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"Golly, boss!" added the porter, "Ah jes' 'bleeged tun say sumpin', an Ah tells 'em de dinin' kyar'll sho'ly obertake us fo' six-thirty. Ya'as, indeedy. An' den, dar's dat lady up dar wid de sour-vinegary sort o' face. Ah jes' heard her say she'd be fo'ced tuh eat her back-comb if she didn't have her lunch pu'ty soon.
"Let it be hush!" she said perempority, in a dry voice, while she seized Elizabeth-Jane by the hand, and held up her finger. Their intercourse had been so low and hurried that not a word had been lost of the conversation without, which had thus proceeded: "Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back-comb in place; she's got on a puce silk, and white stockings, and coloured shoes."
"As a matter of fact, parson," he explained, "somebody ought to do something for a woman that looks like that, and it might just as well be me. I'm willing to pay good money to have my widow turn her mouth the other way up, and I hope she'll buy a back-comb for those bangs on her neck." "And all this," said I, "came out of one little wishin' curl, Butterfly Man?"
A row of hair-pins protruded sharply from between his tightly closed lips; a tortoise-shell back-comb, dangling from one side of his full beard where he placed it for safety, made this amateur hairdresser a disturbing sight both for gods and men. With legs well braced and far apart, his arms high lifted like outspread wings, he wielded the comb after the manner of a man raking hay.
They are the Heaven-elected assassins of Mormonism, the butchers by divine right. Porter Rockwell has slain his forty men. This is historical. His probable private victims amount to as many more. He wears his hair braided behind, and done up in a knot with a back-comb, like a woman's. He has a face full of bull-dog courage, but vastly good-natured, and without a bad trait in it.
The long kid gloves, almost dazzling in their whiteness, were new, the fan borrowed, and the touch of something blue was furnished by a broad back-comb of blue enamel surmounted by rhinestones. One white glove rested airily on "Mistah Robinson's" coat-sleeve, the other carried a half-furled fan edged with white feathers.
There was a neat carpet upon the floor, and two comfortable rocking-chairs in the room, one at each window, with nice plump cushions in them, and by a center-table, that had upon it a large family Bible, a copy of "The Pilgrim's Progress," an almanac, and the "Daily Times," was Mr. Bond's easy-chair. Nobody ever occupied that chair but himself, and sometimes a sleek, gray cat, that once belonged to Betty Lathrop, and would have had a joint ownership had Providence spared the mistress. Now it was his especial care, and he would sit motionless by the window for hours, rather than disappoint the favored puss of one tittle of her nap. There was a picture of a young woman over the mantle, which Mr. Bond thought a master piece of art, and which was the constant theme of his contemplation. It had a round, ruddy face, and upon the head was a sort of coiffure which our modern critics might eschew; but which Mr. Bond believed the very perfection of elegance. It was composed of loops of muslin disposed on each side over a profusion of brown curls which distended the head to an enormous width, and upon the top was visible a high back-comb which quite "capped the climax." The dress of the lady was black silk, sleeves "
One of these last was a very large, very old-fashioned back-comb, having a story with a moral attached, the latter recited in doggerel rhyme. She had other stories, in connection with other articles, to tell in the same way. In fact, so many and so long were they, that the listeners grew weary and inattentive ere the exhibition was brought to a close.
Perkins, whom everybody had thought sunk in embittered discontent about the poverty and isolation of her last days, roused herself not long ago and gave Ellen her cherished tortoise-shell back-comb, and her pretty white silk shawl to wear to village parties; and racked with rheumatism, as the old woman is, she says she sits up at night to watch the young people go back from choir rehearsal so that she can see which girl Nelse is "beauing home."
If you delay not your visit too long, you will see a fine, motherly woman, with white "sausage curls" and a high back-comb, wearing a check dress and felt slippers, and she will tell you that she is over eighty, and that when her mother was a little girl she once sat on Governor Hancock's knee and he showed her the works in his watch.
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