Old Lady Number 31 | Page 7

Yer know me an' her an' Angy all went ter
school tergether, although Miss Ellie is so much younger 'n the rest o'
us that we call her the baby. Here! Where--"
But he was gone. Sighing heavily, the matron put the meat in the
ice-box, and then made her slow, lumbering way into the front hall, or
community-room, where the sisters were gathered in a body to await
the new arrival.
"Waal, say!" she supplemented, after she had finished telling her
pitiably brief story, "thar's trouble ernough ter go 'round, hain't thar?"
Aunt Nancy Smith, who never believed in wearing her heart on her
sleeve, sniffed and thumped her cane on the floor.
"Yew young folks," she affirmed, herself having seen ninety-nine
winters, while Abigail had known but a paltry sixty-five, "yew allers go
an' cut yer pity on the skew-gee. I don't see nothin' ter bawl an' beller
erbout. I say that a'ny man what can't take kere o' himself, not ter
mention his wife, should orter go ter the poorhouse."
But the matriarch's voice quavered even more than usual, and as she
finished she hastily bent down and felt in her deep skirt-pocket for her
snuff-box.
Now the Amazonian Mrs. Homan, a widow for the third time, made
sturdy retort:

"That's jest like yew old maids--always a-blamin' the men. Yew kin jest
bet I never would have let one of my husbands go ter the poorhouse. It
would have mortified me dretful. It must be a purty poor sort of a
woman what can't take care of one man and keep a roof over his head.
Why, my second, Oliver G., used ter say--"
"Oh!" Miss Ellie wrung her hands, "can't we do somethin'?"
"I could do a-plenty," mourned Miss Abigail, "ef I only had been savin'.
Here I git a salary o' four dollars a month, an' not one penny laid away."
"Yew fergit," spoke some one gently, "that it takes consid'able ter dress
a matron proper."
Aunt Nancy, who had been sneezing furiously at her own impotence,
now found her speech again.
"We're a nice set ter talk erbout dewin' somethin'--a passel o' poor ole
critters like us!" Her cackle of embittered laughter was interrupted by
the low, cultivated voice of the belle of the Home, "Butterfly Blossy."
"We've got to do something," said Blossy firmly.
When Blossy spoke with such decision, every one of the sisters pricked
up her ears. Blossy might be "a shaller-pate"; she might arrange the
golden-white hair of her head as befitted the crowning glory of a young
girl, with puffs and rolls and little curls, and--more than one sister
suspected--with the aid of "rats"; she might gown herself elaborately in
the mended finery of the long ago, the better years; she might dress her
lovely big room--the only double bedchamber in the house, for which
she had paid a double entrance fee--in all sorts of gewgaws, little
ornaments, hand-painted plaques of her own producing, lace
bedspreads, embroidered splashers and pillow-shams; she might even
permit herself a suitor who came twice a year more punctually than the
line-storms, to ask her withered little hand in marriage--but her heart
was in the right place, and on occasion she had proved herself a master
hand at "fixin' things."

"Yes," said she, rising to her feet and flinging out her arms with an
eloquent gesture, "we've got to do something, and there's just one thing
to do, girls: take the captain right here--here"--she brought her hands to
the laces on her bosom--"to our hearts!"
At first there was silence, with the ladies staring blankly at Blossy and
then at one another. Had they heard aright? Then there came murmurs
and exclamations, with Miss Abigail's voice gasping above the others:
"What would the directors say?"
"What do they always say when we ask a favor?" demanded Blossy.
"'How much will it cost?' It won't cost a cent."
"Won't, eh?" snapped Aunt Nancy. "How on arth be yew goin' ter vittle
him? I hain't had a second dish o' peas this year."
"Some men eat more an' some less," remarked Sarah Jane, as
ill-favored a spinster as ever the sun shone on; "generally it means so
much grub ter so much weight."
Miss Abigail glanced up at the ceiling, while Lazy Daisy, who had
refused to tip the beam for ten years, surreptitiously hid an apple into
which she had been biting.
"Le' 's have 'em weighed," suggested a widow, Ruby Lee, with a pretty,
well-preserved little face and figure, "an' ef tergether they don't come
up to the heartiest one of us--"
Miss Abigail made hasty interruption:
"Gals, hain't yew never noticed that the more yew need the more yew
git? Before Jenny Bell went to live with her darter I didn't know what I
should