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Marietta kept hitching in her seat, pulling at her gown, and glancing from time to time at the gloomy countenance of Captain Jethro, who, Miss Phipps also noticed, was regarding her steadily and slowly pulling at his beard. This regard seemed to add to Miss Hoag's uneasiness. The majority of those present were staring at the senior partner of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot.
Skookum did not enjoy Hoag's company. The cripple had been talking freely to Rolf, but the arrival of the Indian seemed to suppress him. With the wounded man on the toboggan, they set out, The ground was bare in many places, so that the going was hard; but, fortunately, it was all down hill, and four hours' toil brought them to the cabin.
And now, such was the stunning effect of the most recent blow dealt him by Fate, he, Galusha, was scarcely aware of the fact. The melodeon pumped on and on. The rustlings and shiftings in the circle subsided and the expectant and shivery hush which Primmie feared and adored succeeded it. Miss Black wailed away at the Moody and Sankey selection. Miss Hoag's breathing became puffy.
So, fired at last by the evermore lurid story of his wrongs, the "partner" brought the magistrate, so they could swear out a warrant, arrest the two "outlaws," and especially secure the bundle of "Hoag's furs" in the canoe. Old Silas Sylvanne, the mill-owner and pioneer of the place, was also its magistrate.
They like to have silly people say, 'Isn't it wonderful! Marietta Hoag's 'control, as she calls it, is a Chinese girl. She must speak spirit Chinese, because no Chinese person on earth ever talked such gibberish. Control! SHE ought to be controlled by the keeper of an asylum." The indignation expressed upon Lulie's pretty face was so intense that Galusha suspected an especial reason.
Other things, real things or real people we might change or persuade, but how can you change a a make-believe spirit that isn't and never was, except in Marietta Hoag's ridiculous imagination? Oh, Martha," she added, "you and Mr. Bangs don't think I'm horrid to speak like this, do you?
"Yah, yah!" he cried, dancing in the net of skirt and waggling his hands from his ears. "Yah, yah!" The Granite Jaw smoothed down the outraged rear of his head, eyes rolling and smile terrible. "Wow!" he said, making a false feint toward him. The Baron, shrill with hysteria, plunged into a fold of Miss Hoag's skirt. "Don't hurt him, Jastrow. He's so awful little! Don't play rough."
He has written me saying he is coming over, and I am going to meet him. He says he has good news. I can't think what it can be. I can't think of any good news that could come for him and me, except that father has stopped believing in Marietta Hoag's spirits and has gotten over his ridiculous prejudice; and that WON'T come ever." "Oh, yes, it will! I'm sure it will.
Hoag was alternately querulous, weeping, complaining, unpleasantly fawning, or trying to insure good attention by presenting again and again the furs, the gun, and the canoe. Rolf found it pleasant to get away from the cabin when the weather was fine. One day, taking Hoag's gun, he travelled up the nearest stream for a mile, and came on a big beaver pond.
Isolated thus by the flesh, the spirit, too, had been caught in nature's sebaceous trick upon Miss Hoag. Life had passed her by slimly. But Miss Hoag's redundancy was not all literal. A sixth and saving sense of humor lay like a coating of tallow protecting the surface of her. For nature's vagary, she was pensioned on life's pay-roll at eighteen dollars a week.
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