"No," said Mrs. Ray, "it was his way of insisting on being paid."
Mrs. Wiley sighed again.
"Well, thanks to the braid, the land is saved," Mrs. Ray went on cheerfully. "Mrs. Wiley, do tell me, what do you think of all this at the O'Neil House,—and did you bring the buttons?"
"Why, I thought you said you could use the buttons on the suit," Mrs. Wiley answered, with an unhappy start; "you ain't going to tell me that you can't, are you?"
"No, I ain't," said Mrs. Ray, "it's only that it's so common for folks to forget to bring me their buttons that I forgot that you had brought yours. It's awful, isn't it, about those two Lathbuns?"
"I thought you'd lost 'em by accident," said Mrs. Wiley, seating herself again with a huge relief; "I don't know what I'd of done if you had, for my money is all in the chickens, and I never saw anything like the way my chickens have acted lately. I wondered if it could be that the surveyors upset them. They haven't been a bit regular, and so many weasels!"
"Perhaps the surveyors keep the weasels stirred up. I must say it would stir me up to have the sharp end of one of their little flags suddenly driven into the bosom of my family. Not but what a flag is better than a case-knife. You've heard about the case-knives, of course?"
"Yes, I heard about the case-knives. Mrs. Ray, don't you want me to try it on? What do you think they had 'em for, anyway?"
"Well, I don't know; you might on account of the sleeves, maybe. I don't know what to think—of course they never got any mail; when any one never gets any mail, it blocks my observation in all directions. I never saw any strangers that stayed so long, that never got any mail before. Why, those other girls are getting letters by the dozens. Such nice mail, too,—thick white paper and thin blue paper, and little prints of flags, such real, pretty mail. There, what do you think of that,—that's your back; like it?"
"Wait till I get out my glasses. But of course they must of bought postals, didn't they? Mrs. Ray, you have done that fine! You're the only one in the world that could ever fit me like that out of a suit of father's. I take such a number of under-the-arm pieces."