The Tenants: An Episode of the '80sWatts, Mary S. (Mary Stanbery)
General
The Tenants: An Episode of the '80s
Watts, Mary S. (Mary Stanbery)
Dwellings -- Fiction; Families -- Fiction; Ohio -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
By the next day, however, Miss Clara had recovered spirits and
interest; and when a furniture-van slouched up Richmond Avenue, and
turned in between the old brick pillars at the entrance to the park,
she could contain herself no longer. "Mary, come here, do look--you
don't seem to notice anything. That's Zimmermann's wagon, I know it,
and I do believe that's young Charlie Gwynne, Horace's Charlie, you
know, the little one, not Gilbert's Charlie, he's at Harvard, on the
seat telling the driver where to go. Nobody ever knows the way out
here. Now isn't that like Jennie Gwynne? She does just love to boss
and manage everybody. I _knew_ something was up when I saw her coming
out every day--she's not so devoted to the boys as all that, you may
be sure. She just wants to tell 'em what to do and how to do it, and
which, and where, and when, and why--some people beat everything. Not
but what Jennie _is_ a good manager, I'll say that for her. I suppose
they're going to divide the things--well, of course, they've got to be
divided, but I do wonder if poor Gwynne will get anything worth having.
The boy's so gentle and quiet, he won't ever think of speaking up, and
saying, 'I ought to have that, Cousin Jennie.' It would be just like
her to--there goes another wagon. Well, _will you look_? It's one of
those nasty, dirty people, those Bulgarians that keep the second-hand
shops down on Scioto Street--well, if that doesn't pass everything!
The idea of selling anything out of Governor Gwynne's house to those
people--Bulgarians! It's enough to make him turn in his grave."
The doctor, who was a very tall, lean man, laid down his book, arose,
and gravely looked over his sister's head, out of the window at the
procession.
"I don't think that's a Bulgarian, Clara," he observed solemnly.
"What, it isn't? Well, John Vardaman, your eyes are failing,
that's all! There, I can see the name on his ramshackle old cart.
Am--Am--Amirkhanian--there, now, what do you think of _that_?"
"I think he's an Armenian," said the doctor, with no abatement of his
gravity. "I think they're all Armenians--Armenian Jews----"
"Oh, well, tease if you want to! Armenians or Bulgarians it's all one;
those countries where the men wear petticoats, and everybody drinks
sour milk--horrid! The idea of Jennie Gwynne clearing out the house for
_them_! I don't see how the others can let her run things that way; I
don't believe she knows anything about it. Do you suppose she has ever
heard that those blue India-ware plant-tubs, those great big elegant
things were intended to be given to Lucien's wife? Harriet herself told
me she had found a memorandum of it in her father's desk."
"Well, she can't very well sell 'em to the Armenians," said Doctor
Vardaman, with an air of profound consideration. "No Armenian that ever
lived would want to drink his sour milk out of a plant-tub. And besides
they have holes in the bottom, and he couldn't!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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