The Black Creek Stopping-House | Page 9

the south
the Brandon Hills shimmered in a pale gray mirage. Over the trees
which sheltered the Stopping-House a flock of black crows circled in
the blue air, croaking and complaining that the harvest was going to be
late. On the wire-fence that circled the haystack sat a row of
red-winged blackbirds like a string of jet beads, patiently waiting for
the oats to ripen and indulging in low-spoken but pleasant gossip about
all the other birds in the valley.
Within doors Mrs Corbett served dinner to a long line of stoppers.
Many of the "boys" she had not seen since the winter before, and while
she worked she discussed neighborhood matters with them, the
pleasing sizzle of eggs frying on a hot pan making a running

accompaniment to her words.
The guests at Mrs. Corbett's table were a typical pioneer group--
homesteaders, speculators, machine men journeying through the
country to sell machinery to harvest the grain not yet grown; the farmer
has ever been well endowed with hope, and the machine business
flourishes.
Mrs. Corbett could talk and work at the same time, her sudden
disappearances from the room as she replenished the table merely
serving as punctuation marks, and not interfering with the thread of the
story at all.
When she was compelled by the exigencies of the case to be present in
the kitchen, and therefore absent in the dining-room, she merely
elevated her voice to overcome distance, and dropped no stitch in the
conversation.
"New neighbor, is it, you are sayin', Tom? 'Deed and I have, and her
the purtiest little trick you ever saw--diamond rings on her, and silk
skirts, and plumes on her hat, and hair as yalla as gold."
"When she comes over here I can't be doin' my work for lookin' at her.
She was brought up with slathers of money." This came back from the
"cheek of the dure", where Mrs. Corbett was emptying the tea leaves
from the teapot. "But the old man, beyant, ain't been pleased with her
since she married this Fred chap--he wouldn't ever look at Fred, nor let
him come to the house, and so she ran away with him, and no one
could blame her either for that, and now her and the old man don't write
at all, at all--reach me the bread plate in front of you there, Jim--and
there's bad blood between them. I can see, though, her and the old man
are fond o' one another!"
"Is her man anything like the twin pirates?" asked Sam Moggey from
Oak Creek; "because if he is I don't blame the old man for being mad
about it." Sam was helping himself to another quarter of vinegar pie as
he spoke.

Mrs. Corbett could not reply for a minute, for she was putting a new
bandage on Jimmy MacCaulay's finger, and she had the needle and
thread in her mouth.
"Not a bit like them, Sam," she said, as soon as she had the bandage in
place, and as she put in quick stitches; "no more like them than day is
like night--he's only a half-brother, and a lot younger. He's a different
sort altogether from them two murderin' villains that sits in the house
all day playin' cards. He's a good, smart fellow, and has done a lot of
breakin' and cleanin' up since he came. What he thinks of the other two
lads I don't know--she never says, but I'd like fine to know."
"Sure, you'll soon know then, Maggie," said "Da" Corbett, bringing in
another platter of bacon and eggs and refilling the men's plates. "Don't
worry."
In the laugh that followed Maggie Corbett joined as heartily as any of
them.
"Go 'long with you, Da!" she cried; "sure you're just as anxious as I am
to know. We all think a lot of Fred and Mrs. Fred," she went on,
bringing in two big dishes of potatoes; "and if you could see that poor,
precious lamb trying to cook pork and beans with a little wisp of an
apron on, all lace and ribbons, and big diamonds on her fingers, you'd
be sorry for her, and you'd say, 'What kind of an old tyrant is the old
man down beyant, and why don't he take her and Fred back?' It's not
wrastlin' round black pots she should be, and she's never been any place
all summer only over here, for they've only the oxen, and altho' she
never says anything, I'll bet you she'd like a bit of a drive, or to get out
to some kind of a-doin's, or the like of that."
While Mrs. Corbett gaily rattled on there was one man at her table who
apparently took no notice of what she said.
He was a different type of