The Ragged Lady | Page 5

where it came last
in a word before a word beginning with a vowel; there it was annexed
to the vowel by a strong liaison, according to the custom universal in
rural New England.
"Oh, do they?" said Mrs. Lander.
"Yes'm," answered the girl. "It's a kind of tu'nout in the wintatime; or I
guess that's what made it in the beginning; sometimes folks take one
hand side and sometimes the other, and that keeps them separate; but
they're really the same road, 'm."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Lander, and she pushed her husband to make
him say something, too, but he remained silently intent upon the child's
prettiness, which her blue eyes seemed to illumine with a light of their
own. She had got hold of the door, now, and was using it as if it was a
piece of drapery, to hide not only the tear in her gown, but somehow
both her bare feet. She leaned out beyond the edge of it; and then, at
moments she vanished altogether behind it.
Since Mr. Lander would not speak, and made no sign of starting up his
horse, Mrs. Lander added, "I presume you must be used to havin'
people ask about the road, if it's so puzzlin'."

"O, yes'm," returned the girl, gladly. "Almost every day, in the
summatime."
"You have got a pretty place for a home, he'e," said Mrs. Lander.
"Well, it will be when it's finished up." Without leaning forward
inconveniently Mrs. Lander could see that the partitions of the house
within were lathed, but not plastered, and the girl looked round as if to
realize its condition and added, "It isn't quite finished inside."
"We wouldn't, have troubled you," said Mrs. Lander, "if we had seen
anybody to inquire of."
"Yes'm," said the girl. "It a'n't any trouble."
"There are not many otha houses about, very nea', but I don't suppose
you get lonesome; young folks are plenty of company for themselves,
and if you've got any brothas and sistas--"
"Oh," said the girl, with a tender laugh, "I've got eva so many of them!"
There was a stir in the bushes about the carriage, and Mrs. Lander was
aware for an instant of children's faces looking through the leaves at her
and then flashing out of sight, with gay cries at being seen. A boy,
older than the rest, came round in front of the horse and passed out of
sight at the corner of the house.
Lander now leaned back and looked over his shoulder at his wife as if
he might hopefully suppose she had come to the end of her questions,
but she gave no sign of encouraging him to start on their way again.
"That your brotha, too?" she asked the girl.
"Yes'm. He's the oldest of the boys; he's next to me."
"I don't know," said Mrs. Lander thoughtfully, "as I noticed how many
boys there were, or how many girls."
"I've got two sistas, and three brothas, 'm," said the girl, always smiling
sweetly. She now emerged from the shelter of the door, and Mrs.
Lander perceived that the slight movements of such parts of her person
as had been evident beyond its edge were the effects of some endeavor
at greater presentableness. She had contrived to get about her an
overskirt which covered the rent in her frock, and she had got a pair of
shoes on her feet. Stockings were still wanting, but by a mutual
concession of her shoe-tops and the border of her skirt, they were
almost eliminated from the problem. This happened altogether when
the girl sat down on the threshold, and got herself into such
foreshortening that the eye of Mrs. Lander in looking down upon her

could not detect their absence. Her little head then showed in the dark
of the doorway like a painted head against its background.
"You haven't been livin' here a great while, by the looks," said Mrs.
Lander. "It don't seem to be clea'ed off very much."
"We've got quite a ga'den-patch back of the house," replied the girl,
"and we should have had moa, but fatha wasn't very well, this spring;
he's eva so much better than when we fust came he'e."
"It has, the name of being a very healthy locality," said Mrs. Lander,
somewhat discontentedly, "though I can't see as it's done me so very
much good, yit. Both your payrints livin'?"
"Yes'm. Oh, yes, indeed!"
"And your mother, is she real rugged? She need to be, with such a flock
of little ones!"
"Yes, motha's always well. Fatha was just run down, the doctas said,
and ought to keep more in the open aia. That's what he's done since he
came he'e. He helped a great deal on the house and he planned