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Updated: June 11, 2025
The roll of plans stuck out from his coat pocket. That was all Amarita could see. She laid hands upon him and drew him into the entry. There she shut the door and then stood with her grasp upon the other door, leading into the sitting-room, and held it tight. She was afraid mother Meade might come out to see what was the matter. Amarita leaned against the casing.
"I don't see what does make you cry him down so," she declared, with a rare resentment. "Seems if you didn't want to allow he can do the least thing out o' the common." "Well," said the old lady, "I dunno 's he can. There, Amarita!" She threw caution from her as far as it would fly.
"That's it! Why, don't ye know, when anything's business, it's got to be jest so and no other way? 'Tain't surprisin' you shouldn't. Womenfolks ain't called on to do brain work, any to speak of well, keep school they may, and a matter o' that but when it comes to business d'ye have any witnesses?" "No," said Amarita, in a small voice.
Amarita returned no answer. She was washing dishes now, with no noise, setting down each article softly, yet with the same air of longing to destroy. "Witnesses!" old Mis' Meade grumbled, settling to her work by the window. "If Elihu's the size he used to be, I'd show him how much womenfolks knew about business.
Then Elihu rose and took a candle and went off to his desk in the sitting-room, and Amarita cleared the table with swift, sweeping motions, as if she longed to hurl the dishes from her. Old Mis' Meade came heavily back from her bedroom. "Well," said she, in the scorn sprung from experience, "I never seen sich actions. Terrible time, an' nobody to it! What made ye tell him?"
Amarita watched him, with that bright anticipation in her face; and old Mis' Meade, her eyes intermittently upon them, thought the long thoughts of age, half scornful, half sympathizing, and wondered again how any woman could be so lost in admiration over a man.
Old Mis' Meade gave a smothered ejaculation of discouragement, but Amarita looked up with the brightest eyes. She was having a moment of perfect domestic peace, when all she did seemed to bear fruitage in the satisfaction of hunger and kindred needs, and it innocently seemed to her as if her compensating pleasure was about to come.
Amarita turned from her mother-in-law with a noiseless rush and flew out of the front door and down the slippery path. "Elihu!" she called, with all the voice excitement left her. "Elihu, you come here. I've got to speak to you." Elihu left the horse and came with long strides up the path, taking, as he hurried, glances at the roof. "Roarin', is it?" he asked. "You think the chimbley's ketched?"
"Law, no!" old Mis' Meade responded, with the ruthlessness of one whose mind is not on futures. "I guess I can wait till they've begun to hew out their underpinnin'." "Ain't it remarkable he can do a thing like that?" "He ain't done it yet," said the old lady sagely. "I'll b'lieve it when I'm called to the raisin'." Amarita flushed.
"You goin' to let them books set there in the front entry?" she inquired, as if her point of attack had shifted. "Why, yes, I s'pose so," faltered Amarita. "Don't ye want to peek into 'em an' see what they be?" "Why, yes; but I don't want to do anything to get Elihu into trouble about 'em. I s'pose I was kinder foolish to believe what the man said." "Foolish!" retorted the old lady, with vigor.
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