Part 1 (2/2)
There was a stir in the bushes about the carriage, and Mrs. Lander was aware for an instant of children's faces looking through the leaves at her and then flas.h.i.+ng out of sight, with gay cries at being seen. A boy, older than the rest, came round in front of the horse and pa.s.sed out of sight at the corner of the house.
Lander now leaned back and looked over his shoulder at his wife as if he might hopefully suppose she had come to the end of her questions, but she gave no sign of encouraging him to start on their way again.
”That your brotha, too?” she asked the girl.
”Yes'm. He's the oldest of the boys; he's next to me.”
”I don't know,” said Mrs. Lander thoughtfully, ”as I noticed how many boys there were, or how many girls.”
”I've got two sistas, and three brothas, 'm,” said the girl, always smiling sweetly. She now emerged from the shelter of the door, and Mrs.
Lander perceived that the slight movements of such parts of her person as had been evident beyond its edge were the effects of some endeavor at greater presentableness. She had contrived to get about her an overskirt which covered the rent in her frock, and she had got a pair of shoes on her feet. Stockings were still wanting, but by a mutual concession of her shoe-tops and the border of her skirt, they were almost eliminated from the problem. This happened altogether when the girl sat down on the threshold, and got herself into such foreshortening that the eye of Mrs. Lander in looking down upon her could not detect their absence. Her little head then showed in the dark of the doorway like a painted head against its background.
”You haven't been livin' here a great while, by the looks,” said Mrs.
Lander. ”It don't seem to be clea'ed off very much.”
”We've got quite a ga'den-patch back of the house,” replied the girl, ”and we should have had moa, but fatha wasn't very well, this spring; he's eva so much better than when we fust came he'e.”
”It has, the name of being a very healthy locality,” said Mrs. Lander, somewhat discontentedly, ”though I can't see as it's done me so very much good, yit. Both your payrints livin'?”
”Yes'm. Oh, yes, indeed!”
”And your mother, is she real rugged? She need to be, with such a flock of little ones!”
”Yes, motha's always well. Fatha was just run down, the doctas said, and ought to keep more in the open air. That's what he's done since he came he'e. He helped a great deal on the house and he planned it all out himself.”
”Is he a ca'penta?” asked Mrs. Lander.
”No'm; but he's--I don't know how to express it--he likes to do every kind of thing.”
”But he's got some business, ha'n't he?” A shadow of severity crept over Mrs. Lander's tone, in provisional reprehension of possible s.h.i.+ftlessness.
”Yes'm. He was a machinist at the Mills; that's what the doctas thought didn't agree with him. He bought a piece of land he'e, so as to be in the pine woods, and then we built this house.”
”When did you say you came?”
”Two yea's ago, this summa.”
”Well! What did you do befoa you built this house?”
”We camped the first summa.”
”You camped? In a tent?”
”Well, it was pahtly a tent, and pahtly bank.”
”I should have thought you would have died.”
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