“Now, Henry,” said Mrs. Daggett, as she smilingly set a plate of
perfectly browned pancakes before her husband, which he proceeded to
deluge with butter and maple syrup, “are you sure that’s _so_, about
the furniture? ’Cause if it is, we’ve got two or three o’ them things
right in this house: that chair you’re settin’ in, for one, an’
upstairs there’s that ol’ fashioned brown bureau, where I keep the
sheets ’n’ pillow slips. You don’t s’pose she’d want that, do you?”
Mrs. Daggett sank down in a chair opposite her husband, her large pink
and white face damp with moisture. Above her forehead a mist of airy
curls fluttered in the warm breeze from the open window.
“My, ain’t it hot!” she sighed. “I got all het up a-bakin’ them cakes.
Shall I fry you another griddleful, papa?”
“They cer’nly do taste kind o’ moreish, Abby,” conceded Mr. Daggett
thickly. “You do beat the Dutch, Abby, when it comes t’ pancakes. Mebbe
I could manage a few more of ’em.”
Mrs. Daggett beamed sincerest satisfaction.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she deprecated happily. “Ann Whittle says I don’t
mix batter the way she does. But if _you_ like ’em, Henry—”
“Couldn’t be beat, Abby,” affirmed Mr. Daggett sturdily, as he reached
for his third cup of coffee.
The cook stove was only a few steps away, so the sizzle of the batter
as it expanded into generous disks on the smoking griddle did not
interrupt the conversation. Mrs. Daggett, in her blue and white striped
gingham, a pancake turner in one plump hand, smiled through the odorous
blue haze like a tutelary goddess. Mr. Daggett, in his shirt-sleeves,
his scant locks brushed carefully over his bald spot, gazed at her with
placid satisfaction. He was thoroughly accustomed to having Abby wait
upon his appetite.
“I got to get down to the store kind of early this morning, Abby,” he
observed, frowning slightly at his empty plate.
“I’ll have ’em for you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, papa,” soothed
Mrs. Daggett, to whom the above remark had come to signify not merely a
statement of fact, but a gentle reprimand. “I know you like ’em good
and hot; and cold buckwheat cakes certainly is about th’ meanest
vict’als.... There!”
And she transferred a neat pile of the delicate, crisp rounds from the
griddle to her husband’s plate with a skill born of long practice.
“About that furnitur’,” remarked Mr. Daggett, gazing thoughtfully at
the golden stream of sweetness, stolen from leaf and branch of the big
sugar maples behind the house to supply the pewter syrup-jug he
suspended above his cakes, “I guess it’s a fact she wants it, all
right.”
“I should think she’d rather have new furniture; Henry, they do say the
house is going to be handsome. But you say she wants the old stuff?
Ain’t that queer, for anybody with means.”
“Well, that Orr girl beats me,” Mr. Daggett acknowledged handsomely.
“She seems kind of soft an’ easy, when you talk to her; but she’s got
ideas of her own; an’ you can’t no more talk ’em out of her—”
“Why should you try to talk ’em out of her, papa?” inquired Mrs.
Daggett mildly. “Mebbe her ideas is all right; and anyhow, s’long as
she’s paying out good money—”
“Oh, she’ll pay! she’ll pay!” said Mr. Daggett, with a large gesture.
“Ain’t no doubt about her paying for what she wants.”
He shoved his plate aside, and tipped back in his chair with a heavy
yawn.
“She’s asked me to see about the wall paper, Abby,” he continued,
bringing down his chair with a resounding thump of its sturdy legs.
“And she’s got the most outlandish notions about it; asked me could I
match up what was on the walls.”
“Match it up? Why, ain’t th’ paper all moldered away, Henry, with the
damp an’ all?”
