The Ragged Lady | Page 4

came to a place where they had a choice of two,
she said that now he must get out of the carry-all and ask at the house
standing a little back in the edge of the pine woods, which road they
ought to take for South Middlemount. She alleged many cases in which
they had met trouble through his perverse reluctance to find out where
they were before he pushed rashly forward in their drives. Whilst she
urged the facts she reached forward from the back seat where she sat,
and held her hand upon the reins to prevent his starting the horse,
which was impartially cropping first the sweet fern on one side and
then the blueberry bushes on the other side of the narrow wheel-track.

She declared at last that if he would not get out and ask she would do it
herself, and at this the dry little man jerked the reins in spite of her, and
the horse suddenly pulled the carry-all to the right, and seemed about to
overset it.
"Oh, what are you doing, Albe't? "Mrs. Lander lamented, falling
helpless against the back of her seat. "Haven't I always told you to
speak to the hoss fust?"
"He wouldn't have minded my speakin'," said her husband. "I'm goin' to
take you up to the dooa so that you can ask for youaself without gettin'
out."
This was so well, in view of Mrs. Lander's age and bulk, and the
hardship she must have undergone, if she had tried to carry out her
threat, that she was obliged to take it in some sort as a favor; and while
the vehicle rose and sank over the surface left rough, after building, in
front of the house, like a vessel on a chopping sea, she was silent for
several seconds.
The house was still in a raw state of unfinish, though it seemed to have
been lived in for a year at least. The earth had been banked up at the
foundations for warmth in winter, and the sheathing of the walls had
been splotched with irregular spaces of weather boarding; there was a
good roof over all, but the window-casings had been merely set in their
places and the trim left for a future impulse of the builder. A block of
wood suggested the intention of steps at the front door, which stood
hospitably open, but remained unresponsive for some time after the
Landers made their appeal to the house at large by anxious noises in
their throats, and by talking loud with each other, and then talking low.
They wondered whether there were anybody in the house; and decided
that there must be, for there was smoke coming out of the stove pipe
piercing the roof of the wing at the rear.
Mr. Lander brought himself under censure by venturing, without his
wife's authority, to lean forward and tap on the door-frame with the butt
of his whip. At the sound, a shrill voice called instantly from the region
of the stove pipe, "Clem! Clementina? Go to the front dooa! The'e's
somebody knockin'." The sound of feet, soft and quick, made itself
heard within, and in a few moments a slim maid, too large for a little
girl, too childlike for a young girl, stood in the open doorway, looking
down on the elderly people in the buggy, with a face as glad as a

flower's. She had blue eyes, and a smiling mouth, a straight nose, and a
pretty chin whose firm jut accented a certain wistfulness of her lips.
She had hair of a dull, dark yellow, which sent out from its thick mass
light prongs, or tendrils, curving inward again till they delicately
touched it. Her tanned face was not very different in color from her hair,
and neither were her bare feet, which showed well above her ankles in
the calico skirt she wore. At sight of the elders in the buggy she
involuntarily stooped a little to lengthen her skirt in effect, and at the
same time she pulled it together sidewise, to close a tear in it, but she
lost in her anxiety no ray of the joy which the mere presence of the
strangers seemed to give her, and she kept smiling sunnily upon them
while she waited for them to speak.
"Oh!" Mrs. Lander began with involuntary apology in her tone, "we
just wished to know which of these roads went to South Middlemount.
We've come from the hotel, and we wa'n't quite ce'tain."
The girl laughed as she said, "Both roads go to South Middlemount'm;
they join together again just a little piece farther on."
The girl and the woman in their parlance replaced the letter 'r' by vowel
sounds almost too obscure to be represented, except