“I’m glad you did. You’ll have to excuse the looks o’ things. Any news?”
“None perticular.” Mrs. Hanna began to crochet, holding the work close to her face. “Ain’t it too bad about poor, old Mis’ Lane?”
“What about her?” Mrs. Bridges snapped a bean-pod into three pieces, and looked at her visitor with a kind of pleased expectancy—as if almost any news, however dreadful, would be welcome as a relief to the monotony of existence. “Is she dead?”
“No, she ain’t dead; but the poor, old creature ’d better be. She’s got to go to the poor-farm, after all.”
There was silence in the big kitchen, save for the rasp of the crochet needle through the wool and the snapping of the beans. A soft wind came in the window and drummed with the lightest of touches on Mrs. Bridges’s temples. It brought all the sweets of the old-fashioned flower-garden with it—the mingled breaths of mignonette, stock, sweet lavender, sweet peas and clove pinks. The whole kitchen was filled with the fragrance. And what a big, cheerful kitchen it was! Mrs. Bridges contrasted it unconsciously with the poor-farm kitchen, and almost shivered, warm though the day was.
“What’s her childern about?” she asked, sharply.
“Oh, her childern!” replied Mrs. Hanna, with a contemptuous air. “What does her childern amount to, I’d like to know.”
“Her son’s got a good, comf’table house an’ farm.”
“Well, what if he has? He got it with his wife, didn’t he? An’ M’lissy won’t let his poor, old mother set foot inside the house! I don’t say she is a pleasant body to have about—she’s cross an’ sick most all the time, an’ childish. But that ain’t sayin’ her childern oughtn’t to put up with her disagreeableness.”
“She’s got a married daughter, ain’t she?”