Jane Field Part 23

It was a hot afternoon in August. Amanda Pratt had set all her windows wide open, but no breeze came in, only the fervid breath of the fields and the white road outside.

She sat at a front window and darned a white stocking; her long, thin arms and her neck showed faintly through her old loose muslin sacque.

The muslin was white, with a close-set lavender sprig, and she wore a cameo brooch at her throat. The blinds were closed, and she had to bend low over her mending in order to see in the green gloom.

Mrs. Babc.o.c.k came toiling up the bank to the house, but Amanda did not notice her until she reached the front door. Then she fetched a great laboring sigh.

"Oh, hum!" said she, audibly, in a wrathful voice; "if I'd had any idea of it, I wouldn't have come a step."

Then Amanda looked out with a start. "Is that you, Mis' Babc.o.c.k?" she called hospitably through the blind.

"Yes, it's me--what's left of me. Oh, hum! Oh, hum!"

Amanda ran and opened the door, and Mrs. Babc.o.c.k entered, panting.

She had a green umbrella, which she furled with difficulty at the door, and a palm-leaf fan. Her face, in the depths of her scooping green barege bonnet, was dank with perspiration, and scowling with indignant misery. She sank into a chair, and fanned herself with a desperate air.

Amanda set her umbrella in the corner, then she stood looking sympathetically at her. "It's a pretty hot day, ain't it?" said she.

"I should think 'twas hot. Oh, hum!"

"Don't you want me to get you a tumbler of water?"

"I dunno. I don't drink much cold water; it don't agree with me very well. Oh, dear! You ain't got any of your beer made, I s'pose?"

"Oh, no, I ain't. I'm dreadful sorry. Don't you want a swaller of cold tea?"

"Well, I dunno but I'll have jest a swaller, if you've got some. Oh, dear me, hum!"

Amanda went out hurriedly, and returned with a britannia teapot and a tumbler. She poured out some tea, and Mrs. Babc.o.c.k drank with desperate gulps.

"I think cold tea is better for anybody than cold water in hot weather," said Amanda. "Won't you have another swaller, Mis'

Babc.o.c.k?"

Mrs. Babc.o.c.k shook her head, and Amanda carried the teapot and tumbler back to the kitchen, then she seated herself again, and resumed her mending. Mrs. Babc.o.c.k fanned and panted, and eyed Amanda.

"You look cool enough in that old muslin sacque," said she, in a tone of vicious injury.

"Yes, it is real cool. I've kept this sacque on purpose for a real hot day."

"Well, it's dreadful long in the shoulder seams, 'cordin' to the way they make 'em now, but I s'pose it's cool. Oh, hum! I ruther guess I shouldn't have come out of the house, if I'd any idea how hot 'twas in the sun. Seems to me it's hot as an oven here. I should think you'd air off your house early in the mornin', an' then shut your windows tight, an' keep the heat out."

"I know some folks do that way," said Amanda.

"Well, I always do, an' I guess 'most everybody does that's good housekeepers. It makes a sight of difference."

Amanda said nothing, but she sat straighter.

"I s'pose you don't have to make any fire from mornin' till night; seems as if you might keep cool."

"No, I don't have to."

"Well, I do. There I had to go to work to-day an' cook squash an'

beans an' green corn. The men folks ain't satisfied if they don't have 'em in the time of 'em. I wish sometimes there wasn't no such thing as garden sauce. I tell 'em sometimes I guess if they had to get the things ready an' cook 'em themselves, they'd go without.

Seems sometimes as if the whole creation was like a kitchen without any pump in it, specially contrived to make women folks extra work.

Looks to me as if pease without pods could have been contrived pretty easy, and it does seem as if there wasn't any need of havin' strings on the beans."

"Mis' Green has got a kind of beans without any strings," said Amanda. "She brought me over some the other day, an' they were about the best I ever eat."

"Well, I know there is a kind without strings," returned Mrs.

Babc.o.c.k; "but I ain't got none in my garden, an' I never shall have.

It ain't my lot to have things come easy. Seems as if it got hotter an' hotter. Why don't you open your front door?"

"Jest as sure as I do, the house will be swarmin' with flies."

"You'd ought to have a screen-door. I made Adoniram make me one five years ago, an' it's a real nice one; but I know, of course, you ain't got n.o.body to make one for you. Once in a while it seems as if men folks come in kinder handy, an' they'd ought to, when women work an'

slave the way I do to fill 'em up. Mebbe some time when Adoniram ain't drove, I could get him to make a door for you. Mebbe some time next winter."

"I s'pose it would be nice," replied Amanda. "You're real kind to offer, Mis' Babc.o.c.k."

"Well, I s'pose women that have men folks to do for 'em ought to be kind of obligin' sometimes to them that ain't. I'll see if I can get Adoniram to make you a screen-door next winter. Seems to me it does get hotter an' hotter. For the land sakes, Amanda Pratt! what are you cuttin' that great hole in that stockin' heel for? Are you crazy?"

Amanda colored. "The other stockin's got a hole in it," said she, "an' I'm makin' 'em match."

"Cuttin' a great big hole in a stockin' heel on purpose to darn?

Mandy Pratt, you ain't?"

"I am," replied Amanda, with dignity.

"Well, if you ain't a double and twisted old maid!" gasped Mrs.

Babc.o.c.k.

Amanda's long face and her neck were a delicate red.

Mrs. Babc.o.c.k laughed a loud, sarcastic cackle. "I never--did!" she giggled.

Amanda opened her mouth as if to speak, then she shut it tightly, remembering the offer of the screen-door. She had had so few gifts in her whole life that she had a meek impulse of grat.i.tude even if one were thrust into her hand hard enough to hurt her.

"Well," Mrs. Babc.o.c.k continued, still sn.i.g.g.e.ring unpleasantly, "I don't want to hurt your feelin's, Mandy; you needn't color up so; but I can't help laughin'."

"Laugh, then, if you want to," said Amanda, with a quick flash. She forgot the screen-door.

Mrs. Babc.o.c.k drew her face down quickly. "Land, Mandy," said she, "don't get mad. I didn't mean anything. Anybody knows that old maids is jest as good as them that gets married. I ain't told you what I come over here for. I declare I got so terrible heated up, I couldn't think of nothin'. Look here, Mandy."

Amanda mended on the stocking foot drawn tightly over her left hand, and did not raise her eyes.

"Mandy, you ain't mad, be you? You know I didn't mean nothin'."

"I ain't mad," replied Amanda, in a constrained tone.

"Well, there ain't nothin' to be mad about. Look here, Mandy, how long is it since Mis' Field and Lois went?"