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Butterfield had bought the house from the Thatcher boys, and that was fifteen years ago; but this was not strange, for, notwithstanding Aunt Hitty's valuable services in disseminating general information, there was a man living on the Bonny Eagle road who was surprised to hear that Daniel Webster was dead, and complained that folks were not so long-lived as they used to be.
Minty'll die if she ain't dead now!" The tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks, but she ran on, as fast as her feet would carry her, toward Doctor Dexter's. "The way'll be opened," she thought "I'm sure it will." The way was opened in an unexpected fashion, for Doctor Ralph Dexter answered Miss Hitty's frantic ring at his door. "I'd clean forgotten you," she stammered, wholly taken aback.
Bill, the man he addressed, knew too much to hesitate after the savage look that sent home the last words, and, drawing from a bag of tools and dies a tiny padlock and key, he handed them to Dimock, who passed the chain about Hitty's thin white wrist, and, fastening it with the padlock, turned the key, and, withdrawing it from the lock, dropped it into the silvery heat of the forge, and burst into a fit of laughter, so savage and so inhuman that the bearded lips of his two comrades grew white with horror to hear the devil within so exult in his possession of a man.
She noticed that a great many of her patrons had taken second helpings, and that threw her out in her calculation of quantities, while the relative digestibility of the protein and the fats in pork depend so much upon its preparation that she could not approximate the virtue of Hitty's bill of fare without consultation with Hitty.
So the milkman and the corner grocer, the newspaper man, and Hitty's small brood of grand nieces and nephews, to say nothing of the Italian fruit man's family, and her laundress's invalid daughter, were all occupying a considerable place in Nancy's daily schedule.
Her house was situated at the crossroads, and, being on higher ground, commanded a good view of the village below. Gradually, her dooryard had become a sort of clearing house for neighbourhood gossip. Travellers going and coming stopped at Miss Hitty's to drink from the moss-grown well, give their bit of news, and receive, in return, the scandal of the countryside.
"I'll have to come every day for a long time perhaps twice a day," he added, remembering the curve of Araminta's cheek and her long, dark lashes. Miss Hitty made an indescribable sound. Pain, fear, disbelief, and contempt were all mingled in it. "Don't worry," said Ralph, kindly. "You know doctoring sometimes comes by wholesale." Miss Hitty's relief was instantaneous and evident.
And I hope you see now what it means to a woman to walk straight on her own path that the Lord has laid out for her, and to let men alone. They're pizen, every one of 'em." Nun-like, Araminta sat in her chair and sewed steadily at her dainty seam, but, none the less, she was deeply stirred with pity for women who so forgot themselves who had not Aunt Hitty's superior wisdom.
Tagged to it, like the postscript of a woman's letter, was Miss Hitty's own concise, permanent, neatly labelled opinion of the family or individual, the latter thrown in without extra charge. "Perhaps you didn't know," remarked the minister, "that such a woman had come." His tone was inquiring. It seemed to him that something must be wrong if she did not know.
I thought I should have to use a gun on them, but I explained to them that you must be looked after." "I don't want to be looked after. I'm all right, thank you. Are you alone?" "No, Hitty's outside. Betty simply insisted on my bringing her, I don't know why, but she said you'd be kinder to me if I did. I don't think you're very kind."
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