“’Course it is, Abby; but she says she wants to restore the house—fix
it up just as ’twas. She says that’s th’ correct thing to do. ‘Why,
shucks!’ I sez, ‘the wall papers they’re gettin’ out now is a lot
handsomer than them old style papers. You don’t want no old stuff like
that,’ I sez. But, I swan! you can’t tell that girl nothing, for all
she seems so mild and meachin’. I was wonderin’ if you couldn’t shove
some sense into her, Abby. Now, I’d like th’ job of furnishin’ up that
house with new stuff. ‘I don’t carry a very big stock of furniture,’ I
sez to her; but—”
“Why, Hen-ery Daggett!” reproved his wife, “an’ you a reg’lar
professing member of the church! You ain’t never carried no stock of
furniture in the store, and you know it.”
“That ain’t no sign I ain’t never goin’ to, Abby,” retorted Mr. Daggett
with spirit. “We been stuck right down in the mud here in Brookville
since that dratted bank failed. Nobody’s moved, except to the
graveyard. And here comes along a young woman with money ... I’d like
mighty well to know just how much she’s got an’ where it come from. I
asked the Judge, and he says, blamed if he knows.... But this ’ere
young female spells op-per-tunity, Abby. We got to take advantage of
the situation, Abby, same as you do in blackberrying season: pick ’em
when they’re ripe; if you don’t, the birds and the bugs’ll get ’em.”
“It don’t sound right to me, papa,” murmured his wife, her kind face
full of soft distress: “Taking advantage of a poor young thing, like
her, an’ all in mourning, too, fer a near friend. She told Lois so ...
Dear, dear!”
Mr. Daggett had filled his morning pipe and was puffing energetically
in his efforts to make it draw.
“I didn’t _say_ take advantage of _her_,” he objected. “That’s
somethin’ I never done yet in my business, Abby. Th’ Lord knows I don’t
sand my sugar nor water my vinegar, the way some storekeepers do. I’m
all for ‘live an’ let live.’ What I says was—... Now, you pay
attention to me, Abby, and quit sniffling. You’re a good woman; but
you’re about as soft as that there butter! ...”
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 shining 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, nourishing 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 astonishing 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 spacious, 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?”
She hurried her completed pies into the oven with a swiftness of
movement she had never lost, her sweet, thin soprano soaring high in
the words of a winding old hymn tune:
Lord, how we grovel here below,
Fond of these trifling toys;
Our souls can neither rise nor go
To taste supernal joys! ...
It was nearly two o’clock before the big brown horse, indignant at the
unwonted invasion of his afternoon leisure, stepped slowly out from the
Daggett barn. On the seat of the old-fashioned vehicle, to which he had
been attached by Mrs. Daggett’s skillful hands, that lady herself sat
placidly erect, arrayed in her blue and white striped muslin. Mrs.
Daggett conscientiously wore stripes at all seasons of the year: she
had read somewhere that stripes impart to the most rotund of figures an
appearance of slimness totally at variance with the facts. As for blue
and white, her favorite combination of stripes, any fabric in those
colors looked cool and clean; and there was a vague strain of poetry in
Mrs. Daggett’s nature which made her lift her eyes to a blue sky filled
with floating white clouds with a sense of rapturous satisfaction
wholly unrelated to the state of the weather.
“G’long, Dolly!” she bade the reluctant animal, with a gentle slap of
leathern reins over a rotund back. “Git-ap!”
“Dolly,” who might have been called Cæsar, both by reason of his sex
and a stubbornly dominant nature, now fortunately subdued by years of
chastening experience, strode slowly forward, his eyes rolling, his
large hoofs stirring up heavy clouds of dust. There were sweet-smelling
meadows stacked with newly-cured hay on either side of the road, and
tufts of red clover blossoms exhaling delicious odors of honey almost
under his saturnine nose; but he trotted ponderously on, sullenly aware
of the gentle hand on the reins and the mild, persistent voice which
bade him “Git-ap, Dolly!”
Miss Lois Daggett, carrying a black silk bag, which contained a
prospectus of the invaluable work which she was striving to introduce
to an unappreciative public, halted the vehicle before it had reached
the outskirts of the village.
“Where you going, Abby?” she demanded, in the privileged tone of
authority a wife should expect from her husband’s female relatives.
