Penloe said: "Stella, I will go up to the barn and see if the team is ready." So out he went.
While Penloe had gone to the barn for the team, Clara Herne entered the parlor, with a paper in her hand, and called Stella's attention to a criticism on the sex reform movement.
When Clara entered the parlor, Stella was standing looking at an oil painting on the wall. Stella took the paper, and sat down on the nearest chair. Mrs. Herne went out in the kitchen, and there was Mrs. Wentworth and her child, who was about three years of age. Mrs. Wentworth's husband was poor, and they lived on a small, rented place, near the Herne ranch. Mrs. Wentworth belonged to that type of woman who has very little inclination for solving the problems of the Universe or settling the affairs of the nation, but who seem always to have a great amount of leisure to devote to the doings of her neighbors. It was seldom that Mrs. Herne had company but that Mrs. Wentworth found some kind of errand to her house.
One day at dinner Mrs. Herne, in a humorous way, said: "I think Mrs. Wentworth is owing me for about twenty-seven lots of yeast, forty-two little lots of butter, sufficient matches to light all the fires in Orangeville for six months, enough loaves of bread to feed a multitude, for she often is out of bread or had bad luck with her baking. I have let her have more milk than would be required to drown herself in, and, as for coal-oil, why the quantity that she has borrowed would illuminate many dark places of the earth; and my tea and coffee seem just suited to her taste." Then, after a pause, she said: "Well, the poor woman is welcome to all she has had."
"Yes," said her husband, "they have a hard time."
To-day she came to get Mrs. Herne to read a letter she had received, saying: "There are some parts that neither my husband or myself can make out."
While Mrs. Herne was engaged in reading the letter, Mrs. Wentworth's child, seeing the door leading from one room to another open, took the opportunity of doing a little exploring. It was not long before he was in the parlor. When he entered Stella just looked up from the paper she was reading, to see who it was, and went on with her reading, which she was absorbed in. She had seen the child about the house on other occasions. Now, where Stella was sitting, there was another chair at the back of Stella's chair, and this vacant one was against the wall. On the wall just over the chair was a pretty shelf, with a fancy bright-colored ball fringe all around it, which attracted the child's attention. So he climbed up in the chair, and when he stood up on the seat he saw on the shelf a small, fancy, cut-glass bottle, with a very shining silver-like top to it; so he put his hand out and took it from the shelf, after which he turned round and faced the back of Stella's chair. In passing the bottle from one hand to the other, in order to help himself down with his possessions, his faculty of weight not being as yet well trained, he let go of the bottle before he had got a firm hold of it with the other hand, and the result was that it fell on Stella's shoulder. Fortunately the stopper did not come off till it reached her lap, when she received the whole contents of a bottle of ink on her wedding dress.
Just about that time Mrs. Wentworth said to Mrs. Herne: "I must go and see what that child is doing;" and she arrived in the room just as the bottle of ink fell into Stella's lap. Mrs. Wentworth took the situation in at a glance and the hot blood instantly flew to her face, and hotter words came from her mouth; and, among other things she said, was:
"My God! that brat of mine has spoiled your fine, white dress;" and she took the boy, and was spanking him amidst hot words and the cries of the child.
Stella said: "Please don't hurt the child; it's nothing, it's nothing, Mrs. Wentworth." But the mother paid no attention to Stella's protests, but left the room with the child just as Mrs. Herne entered.