Whence he removed it with a laugh, but stubbornly insisting:
“Yes, I must. Just one word. Don’t waste a cent of that sixty dollars per annum on anybody living at 221 Avenue A, rear tenement, top floor. Flambergasted proud old thing! Even the little one’s caught the distemper and actually turned up her little pug nose at a peppermint cat I bought for her, t’other day. Fact. Yet the little beggar looked at it so greedy—Whew! Her eyes were as green as the cat’s own! But touch it, no! ‘I don’t care for pep’mints,’ quoth she. ‘I mean my Granny don’t care to have me eat ’em.’ I bet all my old shoes they hadn’t a mouthful in that cupboard that minute, and old Sophia sewing as if she hadn’t another minute to live and must get everything done in that one. A cupboard full of pride, they had. Nothing else. Shucks!”
“You needn’t sneer at them, Mr. Ephraim Marsh. I like them for it. I used to think pride was sinful. But it isn’t. Look at my Cousin Margaret. Instead of complaining and groaning, like Wun Lung, when he has a pain, she bottles all hers up in her own breast and spares everybody the thought of her suffering. Barnes says nobody knows what ‘my lady’ endures, some of those ‘privacy’ times, when she’s shut up in her bedroom and never lets on. Then, when she gets a little better, on she puts her prettiest gown and down she comes smiling and sits at table as easy as if she had never ached at all. I think that’s fine, Ephy. I think that’s the best part of being a ‘Waldron,’ or any other high-up person, that one is too proud ever to ‘let on’ and make other folks unhappy. There’s so many ways of testing a gentleperson; like Cousin Margaret offering a stranger caller a rocking chair. She keeps one on purpose, though she wouldn’t ‘demean’ to sit in it herself. If the stranger takes it and rocks, that’s the end of the stranger for my Cousin Margaret, for it proves the stranger ill-bred. It’s always rude to rock in company, Ephraim, remember that.”
“Well, well, well! There’s a lot of nonsense been stuffed into your curly head since we struck the trail for this Gotham! Along with some sense, too. But, my ‘Captain,’ don’t you go and get a solemn-ite! I couldn’t stand that. The minute you get too good to be wholesome I shall upstakes and hoof it back to Californy. And, speakin’ of Madam, she’s begun to pay me reg’lar wages, same as she would any other ‘chef,’ as she calls it. So betwixt your allowance and my wages—we ought to feed a good many hungry folks in the course of a year. Eh! What? Who’s ringing that bell that way? sounds like the crack of doom; and I vow, I believe they’ve smashed it! Tipkins is out, Barnes has got the sick headache, no ‘emergency’ creatur’ in for the day, I’ll have to answer it myself. Hope to goodness there hasn’t anything happened!”
But there had. The direst happening which could befall that ancient mansion.
CHAPTER IX.
“LAYLOCKS.”
On this same morning Sophy Nestor was early at her post, with her mended tray filled with the second-hand bouquets she bought from the florists or market-gardeners. Second-hand in the sense that they had already been long gathered and were on the point of withering. But flowers in a city cost much money—much, that is, for a fund so small as Sophy’s, and fresh ones were wholly beyond her means.
So she shrewdly disposed her posies on her wicker tray, putting the best blossom forward, freshening them by sprinkling at a convenient drinking-fountain, and losing no sales for want of insistence on her own part. Many bought from her because it was the easiest way to be rid of her petitions, others because they pitied her misfortune; and still more because she had a deft, tasteful way of arranging her wares which tempted all flower-lovers. So, in ordinary, she managed each day to sell all her stock; and this morning, in especial, she hoped for a brisk trade because—Well, because she was going to be guilty of an extravagance which seemed almost like stealing.
“This very sweetest, freshest branch of laylock is for my Jessica Trent, if she goes ridin’ by this way. The market-woman throwed it in free for nothin’, ’cause she said maybe ’twould bring me good luck. Seems if I might take it and give it, if I want, since I didn’t have to pay for it. I always think the flowers belong to Granny and I mustn’t give away none, bad’s I want. But, to-day, if she should go a-ridin’ by again—Oh! if she should! I’m going to hop right up into the middle of the street, straight again’ them horses’ feet, and I’ll yell loud enough this time to make her hear and look. If she looks she’ll smile, sure; and she’ll stop if that old White Hair ’ll let her. