An Alabaster Box Part 31

"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Daggett placidly. "Of course I'm fleshy, Ann; I ain't denying that; but so be you. You don't want to think about the heat so constant, Ann. Our thermometer fell down and got broke day before yesterday, and Henry says 'I'll bring you up another from the store this noon.' But he forgot all about it. I didn't say a word, and that afternoon I set out on the porch under the vines and felt real cool--not knowing it was so hot--when along comes Mrs. Fulsom, a-pantin' and fannin' herself. 'Good land, Abby!'

says she; 'by the looks, a body'd think you didn't know the thermometer had risen to ninety-two since eleven o'clock this morning.' 'I didn't,' I says placid; 'our thermometer's broke.'

'Well, you'd better get another right off,' says she, wiping her face and groaning. 'It's an awful thing, weather like this, not to have a thermometer right where you can see it.' Henry brought a real nice one home from the store that very night; and I hung it out of sight behind the sitting room door; I told Henry I thought 'twould be safer there."

"That sounds exactly like you, Abby," commented Mrs. Whittle censoriously. "I should think Henry Daggett would be onto you, by now."

"Well, he ain't," said Mrs. Daggett, with mild triumph. "He thinks I'm real cute, an' like that. It does beat all, don't it? how simple menfolks are. I like 'em all the better for it, myself. If Henry'd been as smart an' penetrating as some folks, I don't know as we'd have made out so well together. Ain't it lucky for me he ain't?"

Ann Whittle sniffed suspiciously. She never felt quite sure of Abby Daggett: there was a lurking sparkle in her demure blue eyes and a suspicious dimple near the corner of her mouth which ruffled Mrs.

Whittle's temper, already strained to the breaking point by the heat and dust of their midday journey.

"Well, I never should have thought of such a thing, as going to Ladies' Aid in all this heat, if you hadn't come after me, Abby," she said crossly. "I guess flannel petticoats for the heathen could have waited a spell."

"Mebbe they could, Ann," Mrs. Daggett said soothingly. "It's kind of hard to imagine a heathen wanting any sort of a petticoat this weather, and I guess they don't wear 'em before they're converted; but of course the missionaries try to teach 'em better. They go forth, so to say, with the Bible in one hand and a petticoat in the other."

"I should hope so!" said Mrs. Whittle, with vague fervor.

The sight of a toiling wagon supporting a huge barrel caused her to change the subject rather abruptly.

"That's Jacob Merrill's team," she said, craning her neck. "What on earth has he got in that hogs-head?"

"He's headed for Lydia Orr's spring, I shouldn't wonder," surmised Mrs. Daggett. "She told Henry to put up a notice in the post office that folks could get all the water they wanted from her spring. It's running, same as usual; but, most everybody else's has dried up."

"I think the minister ought to pray for rain regular from the pulpit on Sunday," Mrs. Whittle advanced. "I'm going to tell him so."

"She's going to do a lot better than that," said Mrs. Daggett....

"For the land sake, Dolly! I ain't urged you beyond your strength, and you know it; but if you don't g'long--"

A vigorous slap of the reins conveyed Mrs. Daggett's unuttered threat to the reluctant animal, with the result that both ladies were suddenly jerked backward by an unlooked for burst of speed.

"I think that horse is dangerous, Abby," remonstrated Mrs. Whittle, indignantly, as she settled her veil. "You ought to be more careful how you speak up to him."

"I'll risk him!" said Mrs. Daggett with spirit. "It don't help him none to stop walking altogether and stand stock still in the middle of the road, like he was a graven image. I'll take the whip to him, if he don't look out!"

Mrs. Whittle gathered her skirts about her, with an apprehensive glance at the dusty road.

"If you das' to touch that whip, Abby Daggett," said she, "I'll git right out o' this buggy and walk, so there!"

Mrs. Daggett's broad bosom shook with merriment.

"Fer pity sake, Ann, don't be scared," she exhorted her friend. "I ain't never touched Dolly with the whip; but he knows I mean what I say when I speak to him like that! ...I started in to tell you about the Red-Fox Spring, didn't I?"

Mrs. Whittle coughed dryly.

