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She was called old lady Peaseley, and a halo of aristocracy encircled her, although she had been in the poor-house thirty years, for her grandfather had been the first minister of Welby. "I declare, if there ain't Mirandy a-comin' up the lane this blessed minute! Talk about angels, you know. Seems if she looked kinder peaked and meachin', though most gen'ally as pert's a lizard.
The boys who were Hank's confidants in the plot were very busy over their slates, and took pains not to show their disappointment. The morning session wore on without incident. Ralph several times caught two people looking at him. One was Mirandy. Her weak and watery eyes stole loving glances over the top of her spelling-book, which she would not study.
"Jane'll be real sorry to-morrow to find you've gone away, I guess; but never mind, it can't be helped. If she has a kind of a dull time with Mirandy, on account o' her bein' so sharp, why of course she'd set great store by your comp'ny. Mother was talkin' with her after prayer meetin' the other night. 'You wouldn't know the brick house, Sarah, says Jane.
"The most o' what they've got is in gov'ment bonds, I always heard, and you can't lose money on them. Jane had the timber land left her, an' Mirandy had the brick house. She probably took it awful hard that Rebecca's fifty dollars had to be swallowed up in a mortgage, 'stead of goin' towards school expenses.
"I don't believe it was a shock; it stands to reason she'd never 'a' got up after it and been so smart as she is now; we had three o' the worst shocks in our family that there ever was on this river, and I know every symptom of 'em better'n the doctors." And Mrs. Peter Meserve shook her head wisely. "Mirandy 's smart enough," said Mrs.
Keeps swappin' firewater fer land an' no idee o' the danger." They left the woman in tears. "It's awful lonesome here. I'll never see ye ag'in," she declared as she stood wiping her eyes with her apron. "Here now you behave!" Solomon exclaimed. "I'll toddle up to your door some time next summer." "Mirandy is a likely womern I tell ye," Solomon whispered as they went away. "He is a mean devil!
"I'm right glad leetle Ken's done tuck ter ther bottle," she said with forced cheerfulness to the hag-like Mirandy Sloane. "Mebby when I gits back thar'll be a mite more flesh on them puny leetle bones of his'n." Her words caught sob-like in her throat as she wheeled resolutely and caught up her shawl and bonnet.
But Mirandy was no shrew; she was simply troubled about many things. "Well," she said, compressing her lips, and wrinkling her forehead in resignation. "If folks want to kill themselves, I can't hender 'em! But when he's down ag'in, I shall be the one to take care of him, that's all. Here, Cyrus, don't you go into that cold bedroom. You shave you here, if you're determined to do it."
Jane, run an' take the dish towels off the line and shut the shed doors; we're goin' to have a turrible shower." "We've had it, I should think," said Jane quietly, as she went to do her sister's bidding. "I don't often speak my mind, Mirandy; but you ought not to have said what you did about Lorenzo.
Mirandy was vigorously washing potatoes at the sink, but she turned, in ever-ready remonstrance. "Shave!" she ejaculated, "Well, I guess you won't shave, such a day as this, in that cold bedroom, with a stockin'-leg round your throat, an' all! You want to git your death? Why, 'twas only last night, Marthy, he had a hemlock sweat, an' all the ginger tea I could git down into him!
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