comfortable when one is thinking as not -- and went over the whole ground from the beginning . Outside the wind was thrashing the broad , leafy top of the maple whose tallest twigs reached to the funny grey eaves of our old house . One roly-poly little sparrow blew or flew to the sill and sat there for a minute , looking at me with knowing eyes . Down below I could see Murray in a corner of the yard , pottering over a sick duck . He had set its broken leg and was nursing it back to health . Anyone except Uncle Abimelech could see that Murray was simply born to be a doctor and that it was flying in the face of Providence to think of making him anything else . From the garret windows I could see all over the farm , for the house is on the hill end of it . I could see all the dear old fields and the spring meadow and the beech woods in the southwest corner . And beyond the orchard were the two grey barns and down below at the right-hand corner was the garden with all my sweet peas fluttering over the fences and trellises like a horde of butterflies . It was a dear old place and both Murray and I loved every stick and stone on it , but there was no reason why we should go on living there when Murray did n't like farming . And it was n't our own , anyhow . It all belonged to Uncle Abimelech . Father and Murray and I had always lived here together . Father 's health broke down during his college course . That was one reason why Uncle Abimelech was set against Murray going to college , although Murray is as chubby and sturdy a fellow as you could wish to see . Anybody with Foster in him would be that . To go back to Father .
The doctors told him that his only chance of recovering his strength was an open-air life , so Father rented one of Uncle XXXXX 's farms and there he lived for the rest of his days .
Abimelech Father Foster Murray Providence Prue eaves garret minute sparrow