Bunner Sisters | Page 5

"AIN'T it your birthday?"
"Yes, but--"
"Well, and ain't you had to run round the corner to the Square every
morning, rain or shine, to see what time it was, ever since we had to
sell mother's watch last July? Ain't you, Evelina?"
"Yes, but--"
"There ain't any buts. We've always wanted a clock and now we've got
one: that's all there is about it. Ain't she a beauty, Evelina?" Ann Eliza,
putting back the kettle on the stove, leaned over her sister's shoulder to

pass an approving hand over the circular rim of the clock. "Hear how
loud she ticks. I was afraid you'd hear her soon as you come in."
"No. I wasn't thinking," murmured Evelina.
"Well, ain't you glad now?" Ann Eliza gently reproached her. The
rebuke had no acerbity, for she knew that Evelina's seeming
indifference was alive with unexpressed scruples.
"I'm real glad, sister; but you hadn't oughter. We could have got on well
enough without."
"Evelina Bunner, just you sit down to your tea. I guess I know what I'd
oughter and what I'd hadn't oughter just as well as you do--I'm old
enough!"
"You're real good, Ann Eliza; but I know you've given up something
you needed to get me this clock."
"What do I need, I'd like to know? Ain't I got a best black silk?" the
elder sister said with a laugh full of nervous pleasure.
She poured out Evelina's tea, adding some condensed milk from the jug,
and cutting for her the largest slice of pie; then she drew up her own
chair to the table.
The two women ate in silence for a few moments before Evelina began
to speak again. "The clock is perfectly lovely and I don't say it ain't a
comfort to have it; but I hate to think what it must have cost you."
"No, it didn't, neither," Ann Eliza retorted. "I got it dirt cheap, if you
want to know. And I paid for it out of a little extra work I did the other
night on the machine for Mrs. Hawkins."
"The baby-waists?"
"Yes."
"There, I knew it! You swore to me you'd buy a new pair of shoes with

that money."
"Well, and s'posin' I didn't want 'em--what then? I've patched up the old
ones as good as new--and I do declare, Evelina Bunner, if you ask me
another question you'll go and spoil all my pleasure."
"Very well, I won't," said the younger sister.
They continued to eat without farther words. Evelina yielded to her
sister's entreaty that she should finish the pie, and poured out a second
cup of tea, into which she put the last lump of sugar; and between them,
on the table, the clock kept up its sociable tick.
"Where'd you get it, Ann Eliza?" asked Evelina, fascinated.
"Where'd you s'pose? Why, right round here, over acrost the Square, in
the queerest little store you ever laid eyes on. I saw it in the window as
I was passing, and I stepped right in and asked how much it was, and
the store-keeper he was real pleasant about it. He was just the nicest
man. I guess he's a German. I told him I couldn't give much, and he
said, well, he knew what hard times was too. His name's
Ramy--Herman Ramy: I saw it written up over the store. And he told
me he used to work at Tiff'ny's, oh, for years, in the clock-department,
and three years ago he took sick with some kinder fever, and lost his
place, and when he got well they'd engaged somebody else and didn't
want him, and so he started this little store by himself. I guess he's real
smart, and he spoke quite like an educated man--but he looks sick."
Evelina was listening with absorbed attention. In the narrow lives of the
two sisters such an episode was not to be under-rated.
"What you say his name was?" she asked as Ann Eliza paused.
"Herman Ramy."
"How old is he?"
"Well, I couldn't exactly tell you, he looked so sick--but I don't b'lieve

he's much over forty."
By this time the plates had been cleared and the teapot emptied, and the
two sisters rose from the table. Ann Eliza, tying an apron over her black
silk, carefully removed all traces of the meal; then, after washing the
cups and plates, and putting them away in a cupboard, she drew her
rocking-chair to the lamp and sat down to a heap of mending. Evelina,
meanwhile, had been roaming about the room in search of an
abiding-place for the clock. A rosewood what-not with ornamental
fret-work hung on the wall beside the devout young lady in dishabille,
and after much weighing of alternatives the sisters decided to dethrone
a broken china vase filled