The Coast of Bohemia | Page 9

dead long ago. First, her husband blown
up by his saw-mill boiler, and then one son killed in a railroad accident,
and another taken down with pneumonia almost the same day! And she
goes on, smiling in the face of death----"
"And looking out that he doesn't see how many teeth she's lost," Burton
prompted.
Ludlow laughed at the accuracy of the touch.

Mrs. Burton retorted, "Why shouldn't she? Her good looks and her
good nature are about all she has left in the world, except this
daughter."
"Are they very poor?" asked Ludlow, gently.
"Oh, nobody's very poor in Pymantoning," said Mrs. Burton. "And Mrs.
Saunders has her business,--when she's a mind to work at it."
"I suppose she has it, even when she hasn't a mind to work at it," said
Burton, making his pipe purr with a long, deep inspiration of
satisfaction. "I know I have mine."
"What is her business?" asked Ludlow.
"Well, she's a dressmaker and milliner--when she is." Mrs. Burton
stated the fact with the effect of admitting it. "You mustn't suppose that
makes any difference. In a place like Pymantoning, she's 'as good as
anybody,' and her daughter has as high social standing. You can't
imagine how Arcadian we are out here."
"Oh, yes, I can; I've lived in a village," said Ludlow.
"A New England village, yes; but the lines are drawn just as hard and
fast there as they are in a city. You have to live in the West to
understand what equality is, and in a purely American population, like
this. You've got plenty of independence, in New England, but you
haven't got equality, and we have,--or used to have." Mrs. Burton added
the final words with apparent conscience.
"Just saved your distance, Polly," said her husband. "We haven't got
equality now, any more than we've got buffalo. I don't believe we ever
had buffalo in this section; but we did have deer once; and when I was
a boy here, venison was three cents a pound, and equality cheaper yet.
When they cut off the woods the venison and the equality disappeared;
they always do when the woods are cut off."
"There's enough of it left for all practical purposes, and Mrs. Saunders

moves in the first circles of Pymantoning," said Mrs. Burton.
"When she does move," said Burton. "She doesn't like to move."
"Well, she has the greatest taste, and if you can get her to do anything
for you your fortune's made. But it's a favor. She'll take a thing that
you've got home from the city, and that you're frantic about, it's so bad,
and smile over it a little, and touch it here and there, and it comes out a
miracle of style and becomingness. It's like magic."
"She was charming," said Ludlow, in dreamy reminiscence.
"Isn't she?" Mrs. Burton demanded. "And her daughter gets all her
artistic talent from her. Mrs. Saunders is an artist, though I don't
suppose you like to admit it of a dressmaker."
"Oh, yes, I do," said Ludlow. "I don't see why a man or woman who
drapes the human figure in stuffs, isn't an artist as well as the man or
woman who drapes it in paint or clay."
"Well, that's sense," Mrs. Burton began.
"She didn't know you had any, Ludlow," her husband explained.
Mrs. Burton did not regard him. "If she had any ambition she would be
anything--just like some other lazy-boots," and now she gave the large,
dangling congress gaiter of her husband a little push with the point of
her slipper, for purposes of identification, as the newspapers say. "But
the only ambition she's got is for her daughter, and she is proud of her,
and she would spoil her if she could get up the energy. She dotes on her,
and Nie is fond of her mother, too. Do you think she can ever do
anything in art?"
"If she were a boy, I should say yes; as she's a girl, I don't know," said
Ludlow. "The chances are against her."
"Nature's against her, too," said Burton.
"Human nature ought to be for her, then," said Mrs. Burton. "If she

were your sister what should you wish her to be?" she asked Ludlow.
"I should wish her to be"--Ludlow thought a moment and then
concluded--"happily married."
"Well, that's a shame!" cried Mrs. Burton.
Her husband laughed, while he knocked the ashes out of his pipe
against the edge of his chair-seat. "Rough on the holy estate of
matrimony, Polly."
"Oh, pshaw! I believe as much in the holy estate of matrimony as
anybody, but I don't believe it's the begin-all or the end-all for a woman,
any more than it is for a man. What, Katy?" she spoke to a girl who
appeared and disappeared