“Just out in the country a piece, Lois,” replied Mrs. Daggett
evasively.
“Well, I guess I’ll git in and ride a ways with you,” said Lois
Daggett. “Cramp your wheel, Abby,” she added sharply. “I don’t want to
git my skirt all dust.”
Miss Daggett was wearing a black alpaca skirt and a white shirtwaist,
profusely ornamented with what is known as coronation braid. Her hair,
very tightly frizzed, projected from beneath the brim of her straw hat
on both sides.
“I’m going out to see if I can catch that Orr girl this afternoon,” she
explained, as she took a seat beside her sister-in-law. “She ought to
want a copy of Famous People—in the best binding, too. I ain’t sold a
leather-bound yit, not even in Grenoble. They come in red with gold
lettering. You’d ought to have one, Abby, now that Henry’s gitting more
business by the minute. I should think you might afford one, if you
ain’t too stingy.”
“Mebbe we could, Lois,” said Mrs. Daggett amiably. “I’ve always thought
I’d like to know more about famous people: what they eat for breakfast,
and how they do their back hair and—”
“Don’t be silly, Abby,” Miss Daggett bade her sharply. “There ain’t any
such nonsense in Famous People! _I_ wouldn’t be canvassing for it, if
there was.” And she shifted her pointed nose to one side with a
slight, genteel sniff.
“Git-ap, Dolly!” murmured Mrs. Daggett, gently slapping the reins.
Dolly responded by a single swift gesture of his tail which firmly
lashed the hated reminder of bondage to his hind quarters. Then
wickedly pretending that he was not aware of what had happened he
strolled to the side of the road nearest the hay field.
“Now, if he ain’t gone and got his tail over the lines!” cried Mrs.
Daggett indignantly. “He’s got more resistin’ strength in that tail of
his’n—wonder if I can—”
She leaned over the dashboard and grasped the offending member with
both hands.
“You hang onto the lines, Lois, and give ’em a good jerk the minute I
loosen up his tail.”
The subsequent failure of this attempt deflected the malicious Dolly
still further from the path of duty. A wheel cramped and lifted
perilously.
Miss Daggett squealed shrilly:
“He’ll tip the buggy over—he’ll tip the buggy over! For pity’s sake,
Abby!”
Mrs. Daggett stepped briskly out of the vehicle and seized the bridle.
“Ain’t you ashamed?” she demanded sternly. “You loosen up that there
tail o’ yourn this minute!”
“I got ’em!” announced Miss Daggett, triumphantly. “He loosened right
up.”
She handed the recovered reins to her sister-in-law, and the two ladies
resumed their journey and their conversation.
“I never was so scared in all my life,” stated Lois Daggett,
straightening her hat which had assumed a rakish angle over one ear. “I
should think you’d be afraid to drive such a horse, Abby. What in
creation would have happened to you if I hadn’t been in the buggy?”
“As like as not he wouldn’t have took a notion with his tail, Lois, if
I’d been driving him alone,” hazarded Mrs. Daggett mildly. “Dolly’s an
awful knowing horse.... Git-ap, Dolly!”
“Do you mean to tell me, Abby Daggett, that there horse of Henry’s has
took a spite against _me?_” demanded the spinster.... “Mebbe he’s a
mind-reader,” she added darkly.
“You know I didn’t mean nothin’ like that, Lois,” her sister-in-law
assured her pacifically. “What I meant to say was: I got so interested
in what you were saying, Lois, that I handled the reins careless, and
he took advantage.... Git-ap, Dolly! Don’t you see, Lois, even a horse
knows the difference when two ladies is talking.”
“You’d ought to learn to say exactly what you mean, Abby,” commented
Miss Daggett.
She glanced suspiciously at the fresh striped muslin, which was further
enhanced by a wide crocheted collar and a light blue satin bow.
“Where’d you say you were goin’ this afternoon, Abby?”
“I said out in the country a piece, Lois; it’s such a nice afternoon.”
“Well, _I_ should think Henry’d be needing the horse for his business.
