Part 20 (1/2)

”Ain't that kind o' gay?”

”Gay? Well, you want it gay, don't ye? I dunno why folks seem to think they've got to live in a hea.r.s.e because they expect to ride in one!

What if we be gittin' on a little mite in years? We ain't underground yit, be we? I see a real good ninepenny paper once, all covered over with green brakes. I declare if 'twa'n't sweet pretty! Well, whether I paper or whether I don't, I've got some thoughts of a magenta sofy. I'm tired to death o' that old horsehair lounge that sets in my clock-room.

Sometimes I wish the moths would tackle it, but I guess they've got more sense. I've al'ays said to myself I'd have a magenta sofy when I could git round to it, and I dunno's I shall be any nearer to it than I be now.”

”Well, you _are_ tasty,” said Miss Dyer, in some awe. ”I dunno how you come to think o' that!”

”Priest Rowe had one when I wa'n't more 'n twenty. Some o' his relations give it to him (he married into the quality), an' I remember as if 'twas yisterday what a tew there was over it. An' I said to myself then, if ever I was prospered I'd have a magenta sofy. I 'ain't got to it till now, but now I'll have it if I die for't.”

”Well, I guess you're in the right on't.” Miss Dyer spoke absently, glancing from the window in growing trouble. ”O Mis' Blair!” she continued, with a sudden burst of confidence, ”you don't think there's a storm brewin', do you? If it snows Wednesday, I shall give up beat!”

Mrs. Blair, in her turn, peered at the smiling sky.

”I hope you ain't one o' them kind that thinks every fair day's a weather breeder,” she said. ”Law, no! I don't b'lieve it will storm; an' if it does, why, there's other Wednesdays comin'!”

AT SUDLEIGH FAIR.

Delilah Joyce was sitting on her front doorstone with a fine disregard of the fact that her little clock had struck eight of the morning, while her bed was still unmade. The Tiverton folk who disapproved of her s.h.i.+ftlessness in letting the golden hours, run thus to waste, did grudgingly commend her for airing well. Her bed might not even be spread up till sundown, but the sheets were always hanging from her little side window, in fine weather, flapping dazzlingly in the sun; and sometimes her feather-bed lay, the whole day long, on the green slope outside, called by Dilly her ”spring,” only because the snow melted first there on the freedom days of the year. The new editor of the Sudleigh ”Star,” seeing her slight, wiry figure struggling with the bed like a very little ant under a caterpillar all too large, was once on the point of drawing up his horse at her gate. He was a chivalrous fellow, and he wanted to help; but Brad Freeman, hulking by with his gun at the moment, stopped him.

”That's only Dilly wrastlin' with, her bed,” he called back, in the act of stepping over the wall into the meadow. ”'Twon't do no good to take holt once, unless you're round here every mornin' 'bout the same time.

Dilly'll git the better on't. She al'ays does.” So the editor laughed, put down another Tiverton custom in his mental notebook, and drove on.

Dilly was a very little woman, with abnormally long and sinewy arms.

Her small, rather delicate face had a healthy coat of tan, and her iron-gray hair was braided with scrupulous care. She resembled her own house to a striking degree; she was fastidiously neat, but not in the least orderly. The Tiverton housekeepers could not appreciate this att.i.tude in reference to the conventional world. It was all very well to keep the kitchen floor scrubbed, but they did believe, also, in seeing the table properly set, and in finis.h.i.+ng the was.h.i.+ng by eight o'clock on Monday morning. Now Dilly seldom felt inclined to set any table at all. She was far more likely to take her bread and milk under a tree; and as for was.h.i.+ng, Thursday was as good a day as any, she was wont to declare. Moreover, the tradition of hanging garments on the line according to a severely cla.s.sified system, did not in the least appeal to her.

”I guess a petticoat'll dry jest as quick if it's hung 'side of a nightgown,” she told her critics, drily. ”An' when you come to hangin'

stockin's by the pair, better separate 'em, I say! Like man an' wife!

Give 'em a vacation, once in a while, an' love'll live the longer!”

Dilly was thinking, this morning, of all the possibilities of the lovely, s.h.i.+ning day. So many delights lay open to her! She could take her luncheon in her pocket, and go threading through the woods behind her house. She could walk over to Pine Hollow, to see how the cones were coming on, and perchance sc.r.a.pe together a basket of pine needles, to add to her winter's kindling; or she might, if the world and the desires thereof a.s.sailed her, visit Sudleigh Fair. Better still, she need account to n.o.body if she chose to sit there on the doorstone, and let the hours go unregretted by. Presently, her happy musing was broken by a ripple from the outer world. A girl came briskly round the corner where the stone-wall lay hidden under a wilderness of cinnamon rosebushes and blackberry vines,--Rosa Tolman, dressed in white _pique_, with a great leghorn hat over her curls. The girl came hurrying up the path, with a rustle of starched petticoats, and still Dilly kept her trance-like posture.

”I know who 'tis!” she announced, presently, in a declamatory voice.

”It's Rosy Tolman, an' she's dressed in white, with red roses, all complete, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh Cattle-Show.”

Rosa lost a shade of pink from her cheeks. Her round blue eyes widened, in an unmistakable terror quite piteous to see.

”O Dilly!” she quavered, ”how do you know such things? Why, you 'ain't looked at me!”

Dilly opened her eyes, and chuckled in keen enjoyment.

”Bless ye!” she said, ”I can't help imposin' on ye, no more 'n a cat could help ketchin' a mouse, if't made a nest down her throat. Why, I see ye comin' round the corner! But when folks thinks you're a witch, it ain't in human natur' not to fool 'em. I _am_ a witch, ain't I, dear? Now, ain't I?”

Rosa's color had faltered back, but she still stood visibly in awe of her old neighbor.

”Well,” she owned, ”Elvin Drew says you can see in the dark, but I don't know's he means anything by it.”

Again Dilly broke into laughter, rocking back and forth, in happy abandonment.