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Updated: June 1, 2025
Ketury understood English, and could talk it well enough, but always seemed to scorn it, and was allers mo win' and mutterin' to herself in Indian, and winkin' and blinkin' as if she saw more-folks round than you did, so that she wa'n't no way pleasant company; and yet everybody took good care to be polite to her.
"Ketury didn't seem to mind him: she stood there as stiff as a stake, and kep' callin' out, 'Come down, come down! let's see who ye be. And then come down the body of a man with a brown coat and yellow vest, and j'ined right on to the legs; but there wa'n't no arms to it.
She'd bow and smile as gracious to her when meetin' was over, and she come down the aisle, passin' oot o, meetin'; but Ketury never took no notice. Ye see, Ketury's father was one o' them great powwows down to Martha's Vineyard; and people used to say she was set apart, when she was a child, to the sarvice o' the Devil: any way, she never could be made nothin' of in a Christian way.
"But I feel compelled to say," pursued Miss Humdrum, eying this wretched hypocrite severely, "that my girl Jemimy did hear somebody fire a gun or a cannon or something out in your garden last night, and she scar't out of her wits, and my poor cat found cold under the hogshead this morning, Ketury."
From the driveway of the yard, beside the dining-room windows, came the rattle of wheels and the tramp of a horse's feet. Mrs. Matilda Tripp, who sat nearest the windows, on that side, rose and peered out. "It's the depot wagon, Ketury," she said. "There's somebody inside it. I wonder if they're comin' here." "Transients" were almost unknown quantities at the Bayport Hotel in May.
Under very peculiar circumstances, Ketury." "Oh!" said Ketury, hunting for her own handkerchief; finding three in her pocket, she brought them all into requisition. "And I feel it my duty to inquire," said Miss Humdrum, "whether it may happen that you know anything about the event, Ketury." "I?" said Keturah, weeping, "I didn't know she was dead even! Dear Miss Humdrum, you are indeed afflicted."
He seemed to try to speak, but couldn't; for ye see it isn't often that his sort o' folks is permitted to speak: but just then there came a screechin' blast o' wind, and blowed the door open, and blowed the smoke and fire all out into the room, and there seemed to be a whirlwind and darkness and moans and screeches; and, when it all cleared up, Ketury and the man was both gone, and only old Cack lay on the ground, rolling and moaning as if he'd die.
"Course I don't mean she ain't got canvas enough to cover her spars," he explained; "but what she has got has seen consider'ble weather, and it seemed to me 'twas pretty nigh time to haul her into dry dock and refit. That's why I borrowed these magazines of Ketury.
"That Bailey," he observed, "must be in love, I cal'late, though I don't know who with. Ketury, I s'pose, 'cordin' to law and order, but Well, anyhow, he's gettin' more absent-minded all the time. Here's a letter for you, Cy, that he got at the post-office a week ago Monday.
"Then old Ketury got up, and reached her stick up chimbley, and called out louder, 'Come down, come down! let's see who ye be. And, sure enough, down came a pair o' legs, and j'ined right on to the feet: good fair legs they was, with ribbed stockings and leather breeches. "'Wal, we're in for it now, says Cap'n Eb. 'Go it, Ketury, and let's have the rest on him.
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