Part 19 (1/2)

The article in question had melted to a yellow pool under the heat.

Mrs. Daggett gazed at it with wide blue eyes, like those of a child.

”Why, Henry,” she protested, ”I never heerd you talk so before.”

”And likely you won't again. Now you listen, Abby; all I want, is to do what honest business I can with this young woman. She's bound to spend her money, and she's kind of took to me; comes into th' store after her mail, and hangs around and buys the greatest lot o' stuff-- 'Land!' I says to her: 'a body'd think you was getting ready to get married.'”

”Well, now I shouldn't wonder--” began Mrs. Daggett eagerly.

”Don't you get excited, Abby. She says she ain't; real pointed, too.

But about this wall paper; I don't know as I can match up them stripes and figures. I wisht you'd go an' see her, Abby. She'll tell you all about it. An' her scheme about collecting all the old Bolton furniture is perfectly ridiculous. 'Twouldn't be worth shucks after kickin' 'round folk's houses here in Brookville for the last fifteen years or so.”

”But you can't never find her at home, Henry,” said Mrs. Daggett. ”I been to see her lots of times; but Mis' Solomon Black says she don't stay in the house hardly long enough to eat her victuals.”

”Why don't you take the buggy, Abby, and drive out to the old place?”

suggested Mr. Daggett. ”Likely you'll find her there. She appears to take an interest in every nail that's drove. I can spare the horse this afternoon just as well as not.”

”'Twould be pleasant,” purred Mrs. Daggett. ”But, I suppose, by rights, I ought to take Lois along.”

”Nope,” disagreed her husband, shaking his head. ”Don't you take Lois; she wouldn't talk confiding to Lois, the way she would to you.

You've got a way with you, Abby. I'll bet you could coax a bird off a bush as easy as pie, if you was a mind to.”

Mrs. Daggett's big body shook with soft laughter. She beamed rosily on her husband.

”How you do go on, Henry!” she protested. ”But I ain't going to coax Lydia Orr off no bush she's set her heart on. She's got the sweetest face, papa; an' I know, without anybody telling me, whatever she does or wants to do is _all_ right.”

Mr. Daggett had by now invested his portly person in a clean linen coat, bearing on its front the s.h.i.+ning mark of Mrs. Daggett's careful iron.

”Same here, Abby,” he said kindly: ”whatever you do, Abby, suits _me_ all right.”

The worthy couple parted for the morning: Mr. Daggett for the scene of his activities in the post office and store; Mrs. Daggett to set her house to rights and prepare for the noon meal, when her Henry liked to ”eat hearty of good, nouris.h.i.+ng victuals,” after his light repast of the morning.

”Guess I'll wear my striped muslin,” said Mrs. Daggett to herself happily. ”Ain't it lucky it's all clean an' fresh? 'Twill be so cool to wear out buggy-ridin'.”

Mrs. Daggett was always finding occasion for thus reminding herself of her astonis.h.i.+ng good fortune. She had formed the habit of talking aloud to herself as she worked about the house and garden.

”'Tain't near as lonesome, when you can hear the sound of a voice--if it is only your own,” she apologized, when rebuked for the practice by her friend Mrs. Maria Dodge. ”Mebbe it does sound kind of crazy-- You say lunatics does it constant--but, I don't know, Maria, I've a kind of a notion there's them that hears, even if you can't see 'em.

And mebbe they answer, too--in your thought-ear.”

”You want to be careful, Abby,” warned Mrs. Dodge, shaking her head.

”It makes the chills go up and down my back to hear you talk like that; and they don't allow no such doctrines in the church.”

”The Apostle Paul allowed 'em,” Mrs. Daggett pointed out, ”so did the Psalmist. You read your Bible, Maria, with that in mind, and you'll see.”

In the s.p.a.cious, sunlighted chamber of her soul, devoted to the memory of her two daughters who had died in early childhood, Mrs.

Daggett sometimes permitted herself to picture Nellie and Minnie, grown to angelic girlhood, and keeping her company about her lonely household tasks in the intervals not necessarily devoted to harp playing in the Celestial City. She laughed softly to herself as she filled two pies with sliced sour apples and dusted them plentifully with spice and sugar.

”I'd admire to see papa argufying with that sweet girl,” she observed to the surrounding silence. ”Papa certainly is set on having his own way. Guess bin' alone here with me so constant, he's got kind of willful. But it don't bother me any; ain't that lucky?”