The Village Watch-Tower | Page 8

out of 'em without crowdin'. Ain't that a wash-boiler he's handin' down?
Well, it's a mercy; he's ben borrowin' long enough!"
"What goes on after dark I ain't responsible for," commented old Mrs.

Bascom, "but no new wash-boiler has gone into Rube Hobson's door in
the daytime for many a year, and I'll be bound it means somethin'.
There goes a broom, too. Much sweepin' he'll get out o' Eunice; it's a
slick 'n' a promise with her!"
"When did you begin to suspicion this, Diademy?" asked Almira Berry.
"I've got as much faculty as the next one, but anybody that lives on the
river road has just got to give up knowin' anything. You can't keep
runnin' to the store every day, and if you could you don't find out much
nowadays. Bill Peters don't take no more interest in his neighbors than
a cow does in election."
"I can't get mother Bascom to see it as I do," said Diadema, "but for
one thing she's ben carryin' home bundles 'bout every other night for a
month, though she's ben too smart to buy anythin' here at this store. She
had Packard's horse to go to Saco last week. When she got home, jest at
dusk, she drove int' the barn, 'n' bimeby Pitt Packard come to git his
horse,--'t was her own buggy she went with. She looked over here when
she went int' the house, 'n' she ketched my eye, though 't was half a
mile away, so she never took a thing in with her, but soon as't was dark
she made three trips out to the barn with a lantern, 'n' any fool could tell
't her arms was full o' pa'cels by the way she carried the lantern. The
Hobsons and the Emerys have married one another more 'n once, as fur
as that goes. I declare if I was goin' to get married I should want to be
relation to somebody besides my own folks."
"The reason I can hardly credit it," said Hannah Sophia, "is because
Eunice never had a beau in her life, that I can remember of. Cyse
Higgins set up with her for a spell, but it never amounted to nothin'. It
seems queer, too, for she was always so fond o' seein' men folks round
that when Pitt Packard was shinglin' her barn she used to go out nights
'n' rip some o' the shingles off, so 't he'd hev more days' work on it."
"I always said 't was she that begun on Rube Hobson, not him on her,"
remarked the Widow Buzzell. "Their land joinin' made courtin' come
dretful handy. His critters used to git in her field 'bout every other day
(I always suspicioned she broke the fence down herself), and then she'd
hev to go over and git him to drive 'em out. She's wed his onion bed for

him two summers, as I happen to know, for I've been ou' doors more 'n
common this summer, tryin' to fetch my constitution up. Diademy,
don't you want to look out the back way 'n' see if Rube's come home
yet?"
"He ain't," said old Mrs. Bascom, "so you needn't look; can't you see
the curtains is all down? He's gone up to the Mills, 'n' it's my opinion
he's gone to speak to the minister."
"He hed somethin' in the back o' the wagon covered up with an old
linen lap robe; 't ain't at all likely he 'd 'a' hed that if he'd ben goin' to
the minister's," objected Mrs. Jot.
"Anybody'd think you was born yesterday, to hear you talk, Diademy,"
retorted her mother-in-law. "When you 've set in one spot's long's I hev,
p'raps you'll hev the use o' your faculties! Men folks has more 'n one
way o' gettin' married, 'specially when they 're ashamed of it. . . . Well,
I vow, there's the little Hobson girls comin' out o' the door this minute,
'n' they 're all dressed up, and Mote don't seem to be with 'em."
Every woman in the room rose to her feet, and Diadema removed her
murderous eye from a fly which she had been endeavoring to locate for
some moments.
"I guess they 're goin' up to the church to meet their father 'n' Eunice,
poor little things," ventured the Widow Buzzell.
"P'raps they be," said old Mrs. Bascom sarcastically; "p'raps they be
goin' to church, takin' a three-quart tin pail 'n' a brown paper bundle
along with 'em. . . . They 're comin' over the bridge, just as I s'posed. . . .
Now, if they come past this house, you head 'em off, Almiry, 'n' see if
you can git some satisfaction out of 'em. . . . They ain't hardly old