I know _I’d_ never think of asking him for it—and me a blood relation,
too, trying to earn my bread and butter tramping around the country
with Famous People.”
Mrs. Daggett, thus convicted of heartless selfishness, sighed vaguely.
Henry’s sister always made her feel vastly uncomfortable, even sinful.
“You know, Lois, we’d be real glad to have you come and live with us
constant,” she said heroically.... “Git-ap, Dolly!”
Miss Daggett compressed her thin lips.
“No; I’m too independent for that, Abby, an’ you know it. If poor Henry
was to be left a widower, I might consider living in his house and
doing for him; but you know, Abby, there’s very few houses big enough
for two women.... And that r’minds me; did you know Miss Orr has got a
hired girl?”
“Has she?” inquired Mrs. Daggett, welcoming the change of subject with
cordial interest. “A hired girl! ...Git-ap, Dolly!”
“Yes,” confirmed Miss Daggett. “Lute Parsons was telling me she came in
on th’ noon train yesterday. She brought a trunk with her, and her
check was from Boston.”
“Well, I want to know!” murmured Mrs. Daggett. “Boston’s where _she_
came from, ain’t it? It’ll be real pleasant for her to have somebody
from Boston right in the house.... G’long, Dolly!”
“I don’t know why you should be so sure of that, Abby,” sniffed Miss
Daggett. “I should think a person from right here in Brookville would
be more company. How can a hired girl from Boston view the passin’ and
tell her who’s goin’ by? I think it’s a ridiculous idea, myself.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if it’s somebody she knows,” surmised Mrs. Daggett.
“’Twould be real pleasant for her to have a hired girl that’s mebbe
worked for her folks.”
“I intend to ask her, if she comes to the door,” stated Lois Daggett.
“You can drop me right at the gate; and if you ain’t going too far with
your buggy-riding, Abby, you might stop and take me up a spell later.
It’s pretty warm to walk far today.”
“Well, I was thinkin’ mebbe I’d stop in there, too, Lois,” said Mrs.
Daggett apologetically. “I ain’t been to see Miss Orr for quite a
spell, and—”
The spinster turned and fixed a scornfully, intelligent gaze upon the
mild, rosy countenance of her sister-in-law.
“Oh, _I see!_” she sniffed. “That was where you was pointing for, all
the while! And you didn’t let on to me, oh, no!”
“Now, Lois, don’t you get excited,” exhorted Mrs. Daggett. “It was just
about the wall papers. Henry, he says to me this mornin’—... Git-ap,
Dolly!”
_“‘Henry says—Henry says’!_ Yes; I guess so! What do you know about
wall papers, Abby? ...Well, all I got to say is: I don’t want nobody
looking on an’ interfering when I’m trying to sell ‘Lives of Famous
People.’ Folks, es a rule, ain’t so interested in anything they got to
pay out money fer, an’ I want a clear field.”
“I won’t say a word till you’re all through talkin’, Lois,” promised
Mrs. Daggett meekly. “Mebbe she’d kind of hate to say ‘no’ before me.
She’s took a real liking to Henry.... Git-ap, Dolly.... And anyway,
she’s awful generous. I could say, kind of careless; ‘If I was you, I’d
take a leather-bound.’ Couldn’t I, Lois?”
“Well, you can come in, Abby, if you’re so terrible anxious,” relented
Miss Daggett. “You might tell her, you and Henry was going to take a
leather-bound; that might have some effect. I remember once I sold
three Famous People in a row in one street. There couldn’t one o’ them
women endure to think of her next door neighbor having something she
didn’t have.”
“That’s so, Lois,” beamed Mrs. Daggett. “The most of folks is about
like that. Why, I rec’lect once, Henry brought me up a red-handled
broom from th’ store. My! it wa’n’t no time b’fore he was cleaned right
out of red-handled brooms. Nobody wanted ’em natural color, striped, or
blue. Henry, he says to me, ‘What did you do to advertise them
red-handled brooms, Abby?’ ‘Why, papa,’ says I, ‘I swept off my stoop
and the front walk a couple of times, that’s all.’ ‘Well,’ he says,
‘broom-handles is as catching as measles, if you only get ’em th’ right
color!’ ... Git-ap, Dolly!”
