Nobody Part 78

Lois stayed for no more, but ran in. The interior room of the house, which was very large for a bathing-house, was divided in two by a part.i.tion. In the inner, smaller room, Lois began busily to change her dress. On the walls hung a number of bathing suits of heavy flannel, one of which she appropriated. Charity came in after her.

"You ain't a goin' for clams, Lois? Well, I wouldn't, if I was you."

"Why not?"

"I wouldn't make myself such a sight, for folks to see."

"I don't at all do it for folks to see, but that folks may eat. We have brought 'em here, and now we must give them something for supper."

"Are you goin' with bare feet?"

"Why not?" said Lois, laughing. "Do you think I am going to spoil my best pair of shoes for vanity's sake?" And she threw off shoes and stockings as she spoke, and showed a pair of pretty little white feet, which glanced coquettishly under the blue flannel.

"Lois, what's brought these folks here?"

"I am sure I don't know."

"I wish they'd stayed where they belong. That woman's just turning up her nose at every blessed thing she sees."

"It won't hurt the Sound!" said Lois, laughing.

"What did they come for?"

"I can't tell; but, Charity, it will never do to let them go away feeling they got nothing by coming. So you have the kettle boiled, will you, and the table all ready--and I'll try for the clams."

"They won't like 'em."

"Can't help that."

"And what am I going to do with Mr. Sears?"

"Give him his supper of course."

"Along with all the others?"

"You must. You cannot set two tables."

"There's aunt Anne!" exclaimed Charity; and in the next minute aunt Anne came round to them by the front steps; for each half of the bathing-house had its own door of approach, as well as a door of communication. Mrs. Marx came in, surveyed Lois, and heard Charity's statement.

"These things will happen in the best regulated families," she remarked, beginning also to loosen her dress.

"What are you going to do, aunt Anne?"

"Going after clams, with Lois. We shall want a bushel or less; and we can't wait till the moon rises, to eat 'em."

"And how am I going to set the table with them all there?"

Mrs. Marx laughed. "I expect they're like cats in a strange garret. Set your table just as usual, Charry; push 'em out o' the way if they get in it. Now then, Lois!"

And, slipping down the steps and away off to the stretch of mud where the rushes grew, two extraordinary, flannel-clad, barefooted figures, topped with sun-bonnets and armed with hoes and baskets, were presently seen to be very busy there about something. Charity opened the door of communication between the two parts of the house, and surveyed the party. Mrs. Barclay sat on the step outside, looking over the plain of waters, with her head in her hand. Mrs. Armadale was in a rocking-chair, just within the door, placidly knitting. Mr. and Mrs.

Lenox, somewhat further back, seemed not to know just what to do with themselves; and Madge, holding a little aloof, met her sister's eye with an expression of despair and doubt. Outside, at the foot of the steps, where Mrs. Barclay sat, lounged the ox driver.

"Ben here afore?" he asked confidentially of the lady.

"Yes, once or twice. I never came in an ox cart before."

"I guess you hain't," he replied, chewing a blade of rank gra.s.s which he had pulled for the purpose. "My judgment is we had a fust-rate entertainment, comin' down."

"I quite agree with you."

"Now in anythin' _but_ an ox cart, you couldn't ha' had it."

"No, not so well, certainly."

"_I_ couldn't ha' had it, anyway, withouten we'd come so softly. I declare, I believe them critters stepped soft o' purpose. It's better'n a book, to hear that girl talk, now, ain't it?"

"Much better than many books."

"She's got a lot o' 'em inside her head. That beats me! She allays was smart, Lois was; but I'd no idee she was so full o' book larnin'. Books is a great thing!" And he heaved a sigh.

"Do you have time to read much yourself, sir?"

"Depends on the book," he said, with a bit of a laugh. "Accordin' to that, I get much or little. No; in these here summer days a man can't do much at books; the evenin's short, you see, and the days is long; and the days is full o' work. The winter's the time for readin'. I got hold o' a book last winter that was wuth a great deal o' time, and got it. I never liked a book better. That was Rollin's 'Ancient History.'"

"Ah!" said Mrs. Barclay. "So you enjoyed that?"

"Ever read it?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you enjoy it?"

"I believe I like Modern history better."

"I've read some o' that too," said he meditatively. "It ain't so different. 'Seems to me, folks is allays pretty much alike; only we call things by different names. Alexander the Great, now,--he warn't much different from Napoleon Buonaparte."

"Wasn't he a better man?" inquired Mr. Lenox, putting his head out at the door.

"Wall, I don' know; it's difficult, you know, to judge of folk's insides; but I don't make much count of a man that drinks himself to death at thirty."

"Haven't you any drinking in Shampuashuh?"

"Wall, there ain't much; and what there is, is done in the dark, like.

You won't find no rum-shops open."

"Indeed! How long has the town been so distinguished?"

"I guess it's five year. I _know_ it is; for it was just afore we put in our last President. Then we voted liquor shouldn't be president in Shampuashuh."