Married people -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Now these same puffs, and embroidery, and ruffles, and tucks had excited
Eunice's liveliest admiration, and her fingers fairly itched to see how
they would look hanging on the clothes bars after passing through her
hands. That Ethelyn could touch them she never once dreamed. Her
instincts were truer than Mrs. Markham's and it struck her as perfectly
proper that one like Ethelyn should sit still while others served, and
to her mistress' remarks as to the ironing, she hastened to reply: "I'd
a heap sight rather do them up than to iron the boys' coarse shirts and
pantaloons. Don't you mind the summer I was at Camden working for Miss
Avery, who lived next door to Miss Judge Miller, from New York? She had
just such things as these, and I used to go in sometimes and watch Katy
iron 'em, so I b'lieve I can do it myself. Anyways, I want to try."
Fears that Eunice might rebel had been uppermost in Mrs. Markham's mind
when she saw the pile of elegant clothes, for she had a suspicion that
Mrs. Ethelyn would keep as much aloof from the ironing-board as she did
from the dish-washing; but if Eunice was willing and even glad of the
opportunity, why, that made a difference, and the good woman began to
feel so much better that by the time the last article was on the line,
the kitchen floor cleared up, and the basin of water heating on the
stove for her own ablutions, she was quite amiably disposed toward her
grand daughter-in-law, who had not made her appearance since dinner.
Ethelyn liked staying in her chamber better than anywhere else, and it
was especially pleasant there to-day, for Eunice had taken great pains
to make it so, sweeping, and dusting and putting to rights, and patting
the pillows and cushions just as she remembered seeing Melinda do, and
then, after the collar and ribbon had been given to her, going down on
her hands and knees before the fire to wash the hearth with milk, which
gave to the red bricks a polished, shining appearance, and added much to
the cheerfulness of the room. Ethelyn had commended her pleasantly, and,
in the seventh heaven of delight, Eunice had returned to her washing,
taking greater pains than ever with the dainty puffs and frills, and
putting in a stitch where one was needed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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