The Copy-Cat, and Other StoriesFreeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins
General
The Copy-Cat, and Other Stories
Freeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins
New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
“Be prepared for finding almost anything. Sally,” he observed. “Mr.
Zenock Shanksbury, as I remember him, was so conscientious that it
amounted to mania. I am sure he has sent simply unspeakable things
rather than incur the reproach of that conscience of his with regard to
defrauding Content of one jot or tittle of that personal property.”
Sally shook out a long, black silk dress, with jet dangling here and
there. “Now here is this dress,” said she. “I suppose I really must keep
this, but when that child is grown up the silk will probably be cracked
and entirely worthless.”
“You had better take the two trunks and pack them with such things, and
take your chances.”
“Oh, I suppose so. I suppose I must take chances with everything except
furs and wools, which will collect moths. Oh, goodness!” Sally held up
an old-fashioned fitch fur tippet. Little vague winged things came from
it like dust. “Moths!” said she, tragically. “Moths now. It is full
of them. Edward, you need not tell me that clergyman's wife was
conscientious. No conscientious woman would have sent an old fur tippet
all eaten with moths into another woman's house. She could not.”
Sally took flying leaps across the storeroom. She flung open the window
and tossed out the mangy tippet. “This is simply awful!” she declared,
as she returned. “Edward, don't you think we are justified in having
Thomas take all these things out in the back yard and making a bonfire
of the whole lot?”
“No, my dear.”
“But, Edward, nobody can tell what will come next. If Content's aunt had
died of a contagious disease, nothing could induce me to touch another
thing.”
“Well, dear, you know that she died from the shock of a carriage
accident, because she had a weak heart.”
“I know it, and of course there is nothing contagious about that.” Sally
took up an ancient bandbox and opened it. She displayed its contents: a
very frivolous bonnet dating back in style a halfcentury, gay with
roses and lace and green strings, and another with a heavy crape veil
dependent.
“You certainly do not advise me to keep these?” asked Sally,
despondently.
Edward Patterson looked puzzled. “Use your own judgment,” he said,
finally.
Sally summarily marched across the room and flung the gay bonnet and the
mournful one out of the window. Then she took out a bundle of very old
underwear which had turned a saffron yellow with age. “People are always
coming to me for old linen in case of burns,” she said, succinctly.
“After these are washed I can supply an auto da fe.”
Poor Sally worked all that day and several days afterward. The rector
deserted her, and she relied upon her own good sense in the disposition
of little Content's legacy. When all was over she told her husband.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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