“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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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