“Well, did you _ever!_” breathed Miss Daggett excitedly, leaning out of
the buggy to gaze upon the scene of activity displayed on the further
side of the freshly-pruned hedge which divided Miss Lydia Orr’s
property from the road: “Painters and carpenters and masons, all going
at once! And ain’t that Jim Dodge out there in the side yard talking to
her? ’Tis, as sure as I’m alive! I wonder what _he’s_ doing? Go right
in, Abby!”
“I kind of hate to drive Dolly in on that fresh gravel,” hesitated Mrs.
Daggett. “He’s so heavy on his feet he’ll muss it all up. Mebbe I’d
better hitch out in front.”
“She sees us, Abby; go on in!” commanded Miss Daggett masterfully. “I
guess when it comes to that, her gravel ain’t any better than other
folks’ gravel.”
Thus urged, Mrs. Daggett guided the sulky brown horse between the big
stone gateposts and brought him to a standstill under the somewhat
pretentious _porte-cochère_ of the Bolton house.
Lydia Orr was beside the vehicle in a moment, her face bright with
welcoming smiles.
“Dear Mrs. Daggett,” she said, “I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve been
wanting to see you all day. I’m sure you can tell me—”
“You’ve met my husband’s sister, Miss Lois Daggett, haven’t you, Miss
Orr? She’s the lady that made that beautiful drawn-in mat you bought at
the fair.”
Miss Orr shook hands cordially with the author of the drawn-in mat.
“Come right in,” she said. “You’ll want to see what we’re doing inside,
though nothing is finished yet.”
She led the way to a small room off the library, its long French
windows opening on a balcony.
“This room used to be a kind of a den, they tell me; so I’ve made it
into one, the first thing, you see.”
There was a rug on the floor, a chair or two and a high mahogany desk
which gave the place a semblance of comfort amid the general confusion.
Miss Lois Daggett gazed about with argus-eyed curiosity.
“I don’t know as I was ever in this room, when Andrew Bolton lived
here,” she observed, “but it looks real homelike now.”
“Poor man! I often think of him,” said kindly Mrs. Daggett. “’Twould be
turrible to be shut away from the sunshine f’r even one year; but poor
Andrew Bolton’s been closed up in State’s prison fer—l’ me see, it mus’
be goin’ on—”
“It’s fifteen years, come fall, since he got his sentence,” stated the
spinster. “His time must be ’most up.”
Lydia Orr had seated herself in an old-fashioned chair, its tall carved
back turned to the open windows.
“Did you—lose much in the bank failure, Miss Daggett?” she inquired,
after a slight pause, during which the promoter of Famous People was
loosening the strings of her black silk bag.
“About two hundred dollars I’d saved up,” replied Miss Daggett. “By now
it would be a lot more—with the interest.”
“Yes, of course,” assented their hostess; “one should always think of
interest in connection with savings.”
She appeared to be gazing rather attentively at the leather-bound
prospectus Miss Daggett had withdrawn from her bag.
“That looks like something interesting, Miss Daggett,” she volunteered.
“This volume I’m holdin’ in my hand,” began that lady, professionally,
“is one of the most remarkable works ever issued by the press of any
country. It is the life history of one thousand men and women of
world-wide fame and reputation, in letters, art, science _an’_ public
life. No library nor parlor table is complete without this
authoritative work of general information _an’_ reference. It is a
complete library in itself, and—”
“What is the price of the work, Miss Daggett?” inquired Lydia Orr.
“Just hold on a minute; I’m coming to that,” said Miss Daggett firmly.
“As I was telling you, this work is a complete library in itself. A
careful perusal of the specimen pages will convince the most skeptical.
Turning to page four hundred and fifty-six, we read:—”
[Illustration] “Just hold on a minute; I’m coming to that,” said Miss
Daggett firmly.
