“Another letter from your folks, Missis,” Dick said, with the familiarity of the old country postman, which pays for itself by a genuine sympathy in either joy or sorrow. “It should ha’ been here yesterday, but I took it to Mrs. Crosby’s, by mistake.”
Mattie looked rather vexed at that, both because she did not like Mrs. Crosby, and because she was unaccountably troubled by the sudden appearance of the packet.
“I should think it was a mistake!” she answered him rather sharply, though at the same time trying to tone down her reproof for the sake of old acquaintance. “There’s not much likeness between Kirkby and Crosby that I can see!”
“Nay, nor between the folks, neither!” Dick chuckled, setting her flushing again, though now it was from flattered vanity instead of anger. Mrs. Crosby was a thin little rat of a woman, with a red head and a blue nose,—about as different a person from Mattie as you could find in a day’s march.... Dick might be stupid and short of breath, she reflected, softening, but he still knew a fine woman when he came across one.
“It’s my eyes, d’ye see?” he was saying, when she attended to him again, and emphasising his remarks with sharp flaps of the Canadian packet. “I’ll have to be seeing about getting glasses. Anyhow, the letter’s here all right, and none the worse for a bit of extra travelling.... It’ll be a likeness, I reckon, from the look of it,” he finished, handing it to her at last with an air of making a concession.
It probably was a likeness, Mattie told him, holding it in her hands with the same curious sense of reluctance in her fingers. She might have told him more but for that remark of his about his eyes, reminding her as it did of the increasing disadvantages of age. Dick had seen many a snapshot of her family in his time, and had not thought twice about giving his own opinion of them, either.... “My folks Over There are always sending me something to look at.”
“They’ll not be sending much longer, if all tales is true!” Dick’s eyes seemed keen enough now, as they lifted themselves, twinkling. “There’s barely a house I call at but somebody asks me when Mrs. Kirkby’s off to Canada!”
Mattie laughed in return, but with a slight nervousness that surprised her. She had only to mention the “notice,” and the whole place would be agog, making it, with every reference to the subject, more certain and more “real.” But something, which she took to be loyalty to Kirkby, held her back from speaking. “Ay, well, and what d’you say to that?” she compromised, by way of answer.
Dick shifted his bag and shuffled his feet, finally clearing his throat like one preparing for an oration.
“Well, if you want to know, ten year ago I said you’d be off as sharp as a dog to its kennel. Five year ago, I said—‘Ay, well, less likely things has happened.’ But to-day, when they ax me, I say I wouldn’t believe it even if I was to see it.”