She, too, had
smooth black hair, but her dark eyes were illumined by no steadfast
glow; they snapped and shone with alert intelligence, and her great
forehead dominated the rest of her face, scarred with a thousand
wrinkles by intensity of nature rather than by time. A pleasant warmth
had diffused itself over the room, so cold during the morning service
that foot-stoves had been in requisition. Bonnet strings were thrown
back and shawls unpinned. The little world relaxed and lay at ease.
"What's the news over your way, sister?" asked Mrs. Ellison, as an
informal preliminary.
"Tilly don't want to give; she'd ruther take," said Mrs. Baxter, before
the other could answer. "She's like old Mis' Pepper. Seliny Hazlitt
went over there, when she was fust married an' come to the neighborhood
an' asked her if she'd got a sieve to put squash through. Poor Seliny!
she didn't know a sieve from a colander, in them days."
"I guess she found out soon enough," volunteered Mrs. Page. "_He_ was
one o' them kind o' men that can keep house as well as a woman. I'd
ruther live with a born fool."
"Well, old Mis' Pepper she ris up an' smoothed down her apron
(recollect them little dots she used to wear?--made her look as broad
as a barn door!), an' she says, 'Yes, we've got a sieve for flour, an'
a sieve for meal, an' a sieve for rye, an' a sieve for blue-monge, an'
we could have a sieve for squash if we was a mind to, _but I don't wish
to lend_.
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