“I’m sure I should like to buy the book, Miss Daggett.”
“You ain’t th’ only one,” said the agent. “Any person of even the most
ordinary intelligence ought to own this work. Turning to page four
hundred and fifty-six, we read: ‘Snipeley, Samuel Bangs: lawyer
ligislator _an’_ author; born eighteen hundred fifty-nine, in the town
of—’”
At this moment the door was pushed noiselessly open, and a tall, spare
woman of middle age stood upon the threshold bearing a tray in her
hands. On the tray were set forth silver tea things, flanked by thin
bread and butter and a generous pile of sponge cake.
“You must be tired and thirsty after your drive,” said Lydia Orr
hospitably. “You may set the tray here, Martha.”
The maid complied.
“Of course I must have that book, Miss Daggett,” their hostess went on.
“You didn’t mention the title, nor the price. Won’t you have a cup of
tea, Mrs. Daggett?”
“That cup of tea looks real nice; but I’m afraid you’ve gone to a lot
of trouble and put yourself out,” protested Mrs. Daggett, who had not
ventured to open her lips until then. What wonderful long words Lois
had used; and how convincing had been her manner. Mrs. Daggett had
resolved that “Lives of Famous People,” in its best red leather
binding, should adorn her own parlor table in the near future, if she
could persuade Henry to consent.
“I think that book Lois is canvassing for is just lovely,” she added
artfully, as she helped herself to cake. “I’m awful anxious to own one;
just think, I’d never even heard of Snipeley Samuel Bangs—”
Lois Daggett crowed with laughter.
“Fer pity sake, Abby! don’t you know no better than that? It’s Samuel
Bangs Snipeley; he was County Judge, the author of ‘Platform Pearls,’
and was returned to legislature four times by his constituents, besides
being—”
“Could you spare me five copies of the book, Miss Daggett?” inquired
Lydia, handing her the sponge cake.
“Five copies!”
Miss Daggett swiftly controlled her agitation.
“I haven’t told you the price, yet. You’d want one of them
leather-bound, wouldn’t you? They come high, but they wear real well,
and I will say there’s nothing handsomer for a parlor table.”
“I want them all leather-bound,” said Lydia, smiling. “I want one for
myself, one for a library and the other three—”
“There’s nothing neater for a Christmas or birthday present!” shrilled
Lois Daggett joyously. “And so informing.”
She swallowed her tea in short, swift gulps; her faded eyes shone.
Inwardly she was striving to compute the agent’s profit on five
leather-bound copies of Famous People. She almost said aloud “I can
have a new dress!”
“We’ve been thinking,” Lydia Orr said composedly, “that it might be
pleasant to open a library and reading room in the village. What do you
think of the idea, Miss Daggett? You seem interested in books, and I
thought possibly you might like to take charge of the work.”
“Who, me?— Take charge of a library?”
Lois Daggett’s eyes became on the instant watchful and suspicious.
Lydia Orr had encountered that look before, on the faces of men and
even of boys. Everybody was afraid of being cheated, she thought. Was
this just in Brookville, and because of the misdeeds of one man, so
long ago?
“Of course we shall have to talk it over some other day, when we have
more time,” she said gently.
“Wouldn’t that be nice!” said Mrs. Daggett. “I was in a library once,
over to Grenoble. Even school children were coming in constant to get
books. But I never thought we could have one in Brookville. Where could
we have it, my dear?”
“Yes; that’s the trouble,” chimed in Lois. “There isn’t any place fit
for anything like that in our town.”
Lydia glanced appealingly from one to the other of the two faces. One
might have thought her irresolute—or even afraid of their verdict.
“I had thought,” she said slowly, “of buying the old Bolton bank
building. It has not been used for anything, Judge Fulsom says, since—”
“No; it ain’t,” acquiesced Mrs. Daggett soberly, “not since—”
She fell silent, thinking of the dreadful winter after the bank
failure, when scarlet fever raged among the impoverished homes.
