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"Well, 't ain't six of 'em; is it?" There was mingled hope and fear in Jason's voice. If it were six he could see Hitty's face! "Any physicians in your family?" asked the doctor, ignoring Jason's question. Jason shook his head. "Hm-m," commented the doctor. "Ever been any?" "Why, not as I know of, sir," murmured Jason wonderingly. "No? Where did you get them, then, those medical books?"
Miss Evelina had wound one of the clocks, setting it by the midnight train, and loosening the machinery by a few drops of oil which she had found in an old bottle, securely corked. At eight, at one, and at six, Miss Hitty's tray was left at her back door there had not been the variation of a minute since the first day.
On the marble-topped table in the exact centre of the room was a basket of wax flowers and fruit, covered by a bell-shaped glass shade. Miss Hitty's album and her Bible were placed near it with mathematical precision. On the opposite wall was a hair wreath, made from the shorn locks of departed Smiths by Miss Hitty's mother.
It was exasperating to think of the public spirit at Egypt, and contrast it with the state of things at Pleasant River. In Egypt they had sold the old hearse house for a sausage shop, and now they were having hearse sociables every month to raise money for a new one. All these details flew through aunt Hitty's mind in fascinating procession. There shouldn't be "a hitch" anywhere.
Hitty's life was spent between the two parlors and the kitchen; for the room her dead mother had so decorated was now furnished as a bedroom for her father's use; and her own possessions had been removed into the sitting-room next it, that, sleeping or waking, she might be within call.
The fortunate Vice-President suddenly called upon by destiny to guide the ship of state, the soldier who sees a possible Victoria Cross in a hazardous engagement, can have a faint conception of Aunt Hitty's feeling on this momentous occasion. Funerals were the very breath of her life.
Far, far away, the heavenly procession and their well-remembered names had led poor Hitty's thoughts; worn out with anxiety, and faint for want of the food she had forgotten to take, sleep crept upon her, and her first consciousness of its presence was the awakening grasp of a rough hand and the hoarse whisper of her husband. "Get up!" said he. "Pick up your brat, get your shawl, and come!"
Sheila, in a mussy gingham dress, was trying to pry off the pasteboard covering of a pint bottle of milk with a pair of scissors, and succeeding only indifferently. They both turned on Hitty's entrance, and the milk bottle went crashing to the floor when the little girl recognized her friend, but after one terrified look at her father she made no move at all in Hitty's direction.
I guess that's knitting, Miss Hitty; you do knit beautiful. Is that worsted or cotton you're at now?" Praise allayed Miss Hitty's wounded self-pity. She grew amiable under its slow-dropping dews always, as 'Tenty knew. "Oh, this a'n't anything to boast of. I call this common knitting; it's a pair of socks I promised Miss Warner for her boy.
When Miss Mehitable beheld her transformed charge she would have broken her vow of silence had not the words mercifully failed. Aunt Hitty's vocabulary was limited, and she had no language in which to express her full opinion of the wayward one, so she assumed, instead, the pose of a suffering martyr. The atmosphere at the table, during supper, was icy, even though it was the middle of June.
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