I followed him to the sitting-room. The Rectory was a great, rambling old house, with a wide hall through the middle. Back of the parlor, quite shut off, indeed, were the dining-room and the two kitchens; on the other side, study, sitting-room, nursery, and mamma’s sleeping apartment.
Mamma’s door was shut. Mrs. Whitcomb was wise enough to keep guard over that. There was a little fire in the Franklin stove, and before it sat Mrs. Perkins, though everybody called her Aunt Letty. Her feet were on the fender, her brown stuff dress turned up over her knees, her black alpaca skirt not quite so high, and a faded quilted petticoat taking the heat of the fire. She always wore substantial gray yarn stockings in the winter, and lead-colored cotton in summer, except on state occasions. Her bonnet was always a little awry, and the parting of her hair invariably crooked. I’m sure I don’t know what she did, except to attend to other people’s affairs.
Mrs. Downs was beside her, a helpless-looking little fat woman, who, Fan declared, looked like a feather pillow with a checked apron tied around it. She was always out of breath, had always just left her work, and was never going to stay more than a moment.
“O, brother Endicott!” exclaimed Aunt Letty, reaching her hand out so far that she nearly tipped her chair over; “I s’spose you ought to be congratyourlated.” (She always put your in the word, and always said equinomical, regardless of Noah Webster.) “What does the Bible say about a man having his quiver full of olive branches? or is it that they sit round the table? now I disremember. I don’t go much according to Old Testament. It was well enough for them heathenish Jews and the old times; but I want the livin’ breathin’ gospel. What you goin’ to call her?”
Papa smiled, at the absurd transition, I suppose. Fan said Aunt Letty had only one resemblance to a dictionary—she changed her subjects without any warning.
“Would Keren-happuch do?” papa asked, with a droll twinkle in his eye.
“O, now, Mr. Endicott!”
“It’s a nice little thing,” put in Mrs. Downs. “Favors its mar I think.”
“Come and see it, Rose.—May we, Mrs. Whitcomb?”
“O, yes, indeed,” with her sweet smile.