A Spinner in the Sun | Page 5

reared between
them.
"I--I'm afraid I don't remember," stammered Miss Evelina, in a low
voice, hoping that the intruder would go.
"I used to be Mehitable Smith, and that's what I am still, having been
spared marriage. Mehitable is my name, but folks calls me Hitty--Miss
Hitty," she added, with a slight accent on the "Miss."
"Oh," answered Miss Evelina, "I remember," though she did not
remember at all.
"Well, I'm glad you've come back," went on the guest, politely.
Altogether in the manner of one invited to do so, she removed her
shawl and sat down, furtively eyeing Miss Evelina, yet affecting to
look carelessly about the house.
She was a woman of fifty or more, brisk and active of body and kindly,
though inquisitive, of countenance. Her dark hair, scarcely touched
with grey, was parted smoothly in the exact centre and plastered down
on both sides, as one guessed, by a brush and cold water. Her black
eyes were bright and keen, and her gold-bowed spectacles were
habitually worn half-way down her nose. Her mouth and chin were
indicative of great firmness--those whose misfortune it was to differ
from Miss Hitty were accustomed to call it obstinacy. People of plainer
speech said it was "mulishness."
Her gown was dark calico, stiffly starched, and made according to the
durable and comfortable pattern of her school-days. "All in one piece,"
Miss Hitty was wont to say. "Then when I bend over, as folks that does
housework has to bend over, occasionally, I don't come apart in the
back. For my part, I never could see sense in wearing clothes that's held
by a safety-pin in the back instead of good, firm cloth, and, moreover, a
belt that either slides around or pinches where it ain't pleasant to be
pinched, ain't my notion of comfort. Apron strings is bad enough, for
you have to have 'em tight to keep from slipping." Miss Hitty had never

worn corsets, and had the straight, slender figure of a boy.
The situation became awkward. Miss Evelina still stood in the middle
of the room, her veiled face slightly averted. The impenetrable shelter
of chiffon awed Miss Mehitable, but she was not a woman to give up
easily when embarked upon the quest for knowledge. Some unusual
state of mind kept her from asking a direct question about the veil, and
meanwhile she continually racked her memory.
Miss Evelina's white, slender hands opened and closed nervously. Miss
Hitty set her feet squarely on the floor, and tucked her immaculate
white apron closely about her knees. "When did you come?" she
demanded finally, with the air of the attorney for the prosecution.
"Last night," murmured Miss Evelina.
"On that late train?"
"Yes."
"I heard it stop, but I never sensed it was you. Seemed to me I heard
somebody go by, too, but I was too sleepy to get up and see. I thought I
must be dreaming, but I was sure I heard somebody on the walk. If I'd
known it was you, I'd have made you stop at my house for the rest of
the night, instead of coming up here alone."
"Very kind," said Miss Evelina, after an uncomfortable pause.
"You might as well set down," remarked Miss Hitty, with a new
gentleness of manner. "I'm going to set a spell."
Miss Evelina sat, helplessly, in the hair-cloth chair which she hated,
and turned her veiled face yet farther away from her guest. Seeing that
her hostess did not intend to talk, Miss Hitty began a conversation, if
anything wholly one-sided may be so termed.
"I live in the same place," she said. "Ma died seventeen years ago on
the eighteenth of next April, and left the house and the income for me.
There was enough to take care of two, and so I took my sister's child,
Araminta, to bring up. You know my poor sister got married. She ought
to have known better, but she didn't. She just put her head into the
noose, and it slipped up on her, as I told her it would, both before and
after the ceremony. Having seen all the trouble men make in the world,
I sh'd think women would know enough to keep away from 'em, but
they don't--that is, some women don't." Miss Hitty smoothed her stiff
white apron with an air of conscious virtue.
"Araminta was only a year old when her ma got enough of marrying

and went to her reward in Heaven. What she 'd been through would
have tried the patience of a saint, and Barbara wasn't no saint. None of
the Smith family have ever grown wings here on earth, but it's my
belief that we'll all be awarded our proper plumage in Heaven.
"He--" the pronoun was sufficiently definite