The subject was so painful that, by tacit consent, we both avoided it. It would have been better, I think, to have expressed our views freely, for, as we could dwell on nothing else, we seldom spoke at all, and that added to the gloom of the situation.
Joe had been gone several days, and we had been silently struggling in the Slough of Despond, when I awoke one morning filled with a new and ardent resolution, which I proceeded to carry into instant execution.
Jessie was always the first one up. I heard her moving about in the kitchen, and, making a hasty toilet, joined her there. She was grinding coffee in the mill that was fastened securely to the door-jamb. It was, I believe, the noisiest mill in existence; its resonant whi-r-rr was like that of some giant grist-mill. Jessie suspended operations as I drew near to remark:
“You’re up early, Leslie.”
“Yes; I’ve thought of something, and—”
“It’s the early thought that is caught, same’s the early worm,” my sister remarked, unfeelingly. Then she added: “Excuse me a minute, Leslie, I must get this coffee ground, and can’t talk against the mill.”
When the coffee was in the pot on the stove, she turned to me again:
“Now what have you thought of that is so wonderful?”
“It isn’t wonderful, Jessie. It’s sensible.”
“It amounts to the same thing.”