Part 19 (2/2)

Lois looked out of the window at the marble girl in the yard, and her mouth quivered.

Presently Mrs. Maxwell came, in her soft flurry of silk and old ribbons. She had on a black lace head-dress trimmed with purple flowers, and she wore her black kid gloves.

”I'm real sorry I had to keep you waitin' so long, Esther,” said she; ”but we were kinder late about dinner. Do take off your things. Flora she'll be down in a few minutes; she's jest gone upstairs to change her dress an' comb her hair. It's a beautiful day, ain't it?”

The three settled themselves in the parlor. Lois sat beside the window, her hands folded meekly in her lap; her mother and Mrs.

Maxwell knitted.

”Don't you do any fancy-work, Lois?” asked Mrs. Maxwell.

”No, she don't do much,” replied her mother for her.

”Don't she? I'd like to know! Now Flora, she does considerable. She's makin' a real handsome tidy now. She'll show you how, Lois, if you'd like to make one. It's real easy an' it don't cost a great deal--but then cost ain't much object to you.” Mrs. Maxwell laughed an unpleasant sn.i.g.g.e.r. Then she resumed: ”Some tidies would look real handsome on some of them great bare chairs over to your house; there ain't one there so far as I know. Thomas he wouldn't never have a new thing in the house; he was terrible set and notional about it and he was terrible tight with his money. I don't care if I do say it; everybody knows it; an' I don't see why it's any worse to say things that's true about the dead than the livin'. With some folks it's all 'Oh, don't say nothin'; he's dead. Cover it all up; he's buried an'

bury it too, an' set all the roses an' pinks a-growin' over it.' I tell you sometimes nettles will sprout, an' when they do, it don't make it any better to call 'em pinks. Thomas Maxwell was terrible tight. I ain't forgot how he talked because we bought this parlor furniture and put big lights in the windows, an' had that iron fence.

Then my poor husband had gone into business with your husband, an'

they seemed to be making money. Why shouldn't he have bought a few things we'd always done without, I'd like to know? You remember what a time the old man made when we bought these things, Esther, I suppose?”

”I can't say as I do,” returned Mrs. Field.

”Why, seems to me it's funny you don't. You sure?”

Mrs. Field nodded.

”Well, it's queer you don't. He made an awful time over it; but the worst of it was over that image out in the yard. I b'lieve he always thought my poor husband and yours failed up because we bought that image. There was one thing about it, your husband wa'n't never extravagant, though, was he? Thomas Maxwell couldn't say his son wasted his money, whatever else he said. Your husband was always prudent, wa'n't he, Esther?”

”Yes, I always thought Edward Maxwell was prudent,” returned Mrs.

Field.

Lois, staring soberly and miserably out of the window, saw just then a stout girlish figure, leant to one side with the weight of a valise, pa.s.s hurriedly out of the yard. She wondered if it was Flora Maxwell, and watched the pink flowers in her hat and the blue folds of her dress out of sight down the street.

”I guess your husband took after his father a little; I guess he was a little savin',” said Mrs. Maxwell. ”I know Edward looked kind of scared when he came over one night an' saw that image just after we'd got it set up, an' he asked how much it cost. It did cost considerable. We didn't ever tell anybody just how much; but I didn't care; I'd always wanted one; an' I made up my mind I'd rather have that if I had to go without some other things. An' my husband wanted it too; he was one of the Maxwells, you know, an' I think they all had a taste for such things if they wa'n't too tight to get 'em. As for me, I had to do without all my young days, an' I have to now except for the few things we got together along then when my poor husband seemed to be prospering; but I've always been crazy over images, an' I've always thought one in a front yard was about the most ornamental thing anybody could have. I've told Flora a good many times that I believed if I'd had advantages when I was young, I should have made images. Don't you think that one's handsome, Esther?”

”Real handsome,” said Mrs. Field.

”Some folks have found fault with it because it didn't have more clothes on, but it ain't as if it was in a cemetery. Of course it would have to be dressed different if it was. An' it ain't anything but marble, when you come right down to it. I think there's such a thing as bein' too particular, for my part, don't you?”

”Yes, I do,” replied Mrs. Field, looking out at the marble figure.

”Well, I do. Mis' Jay said, after my husband died, that she should think I'd like to put up that image for a kind of monument for him. I didn't feel as if I could put up anything more than stones; but I did think a little of it, and I knew if I did, I should have to have some wings made on it, and a cape or a shawl over the neck and arms; but out here it's different. I look out at it a good many times, an' I'm thankful it ain't got any more on, clothes do get so out of fas.h.i.+on.

You know how they look in photographs sometimes. I s'pose that's the reason that the men who make these images don't put any more on.

There! I must show you my photograph alb.u.m, Esther.”

Mrs. Maxwell took a heavy alb.u.m with gilt clasps from the centre-table, and drew a chair close to Mrs. Field.

”Now you get a chair, an' come on the other side, Lois,” said she, ”an' I can show 'em to both of you.”

Lois obeyed, and Mrs. Maxwell turned over the alb.u.m leaves and explained the pictures.

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