Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 25, 2025
"Not meanin' ter be inquisitive or personal, Sister Blossy," a teasing twinkle appearing in his eye, "but this looks dretful familitary, this here handwritin' does. When I run the beach yew've heard me tell of the time I was on the Life-savin' Crew over ter Bleak Hill fer a spell my cap'n he had a fist jest like that. Useter make out the spickest, spannest reports.
His old bones took on flesh. His aged kindly face, all seamed with care as it had been, filled out, the wrinkles turning into twinkles. Abraham had grown young again. With the return of his youth came the spirit of youth to the Old Ladies' Home. Verily, verily, as Blossy had avowed from the first, they had been in sore need of the masculine presence.
He heard the tramp of feet passing out of the dining-room into the hall. He heard Blossy emerge from her room at the end of the passage and go tripping down the stairs. The time to Angy, guiltily bathing her face, was short; the time to her anxious husband unaccountably long. The sound of wheels driving up to the front door came to Abe's ears. Still Angy made him no response.
We'll miss yew a lot; but " "Here's the apple-picker right over your head," interrupted Blossy tartly, and Abe felt himself peremptorily dismissed. Scarcely had he left the attic, however, than she too hastened down the steep, narrow stairs. She spent the remaining hours before train-time in donning her beautiful lace gown, and in making the woman within it as young and ravishing as possible.
Samuel looked a very different man from the old bachelor who used to come a-wooing every six months at the Home. Either marriage had brought him a new growth of hair, or else Blossy had selected a new wig for him a modest, close, iron-gray which fitted his poll to perfection.
Alas, Blossy's frequent tete-a-tetes with the amused but sometimes impatient Abraham started an exceedingly foolish suspicion. When, asked the sisters of one another, did Abe ever help any one, save Blossy, shell dried beans or pick over prunes? When had he ever been known to hold wool for Angy's winding? Not once since wooing-time, I warrant you.
"I take it," plunging his hand into his pocket, "yew ain't stowed away nothin' since that mince-pie; but I can't offer yer nothin' to eat till Blossy gits back an' opens up the house, 'cept these here pepp'mints. They're fine; try 'em."
At night, however, she was obliged to admit that he could not be coming; and then, quivering with honest anxiety for her old friend, Blossy dipped into her emergency fund, which she kept in the heart of a little pink china pig on a shelf in her room, a pink china pig with a lid made of stiff black hair standing on edge in the middle of his back, and sent a telegram to Captain Darby, asking if he were sick.
Then there came murmurs and exclamations, with Miss Abigail's voice gasping above the others: "What would the directors say?" "What do they always say when we ask a favor?" demanded Blossy. "'How much will it cost? It won't cost a cent." "Won't, eh?" snapped Aunt Nancy. "How on arth be yew goin' ter vittle him? I hain't had a second dish o' peas this year."
Samuel's inelegant English had always been a source of distress to Blossy; yet still she stared long at the picture. Six months had passed since his last visit; to-morrow would be the date of his winter advent. Should she give the old unvarying answer to his tireless formula? She glanced around the tiny room.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking