“Mother, where’s my Sund’y pulse-warmers at?”
“I don’t know where your Sund’y pulse-warmers are at. Father, you’d aggravate a body into her grave! You don’t half look up anything—and then begin asking me where it’s at. What’s under that bunch o’ collars in your drawer? Looks some like your Sund’y pulse-warmers, don’t it? This ain’t Sund’y, anyways. Wa’n’t your ev’ryday ones good enough to wear just to a church meeting?”
Mr. Willis had never been known to utter an oath; but sometimes he looked as if his heart were full of them.
“I reckon you don’t even know where your han’ke’cher’s at, father.”
“Yes, I do, mother. I guess you might stop talking, an’ come on now—I’m all ready.”
He preceded his wife, leaving the front door open for her to close and lock. He walked stiffly, holding his head straight, lest his collar should cramp his neck or prick his chin. He had a conscious, dressed-up air. He carried in one hand a lantern, in the other an umbrella. It was seven o’clock of a Thursday evening and the bell was ringing for prayer-meeting. There was to be a church meeting afterward, at which the name of Patience Appleby was to be brought up for membership. Mrs. Willis breathed hard and deep as she thought of it.
She walked behind her husband to receive the full light of the lantern, holding her skirts up high above her gaiter-tops which were so large and so worn as to elastic, that they fairly ruffled around her spare, flat ankles. Her shadow danced in piece-meal on the picket fence. After a while she said—
“Father, I wish you wouldn’t keep swinging that lantern so! A body can’t see where to put their feet down. Who’s that ahead o’ us?”
“I can’t make out yet.”
“No wonder—you keep swinging that lantern so! Father, what does possess you to be so aggravating? If I’d of asked you to swing it, you couldn’t of b’en drug to do it!”