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The post-mistress told everybody in the Glen it had come, and everybody came up to hear the news. "Jem was badly wounded in the thigh and he was picked up and taken to prison, so delirious with fever that he didn't know what was happening to him or where he was. It was weeks before he came to his senses and was able to write. Then he did write but it never came.
Entering, the party found Tony there before them, the letters he had carried from the school lying on the counter; for there were several small parcels and newspapers which would not go into the receiving box, and the post-mistress was sorting the afternoon up mail, and the delivery window of the office was closed; so Tony was waiting his chance for attention.
So far the impression we have had of our Utopia is one of a quite unearthly sanity, of good management and comprehensive design in every material thing, and it has seemed to us a little incongruous that all the Utopians we have talked to, our host of last night, the post-mistress and our garrulous tramp, have been of the most commonplace type.
"We probably won't get anything," she said; "but somebody might have written here." Marjorie's heart bounded with sudden joy when she beheld a letter in her own mail-box. It was registered, too; evidently the post-mistress had signed for it. Seizing it hastily, she looked expectantly at the postmark. Her hopes fell; it was stamped "New York."
The lady had jilted the school-master. Whether this explanation came from the post-office, who shall say? But so long as he lived the school-master was twitted about the lady who threw him over. He took his revenge in two ways. He wrote and posted letters exceedingly abusive of the post-mistress.
My pants, ma'am, have suffered in this turn-up, and they're now in a condition to make my appearance in polite society difficult, if not impossible; now please go 'way and somebody fetch me a horse blanket." It is regrettable that the discomfiture of the post-mistress was received with undisguised hilarity.
One woman I spoke to, who was school-room maid here a matter of twenty years back, said she saw her as clear as clear, up on the platform, wearing the sort of grey dress she used to wear when she was a girl, ma'am, when her father was still alive. None of the men seem to have seen her but quite a number of the women did. The post-mistress says she could have sworn to her anywhere."
It reflects on the post-mistress somewhat that she had generally found them out by next day, when, if in a specially vixenish mood, she did not hesitate to upbraid them for their perfidy. To post a letter you did not merely saunter to the post-office and drop it into the box. The cautious correspondent first went into the shop and explained to Lizzie how matters stood.
Thus I knew very well this post-mistress, who mixed herself more in the business than her husband, and who has herself related to me this adventure more than once. She did all she could, uselessly, to obtain some explanation upon these alarms.
He was one of the few persons in the community who looked upon the despatch of his letters by the post-mistress as his right, and not a favor on her part; there was a long-standing feud between them accordingly.
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