Miss Lulu Bett | Page 3

harm," he added, and smiled at Lulu.
There was a moment's silence into which Monona injected a loud

"Num, num, num-my-num," as if she were the burden of an
Elizabethan lyric. She seemed to close the incident. But the burden was
cut off untimely. There was, her father reminded her portentously,
company in the parlour.
"When the bell rang, I was so afraid something had happened to Di,"
said Ina sighing.
"Let's see," said Di's father. "Where is little daughter to-night?"
He must have known that she was at Jenny Plow's at a tea party, for at
noon they had talked of nothing else; but this was his way. And Ina
played his game, always. She informed him, dutifully.
"Oh, ho," said he, absently. How could he be expected to keep his mind
on these domestic trifles.
"We told you that this noon," said Lulu.
He frowned, disregarded her. Lulu had no delicacy.
"How much is salmon the can now?" he inquired abruptly--this was one
of his forms of speech, the can, the pound, the cord.
His partner supplied this information with admirable promptness. Large
size, small size, present price, former price--she had them all.
"Dear me," said Mr. Deacon. "That is very nearly salmoney, isn't it?"
"Herbert!" his Ina admonished, in gentle, gentle reproach. Mr. Deacon
punned, organically. In talk he often fell silent and then asked some
question, schemed to permit his vice to flourish. Mrs. Deacon's return
was always automatic: "_Her_bert!"
"Whose Bert?" he said to this. "I thought I was your Bert."
She shook her little head. "You are a case," she told him. He beamed
upon her. It was his intention to be a case.

Lulu ventured in upon this pleasantry, and cleared her throat. She was
not hoarse, but she was always clearing her throat.
"The butter is about all gone," she observed. "Shall I wait for the
butter-woman or get some creamery?"
Mr. Deacon now felt his little jocularities lost before a wall of the
matter of fact. He was not pleased. He saw himself as the light of his
home, bringer of brightness, lightener of dull hours. It was a pretty rôle.
He insisted upon it. To maintain it intact, it was necessary to turn upon
their sister with concentrated irritation.
"Kindly settle these matters without bringing them to my attention at
meal-time," he said icily.
Lulu flushed and was silent. She was an olive woman, once handsome,
now with flat, bluish shadows under her wistful eyes. And if only she
would look at her brother Herbert and say something. But she looked in
her plate.
"I want some honey," shouted the child, Monona.
"There isn't any, Pet," said Lulu.
"I want some," said Monona, eyeing her stonily. But she found that her
hair-ribbon could be pulled forward to meet her lips, and she embarked
on the biting of an end. Lulu departed for some sauce and cake. It was
apple sauce. Mr. Deacon remarked that the apples were almost as good
as if he had stolen them. He was giving the impression that he was an
irrepressible fellow. He was eating very slowly. It added pleasantly to
his sense of importance to feel that some one, there in the parlour, was
waiting his motion.
At length they rose. Monona flung herself upon her father. He put her
aside firmly, every inch the father. No, no. Father was occupied now.
Mrs. Deacon coaxed her away. Monona encircled her mother's waist,
lifted her own feet from the floor and hung upon her. "She's such an
active child," Lulu ventured brightly.

"Not unduly active, I think," her brother-in-law observed.
He turned upon Lulu his bright smile, lifted his eyebrows, dropped his
lids, stood for a moment contemplating the yellow tulip, and so left the
room.
Lulu cleared the table. Mrs. Deacon essayed to wind the clock. Well
now. Did Herbert say it was twenty-three to-night when it struck the
half hour and twenty-one last night, or twenty-one to-night and last
night twenty-three? She talked of it as they cleared the table, but Lulu
did not talk.
"Can't you remember?" Mrs. Deacon said at last. "I should think you
might be useful."
Lulu was lifting the yellow tulip to set it on the sill. She changed her
mind. She took the plant to the wood-shed and tumbled it with force
upon the chip-pile.
The dining-room table was laid for breakfast. The two women brought
their work and sat there. The child Monona hung miserably about,
watching the clock. Right or wrong, she was put to bed by it. She had
eight minutes more--seven--six--five--
Lulu laid down her sewing and left the room. She went to the
wood-shed, groped about in the dark, found the stalk of the one tulip
flower in its heap on the chip-pile. The tulip