Part 7 (1/2)
”It's very queer to hear you talk,” said Norton.
”Queer?” said Matilda.
”It's so queer, that you have no idea, Pink, how queer it is. I don't know what you want.”
”I know what I want,” said Matilda. ”I want to know more of G.o.d's beautiful work. Mr. Richmond says the earth is full of it; and I think it would be nice to be seeing it always; but I know so little.”
”You'll learn,” said Norton. ”I wonder if mamma will send you to school, Pink? We must get home to-morrow! We have staid a terrible long time at the parsonage.”
CHAPTER III.
When Matilda came down stairs the next morning to get breakfast, she found Miss Redwood in the kitchen. The fire was going, the kitchen was warm; Miss Redwood was preparing some potatoes for baking.
”Good morning!” said she. ”Here I am again. It does seem funny to be was.h.i.+ng the potatoes to put in the stove, just as if folks hadn't been sick and dying, you may say, and getting well, and all that, since I touched 'em last. Well! life's a queer thing; and it don't go by the rule of three, not by no means.”
”What rule does it go by?” said Matilda, leaning on the table and looking up at the housekeeper.
”La! I don't know,” said Miss Redwood. ”I know what I've been workin'
by all these weeks, pretty much; I kept at my multiplication table; but I couldn't get no further most days than the very beginning--'Once one is one.' I tried hard to make it out two; but 'twas beyond me. I've learned that much, anyhow.”
”Didn't Mrs. Laval help?”
”She helped all she could, poor critter, till she was 'most beat out. I declare I was sorry for her, next to the sick ones. She did all she could. She turned in to cook; and she didn't know no more about it than I know about talkin' any language beside my own. Not so much; for I kin tell French when I hear it; but she didn't know boiling water.”
”What can I do to help you, Miss Redwood?” Matilda asked, suddenly remembering the present.
”There aint nothin' to do, child, 'cept what I'm doin'. The breakfast table is sot. I guess you've had _your_ hands full, as well as the rest of us. But I declare you've kept things pretty straight. I don't let the b.u.t.ter set in the pantry, though; it goes down cellar when I'm to home.”
”That kitchen pantry is cold, Miss Redwood.”
”It's too cold, child. b.u.t.ter hadn't ought to be where it kin freeze, or get freezing hard; it takes the sweetness out of it. You didn't know that. And the broom and pan I left at the head of the coal stairs. They ain't there now.”
Matilda fetched them.
”The minister said you kept things in train, as if you'd been older,”
Miss Redwood went on. ”I was always askin'; and he made me feel pretty comfortable. He said _he_ was.”
”We have had a very nice time, Miss Redwood. We hadn't the least trouble about anything.”
”Trouble was our meat and drink down yonder,” said Miss Redwood. ”I thought two o' them poor furriners would surely give up; but they didn't; and it's over with. Praise the Lord! And I'm as glad to be home again as if I had found a fortin. But I was glad to be there, too. When a man--or a woman--knows she's in her place, she's just in the pleasantest spot she kin get to; so I think. And I knew I was in my place there. But dear, Mrs. Laval thinks your place is with her now; so she bid me tell you to be ready.”
”When?”
”Well, some time along in the morning she will send the carriage to bring you, she said.”
”Has Francis come back?”
”Who's Francis?”