Other Peoples Business | Page 3

seems to think she can stop that girl's growing up by
keeping her skirts to her knees," returned Persis grimly. "A young lady
daughter would be a dreadful inconvenience to Annabel." Then the
momentary sternness of her expression was lost in sympathetic
comprehension as Mrs. West bowed her head and sprinkled the black

serge with her tears.
"There, there, Mis' West. Cry if you feel like it. Crying's the best
medicine when there's no men folks around to keep asking what the
matter is. Just let yourself go, and don't mind me."
"Of course you know," exclaimed Mrs. West, her fat shoulders heaving
as she took full advantage of the permission. "Everybody knows.
Everybody's talking about it. To think that a son of mine would stoop to
steal a wife's affection away from her lawful husband."
"Don't make things out any worse than they are, Mis' West. Your Thad
can't steal what never was. And Annabel Sinclair never had any
affection to give her husband nor nobody else."
Mrs. West's distress was too acute to permit her to find comfort in a
distinction purely technical. "Thad always was such a good boy, Persis,
but now I'm prepared for anything. I think she's capable of working him
up to the point of running away with her."
Again Persis proffered consolation. "I don't think so. Annabel Sinclair's
what I call a feeble sinner. She reminds me of Joel when he was a little
boy. He'd go down to the river, along in April when the water was
ice-cold, and he'd get off his clothes and stand on the bank shivering.
After his teeth had chattered an hour or so, mother'd come to look him
up and Joel would get into his trousers and go home meek as a lamb.
Well, Annabel's the same way. She likes to shiver on the bank and
think what a splash she'll make when she goes in, but she hasn't got the
courage to risk a wetting, let alone drowning."
Mrs. West, blinking through her tears, looked hard at her friend.
"Seems to me you're talking awful peculiar, Persis. 'Most as if you'd
respect Annabel more if she was wickeder."
"Maybe I would," acknowledged Persis bluntly. "Seems to me it's
almost better to have folks in earnest, if it's only about their sins.
Annabel Sinclair turns everything into play-acting, good and bad
alike."

"I don't know why Thad can't see through her," cried the distracted
mother, voicing an age-old wonder. "I used to think he was as smart as
chain-lightning, but I've changed my mind. Any man that'll let Annabel
Sinclair lead him around by the nose hasn't got any more than just
sense enough to keep him out of an asylum for the feeble-minded, if he
is my son."
"That's where all of 'em belong when it comes to a woman like
Annabel," said Persis with unwonted pessimism. "And Thad's just
young enough to be proud of having that sort of acquaintance with a
married woman. Men are queer cattle, Mis' West. The worst woman
living likes to pretend to herself that she's as good as anybody, but a
man who's been decent from the cradle up, gets lots of comfort out of
thinking he's a regular devil. At the same time," she conceded, with a
change of tone, "the thing ought to be stopped."
"Of course it had. But how are we going to do it? I've talked to Thad
and talked to him, and so has his father. If I thought the minister would
have any influence--"
"You just let Thad alone for a spell," Persis commanded with her usual
decision. "And you leave this thing to me. I'll try to think a way out."
This astonishing offer was made in a matter-of-fact tone, significant in
itself. Persis Dale earned her living as a dressmaker and pieced out her
income by acting as a nurse in the dull seasons, but her real occupation
in life was attending to other people's business. She had a divine
meddlesomeness. She was inquisitive after the fashion of a sympathetic
arch-angel. It appalled her to see people wrecking their lives by
indecision, vacillation, incapacity, by poor judgment and crass stupidity.
Her homely wisdom, the fruit of observant years, her native common
sense, her strength and discernment were all at the service of the first
comer. Responsibility, the bugbear of mankind, was as the breath in her
nostrils.
"I wouldn't do any more talking to Thad," Persis repeated, as Mrs. West
looked at her with the instant confidence of inefficiency in one who
indicates a readiness to take the helm. "Don't make him feel that he's so

awfully important just because he's making a fool of himself. Most
boys attract more attention the first time they kick over the traces than
they ever