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Updated: May 6, 2025
Bogardus rose and examined her jacket. It was still damp. She asked for a cape, or some sort of wrap, as her waist was thin, and the rain had chilled the morning air. For the sake of decency, Cerissa escorted her visitor across the hall passage into the loom-room a loom-room in name only for upwards of three generations.
Bogardus reveled in costly petticoats, and had an unnecessary number of them. "How nice it is in here!" she said, looking about her. Cerissa, with the usual apologies, had taken her into the kitchen to dry her skirts. There was a slight taint of steaming shoe leather, left by Chauncey when driven forth.
"I never knew her so pleasant, for nothing. She wants me to do up her fruit, I guess." Cerissa was mistaken. Mrs. Bogardus simply was happy or almost happy and deeply stirred over a piece of news which had come to her in that morning's mail. "I have telephoned Bradley not to send his men over on Monday. My son is bringing his wife home. They may be here all summer. The place belongs to them now.
Bogardus's manner, but Cerissa did not know her well enough to perceive it. She merely thought her looking handsomer, and, if possible, more formidable than usual. She sat by the fire, folding her skirts across her knees, and showing the edges of the most discouragingly beautiful petticoats, a taste perhaps inherited from her wide-hipped Dutch progenitresses. Mrs.
Bogardus grasped Cerissa by the shoulders and held her firmly in front of a narrow loophole that pierced the partition close beside the door. Light from the room within showed plainly; but it gave an unpleasantly human expression to the entrance, like a furtive eye on the watch. "He would always be there," Cerissa whispered. "Who?" "Your father.
"I should not dare go in my own kitchen at this time of day. There are no women nowadays who know how to work in the way ladies used to work. If I could have such a housekeeper as you, Cerissa." Cerissa flushed and bridled. "What would Chauncey do!" "I don't expect you to be my housekeeper," Mrs. Bogardus smiled. "But I envy Chauncey." "She has come to ask a favor," thought Cerissa.
"When people ask you questions about the house, you can say you did not live here in the owner's time and you don't know. That's perfectly simple, isn't it?" "But I do know! Everybody knows," said Cerissa hotly. "It was the talk of the whole neighborhood when that room was put up; and I remember how scared I used to be when mother sent me over here of an errand." Mrs.
Cerissa questioned her husband feverishly after his interview with Mrs. Bogardus. "She didn't mention your name," Chauncey took some pleasure in stating. "If you hadn't told me yourself, I shouldn't have known you'd meddled in it at all." "What's she going to do about it?" "How crazy you women are!
"Do you mean to say that all you sensible people in this house have avoided that room for three years? And you don't even know if the door is locked?" "I I don't use that part for anything, and cleaning is wasted on a place that's never used, and I can't get anybody" "I am not criticising your housekeeping. Will you go up there with me now, Cerissa? I want to understand about this."
"She wants Middy fetched in to see the comp'ny," cried Katy, bursting into the sentence. "Where is he, till I clean him? And she wants some more bread and butter as quick as ye can spread it." "Well, Katy!" said Cerissa slowly, with severe emphasis. "When I was a girl, my mother used to tell me it wasn't manners to" "I haven't got time to hear about yer mother," said Katy rudely.
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