Part 20 (1/2)

CHAPTER XII

TWO VERY EARLY CALLERS--EACH ON BUSINESS

Except on Sunday mornings, breakfast at the farm in summer came at six.

The Old Squire himself was often astir at four; and we boys were supposed to get up at five, so as to have milking done and other barn ch.o.r.es off, ready to go into the field from the breakfast table. Gram and the girls also rose at five, to get breakfast, take care of the milk and look after the poultry. Everybody, in fact, rose with the birds in that rural community. But often I was scarcely more than half awake at breakfast; Ellen and Wealthy, too, were in much the same case.

On one of these early mornings when I had been there about three weeks, our drowsiness at the breakfast table was dispelled by the arrival of two early callers--each on business.

Gram was pouring the coffee, when the outer door opened and a tall, sallow, dark-complexioned woman entered, the same whom I had met on the Meadow Brook bridge, while leading Little Dagon. She wore a calico gown and sun-bonnet, and may have been fifty years of age; and she walked in quite as a matter of course, saying, ”How do you do, Joseph, how do you do, Ruth?” to the Old Squire and Gram.

”Why, how do you do, Olive?” said Gram, but not in the most cordial of tones. ”Will you have some breakfast with us?”

”I have been to breakfast, Ruth,” replied this visitor, throwing back her sun-bonnet and thereby displaying a forehead and brow that for height and breadth was truly Websterian. ”I came to get my old dress that I left here when I cleaned house for you last spring, and I should also like that dollar that's owing me.”

”Olive,” rejoined Gram severely, ”I do not owe you a dollar.”

”Ruth,” replied the caller with equal severity, ”you do owe me a dollar.”

She proceeded, as one quite familiar in the house, to the kitchen closet and took therefrom an old soiled gingham gown.

”Olive,” said the Old Squire, ”are you quite sure that there is a dollar due you here?”

”Joseph,” replied the lofty-browed woman, ”do you think I would say so, if I did not know it?”

”No, Olive, I don't think you would,” said the Old Squire.

”It's no such thing, Olive,” cried Gram, looking somewhat heated. ”I always paid you up when you cleaned house for me and when you spun for me.”

”Always but that one time, Ruth. Then you did not--into a dollar,”

replied the sallow woman, positively.

An argument ensued. It appeared that the debated dollar was a matter of three or four years standing. There was little doubt that both were equally honest in their convictions concerning it, pro and con. Still, they were a dollar apart, somehow. Furthermore, it came out, that ”Olive” when she felt periodically poor, or out of sorts, was in the habit of calling and dunning Gram for that dollar, much to the old lady's displeasure.

The Old Squire sat uneasily and listened to the talk, with growing disfavor. At last he pulled out his pocketbook. ”I will pay you the dollar, Olive,” he said, ”if only to stop the dispute about it.”

”You shan't do it, Joseph!” exclaimed Gram. ”There's no dollar due her.”

But the Old Squire persisted in handing the woman a dollar.

”I do not care whether it is due or not!” he exclaimed. ”I have heard altogether too much of this.”

”I thank you, Joseph, for doing me justice of my hard-handed employer,”

said the tall woman, austerely.

”Now did ever anybody hear the like!” Gram exclaimed, pink from vexation. ”Oh, Olive, you--you--you bold thing, to say that of me!”

”There, there!” cried the Old Squire. ”Peace, women folks. Remember that you are both Christians and public professors.”