“There’s been some talk, off and on, of opening a store there,” chimed
in Lois Daggett, setting down her cup with a clash; “but I guess
nobody’d patronize it. Folks don’t forget so easy.”
“But it’s a good substantial building,” Lydia went on, her eyes resting
on Mrs. Daggett’s broad, rosy face, which still wore that unwonted look
of pain and sadness. “It seems a pity not to change the—the
associations. The library and reading room could be on the first floor;
and on the second, perhaps, a town hall, where—”
“For the land sake!” ejaculated Lois Daggett; “you cer’nly have got an
imagination, Miss Orr. I haven’t heard that town hall idea spoken of
since Andrew Bolton’s time. He was always talking about town
improvements; wanted a town hall and courses of lectures, and a
fountain playing in a park and a fire-engine, and the land knows what.
He was a great hand to talk, Andrew Bolton was. And you see how he
turned out!”
“And mebbe he’d have done all those nice things for Brookville, Lois,
if his speculations had turned out different,” said Mrs. Daggett,
charitably. “I always thought Andrew Bolton _meant_ all right. Of
course he had to invest our savings; banks always do, Henry says.”
“I don’t know anything about _investing_, and don’t want to, either—not
the kind he did, anyhow,” retorted Lois Daggett.
She arose as she spoke, brushing the crumbs of sponge cake from her
skirt.
“I got to get that order right in,” she said: “five copies—or was it
six, you said?”
“I think I could use six,” murmured Lydia.
“And all leather-bound! Well, now, I know you won’t ever be sorry. It’s
one of those works any intelligent person would be proud to own.”
“I’m sure it is,” said the girl gently.
She turned to Mrs. Daggett.
“Can’t you stay awhile longer? I—I should like—”
“Oh, I guess Abby’d better come right along with me,” put in Lois
briskly ... “and that reminds me, do you want to pay something down on
that order? As a general thing, where I take a big order—”
“Of course—I’d forgotten; I always prefer to pay in advance.”
The girl opened the tall desk and producing a roll of bills told off
the price of her order into Miss Daggett’s hand.
“I should think you’d be almost afraid to keep so much ready money by
you, with all those men workin’ outside,” she commented.
“They’re all Brookville men,” said Lydia. “I have to have money to pay
them with. Besides, I have Martha.”
“You mean your hired girl, I suppose,” inferred Miss Daggett, rubbing
her nose thoughtfully.
“She isn’t exactly—a servant,” hesitated Lydia. “We give the men their
noon meal,” she added. “Martha helps me with that.”
“You give them their dinner! Well, I never! Did you hear that, Abby?
She gives them their dinner. Didn’t you know men-folks generally bring
their noonings in a pail? Land! I don’t know how you get hearty
victuals enough for all those men. Where do they eat?”
“In the new barn,” said Lydia, smiling. “We have a cook stove out
there.”
“Ain’t that just lovely!” beamed Mrs. Daggett, squeezing the girl’s
slim hand in both her own. “Most folks wouldn’t go to the trouble of
doing anything so nice. No wonder they’re hustling.”
“Mebbe they won’t hustle so fast toward the end of the job,” said Lois
Daggett. “You’ll find men-folks are always ready to take advantage of
any kind of foolishness. Come, Abby; we must be going. You’ll get those
books in about two weeks, Miss Orr. A big order takes more time, I
always tell people.”
“Thank you, Miss Daggett. But wouldn’t you—if you are in a hurry, you
know; Mr. Dodge is going to the village in the automobile; we’re
expecting some supplies for the house. He’ll be glad to take you.”
“Who, Jim Dodge? You don’t mean to tell me Jim Dodge can drive an auto!
I never stepped foot inside of one of those contraptions. But I don’t
know but I might’s well die for a sheep as a lamb.”
Lois Daggett followed the girl from the room in a flutter of joyous
excitement.
“You can come home when you get ready, Abby,” she said over her
shoulder. “But you want to be careful driving that horse of yours; he
might cut up something scandalous if he was to meet an auto.”