"I wish I had a drink of it right now," she said. "The idea of that Orr girl watering her flowers and gra.s.s, when everybody else in town is pretty near burnt up. Why, we ain't had water enough in our cistern to do the regular wash fer two weeks. I said to Joe and the Deacon today: 'You can wear them shirts another day, for I don't know where on earth you'll get clean ones.'"

"There ain't nothing selfish about Lydia Orr," proclaimed Mrs.

Daggett joyfully. "What _do_ you think she's going to do now?"

"How should I know?"

Mrs. Whittle's tone implied a jaded indifference to the doings of any one outside of her own immediate family circle.

"She's going to have the Red-Fox piped down to the village," said Mrs. Daggett. "She's had a man from Boston to look at it; and he says there's water enough up there in the mountains to supply two or three towns the size of Brookville. She's going to have a reservoir: and anybody that's a mind to can pipe it right into their kitchens."

Mrs. Whittle turned her veiled head to stare incredulously at her companion.

"Well, I declare!" she said; "that girl certainly does like to make a show of her money; don't she? If 'tain't one thing it's another. How did a girl like her come by all that money, I'd like to know?"

"I don't see as that's any of our particular affairs," objected Mrs.

Daggett warmly. "Think of havin' nice cool spring water, just by turning a faucet. We're going to have it in our house. And Henry says mebbe he'll put in a tap and a drain-pipe upstairs. It'd save a lot o' steps."

"Huh! like enough you'll be talkin' about a regular nickel-plated bathroom like hers, next," suspicioned Mrs. Whittle. "The Deacon says he did his best to talk her out of it; but she stuck right to it. And one wa'n't enough, at that. She's got three of 'em in that house.

That's worse'n Andrew Bolton."

"Do you mean _worse_, Ann Whittle, or do you mean _better?_ A nice white bathtub is a means o' grace, I think!"

"I mean what I said, Abby; and you hadn't ought to talk like that.

It's downright sinful. _Means o' grace! a bathtub!_ Well, I never!"

The ladies of the Aid Society were already convened in Mrs. Dix's front parlor, a large square room, filled with the cool green light from a yard full of trees, whose deep-thrust roots defied the drought. Ellen Dix had just brought in a gla.s.s pitcher, its frosted sides proclaiming its cool contents, when the late comers arrived.

"Yes," Mrs. Dix was saying, "Miss Orr sent over a big piece of ice this morning and she squeezed out juice of I don't know how many lemons. Jim Dodge brought 'em here in the auto; and she told him to go around and gather up all the ladies that didn't have conveyances of their own."

"And that's how I came to be here," said Mrs. Mixter. "Our horse has gone lame."

"Well now, wa'n't that lovely?" crowed Mrs. Daggett, cooling her flushed face with slow sweeps of the big turkey-feather fan Mrs. Dix handed her. "Ain't she just the sweetest girl--always thinking of other folks! I never see anything like her."

A subtle expression of reserve crept over the faces of the attentive women. Mrs. Mixter tasted the contents of her gla.s.s critically.

"I don't know," she said dryly, as if the lemonade had failed to cool her parched throat, "that depends on how you look at it."

Mrs. Whittle gave vent to a cackle of rather discordant laughter.

"That's just what I was telling Abby on the way over," she said.

"Once in a while you do run across a person that's bound to make a show of their money."

Mrs. Solomon Black, in a green and white sprigged muslin dress, her water-waves unusually crisp and conspicuous, bit off a length of thread with a meditative air.

"Well," said she, "that girl lived in my house, off an' on, for more than two months. I can't say as I think she's the kind that wants to show off."

Fifteen needles paused in their busy activities, and twice as many eyes were focused upon Mrs. Solomon Black. That lady sustained the combined attack with studied calm. She even smiled, as she jerked her thread smartly through a breadth of red flannel.

"I s'pose you knew a lot more about her in the beginning than we did," said Mrs. Dodge, in a slightly offended tone.

"You must have known something about her, Phoebe," put in Mrs.

Fulsom. "I don't care what anybody says to the contrary, there's something queer in a young girl, like her, coming to a strange place, like Brookville, and doing all the things she's done. It ain't natural: and that's what I told the Judge when he was considering the new waterworks. There's a great deal of money to be made on waterworks, the Judge says."

The eyes were now focused upon Mrs. Fulsom.