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"Cain't we do nothin'?" asked Betty Pulcher, who could never endure inaction. "What is there to do?" "Nothin'," sniffed Mrs. Updyke solemnly, "least-wise, not now. Ye see, thar won't be no funeral to make ready fur, an' the sermon won't be till a Sunday. I kin sleep two on 'em, an' eat four, I guess, ef the rest on ye'll do as much."
"Yes, I see," stooping to bite her thread; at which Mrs. Updyke sniffed out, Miss Prue laughed. "Makes me think of Grannie Green. When her rot of a husband used to be sleeping off his sprees, she'd say, 'I'm allers so thankful when he gits real far gone, fur then I'm sure he cain't be doin' anythin' wuss."
I thought, of course, I could depend upon you to thread my needles for me;" and Sara, not daring to show her pleasure at this release, made a gentle word of excuse to Mrs. Updyke, and crossed the room to her friend. "Oh, thank you!" she murmured, dropping beside the older maiden, who was chuckling slyly; "I couldn't have sewed well at all there, she frightens me so." "Humph!
Sara, under this new blow, for a time lost all self-control, and broke into such a passion of grief, that Jasper, much frightened, ran for the nearest neighbor, Mrs. Updyke. She soon appeared, a gaunt woman, with a wrinkled visage, and a constant sniff. "Land sakes!" she cried, upon hearing Jasper's ill news, "Yeouw don't say!
Just then Molly came in breezily, her curls flying, and her cheeks a bright pink, and, seeing the visitor, managed, all in one instant, to give Sara a lightning glimpse of a most disgusted little visage, even while she turned with a dimpling smile to say, "Why, Mrs. Updyke, is it you?
"Even if she does wear too many ribbons and laces and fancy furbelows, with never a common-sense shoe to her foot!" "Even if she does" I assented warmly. And thus we were compelled to leave it. In view of those verses I could suggest no plan for relief, and my one poor morsel of encouragement had been stonily rejected. Eustace went the mad pace. So did Arthur Updyke.
Updyke took pains to impress that idea upon them with a decisive sniff; for, being a next-door neighbor, she naturally desired that the affliction close by should outrank all other distress in the village.
"Wall, we'd better set to," sniffed Mrs. Updyke, fitting on a huge steel thimble open at the top; "they ain't much arternoons to these short days, anyhow. I'll take this star, an' you, Sairay, may work on the next, so't I kin kinder watch ye. 'Twon't do to hev any botch-work on this quilt." Sara obeyed, but not with alacrity. It only needed the added discomfort of Mrs.
A moment later he was staring with mystified absorption at the hat in his hands, quite as if the hat were a stranger's and then he brushed it around and around with the cuff of his coat sleeve as if the stranger had not been careful enough of it. Thence paraded Miss Caroline to the City Drug Store, to be bowed well out to the sidewalk by young Arthur Updyke when her errand within had been done.
In a moment when we both were silent, renewing our amazement at the stars, there burst upon the night a volume of song that I instantly identified. "She sleeps, my lady sleeps!" sang the clear tenor of Arthur Updyke. "My lady sleeps she sleeps!" sang three other voices in well-blended corroboration; after which the four discoursed upon this interesting theme.
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