"It was a good turn—a better song-and-dance I never saw,—but I am sorry I asked her to show. I want to explain to you that I'd rather she wouldn't appear—favour us—again at all."
"Why—why?" There was only curiosity in the old man's tones. The confidence which Lloyd had won was very complete. He suspected no rudeness—he appreciated no lack of tact.
"I feel very responsible for a misunderstanding that has got about," said Lloyd. "I insisted, against her preference, that she should appear in a rustic costume and her soft old shoes. I heard some comments afterwards in the audience. People thought it shabby and inappropriate and disrespectful to the public."
"Them town toads?" said Daniel. "We uns ain't carin' what they think 'bout shoes an' sech."
"Call Clotildy—ax the child herself," said Shadrach Pinnott hastily.
She was not far away, filling a bucket with water at the spring which bubbled out from a mass of rocks close by the river side—a clear pool of crystal brown, its depths catching the light like some gigantic topaz. The three men all approached her when her clear answering voice in the evening stillness revealed her presence there. She bent down, sunk the bucket into the depths, then placing it on her head, stood, one hand on her hip, the other lifted to the pail, and waited, motionless, their coming within speaking distance. She was again garbed in her holiday gown of brown mottled muslin, that had so offended the manager's artistic predilections, and once more her feet were encased in the brogans that disguised beyond all suggestion their grace of form and elasticity of fibre. But her hair still showed its soft flaunting auburn hue, and rose in pliant, redundant waves from her brow and was coiled in a great knot at the back of her head. She listened without a word to the explanation which the three men made in disconnected instalments, her eyes turning from one to the other as each successively took up the story. She showed no confusion; her face was absolutely inexpressive. Lloyd began to doubt how he might best reach her understanding. But when she suddenly spoke it was obvious that she had grasped the whole situation.
"The mounting folks purtend ez I ain't got no better shoes—waal, ef they look right sharp ter-night they'll see these, bran new an' middlin' stout." She glanced down at them with the pride of possession. "An' the town folks purtend ter be powerful shocked kase my old calico dress ain't fine enough. Why, they air obleeged ter know ez it air a part of the 'turn' like the peach-tree branches. Nobody gathers fruit and dances in an orchard in thar Sunday-go-ter-meetin' clothes."
Her logic reassured Lloyd as to the merely captious nature of the criticism—he had not insisted on a point that could fairly discredit her in her neighbours' eyes. "But since the question has been raised," he said, "I think we won't have the song-and-dance again."
She withered him with a glance. "These folks can't ondertake ter teach me whut's respectable," she said not without dignity. "I'll dance in my old shoes and my yellow calico dress every day whilst I'm in town, an' then I'll go creakin' all around in my new shoes an' my new muslin ter show the folks I hev got 'em. I won't allow ez they kin gin me the word what air 'spectable."
Then with the utmost composure, her bucket poised upon her head, she took her way past them and shouldered the responsibility herself.