Other Peoples Business | Page 2

years Joel had been an omnivorous reader, and his speech bristled with quotations gathered from his favorite volumes, and generally tagged with the author's name. The quotations were not always apt, but they helped to confirm the village of Clematis in the conviction that Joel Dale was an intellectual man.
By the time Persis had groped her way to the bed, she was sufficiently accustomed to the dim light to be able to distinguish her brother's restless eyes gleaming feverishly in the pallid blur of his face. "What do you want now, Joel?" she asked, with the mechanical gentleness of overtaxed patience.
"Persis, there's a text o' Scripture that's weighing on my mind. I can't exactly place it, and I've got to know the context before I can figure out its meaning. 'Be not righteous over-much, neither make thyself over-wise. Why shouldst thou destroy thyself?' That's the way it runs, as near as I can remember. Now if righteousness is a good thing and wisdom too, why on earth--"
"Goodness, Joel! I don't believe that's anywhere in the Bible. Sounds more like one of those old heathens you're so fond of reading. And anyway," continued Persis firmly, frustrating her brother's evident intention to argue the point. "I can't look it up now. Mis' West's down-stairs."
"Come to discuss the weighty question o' clothes, I s'pose. 'Bonnets and ornaments of the legs, wimples and mantles and stomachers,' as the prophet says. And that's of more importance than to satisfy the cravings of a troubled mind. If the world was given up to the tender mercies o' women, there'd be no more inventions except some new kind of crimping pin, and nothing would be written but fashion notes."
"I'll have to go now, Joel." Persis Dale, having supported her brother from the time she was a girl of seventeen, had enjoyed ample opportunity to become familiar with his opinion of her sex. As the manly qualities had declined in Joel, his masculine arrogance had waxed strong. The sex instinct had become concentrated in a sense of superiority so overwhelming that the woman was not born whom Joel would not have regarded as a creature of inferior parts, to be patronized or snubbed, as the merits of the case demanded.
"Do you want a drink of water?" Persis asked, running through the familiar formula. "Shall I get you a fan, or smooth out the sheets? Then I guess I'll go down, Joel. I wouldn't pound any more for a while, if I was you. 'Twon't do any good."
The sound of voices greeted her, as she descended the stairs, Mrs. West's asthmatic tones blending with the flutey treble of a young girl. "It's Diantha," thought Persis, her lips tightening. "I might have known that Annabel Sinclair would send for that waist two days before it was promised."
The young girl sitting opposite Mrs. West was perched lightly on the edge of her chair like a bird on the point of flight, and the skirt of her blue cotton frock was drawn down as far as possible over a disconcerting length of black stocking. Her fair hair was worn in curls which fell about her shoulders. Fresh coloring and regularity of feature gave her a beauty partially discounted by an expression of resentful defiance, singularly at variance with her general rosebud effect.
"Mother sent me to see if her waist was ready, Miss Persis." Diantha spoke like a child repeating a lesson it has been kept after school to learn.
"It won't be done till Saturday, Diantha. I told your mother Saturday when she sent the goods over."
The girl rose nimbly, the movement revealing unexpected height and extreme slenderness, both qualities accentuated by her very juvenile attire. She made a bird-like dart in the direction of the door, then turned.
"Mother said I was to coax you into finishing it for to-morrow," she announced, a light mockery rasping under the melody of her voice. "I know it won't do any good, but I've got to be obedient. Please consider yourself coaxed."
"No, it won't do any good, Diantha. The waist'll be ready about two o'clock on Saturday." Persis stood watching the girl's retreating figure, and the serenity of her face was for the moment clouded.
"Diantha Sinclair reminds me of a Lombardy poplar," remarked Mrs. West. "Nothing but spindle till you're most to the top. It does seem fairly immoral, such a show o' stockings."
"Annabel Sinclair 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