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The tippler interposed with moist emotion. "John, we're landless! My plantation b'longs t' my wife. I can sympathize with you, John. As old song says, 'we're landless! landless! We are landless, John. But you have price priceless 'dvant'ge over me in one thing, vice-president; you've still got yo' motheh!" "O!" groaned March, blazing up and starting away; but Proudfit clung.
Delia, she was shy about not havin' much education Mis' Proudfit hed wanted to send her off to school, an' Mis' Crapwell wouldn't hear to it an' Abel kep' talkin' that he was goin' to hev a big church in the City some day, an' I guess that scairt Delia some, an' Jennie kep' frettin' an' houndin' her, one way an' another, an' a-callin' her 'parson's wife' ain't it awful the power them pin-pricky things has if we let 'em?
Garnet still sat with Mrs. Proudfit behind the others, and John, as he went by, was, for some cause supplied by this pair, startled, angered anew, and for the time being benumbed by conflicting emotions. He found his mother still talking joyously with the Graveses, who were unfamiliar with the graceful art of getting away. He found a seat in front of them, and sat stiff beside a man who drowsed.
"If you do," drawled Shotwell to Fair, as they hurried down into the lamplight, "you'll think the devil's inside of her with the jimjams. Still, she's lovely as long as you don't. Ah me! this is no time to jest! Po' Proudfit! He leaves a spotless characteh!"
The doors was to open to the general public at ten o'clock, an' the i-dee was to hev the Auxiliary get the pick o' the goods first, payin' the reg'lar, set, marked price. An' just as they was ready to begin pickin', up arrove the Proudfit pony cart with a great big box o' stuff, sent to the sale.
She rose, one thin little hand pressed tensely along her cheek. But the other hand Madame Proudfit held in both her own as she, too, rose beside her. And with them Abel stood, facing the rest. "O, Abel Halsey Abel Halsey ..." Delia said, "an' Mame Bliss nor you, Abigail, don't you, any of you, come in yet. I got somethin' to tell you."
"Noon lunch" was finished, and I had seen Calliope go with Madame Proudfit to the library and close the door, and we were all gathered in the hall, where Miss Clementina had opened a trunk and was showing us some pretty things, when some one else crossed the veranda and appeared in the doorway. And there was Abel, come with my wild roses.
And that night I was not minded to have them about, for it might befall that it would be necessary to understand other things as well. "Miss Linda would 'a' cared to," said Mis' Amanda, thoughtfully, "but I donno, myself, about Mis' Proudfit an' Miss Clementina for sure." So bold an innovation as the Proudfits' omission, however, moved Timothy Toplady to doubt.
Our prosperity, all around, hangs on the question whether you and the darkey may tax us and spend the taxes as you please, or we shall tax ourselves and spend the taxes as we please." "Ah, Proudfit, you mean whether you may keep the taxes low enough to hold the darky down or let them be raised high enough to lift him up. Walk in, gentlemen. Proudfit, take the rocking-chair."
But the time held many meanings, as a time will hold them; and the Voice of its new meaning said to me, as we all waited on the Proudfit veranda with its vines and its climbing rose and its canaries: "I marvel, I marvel at your bad taste. How can you leave the dear place and the dear people for me?"
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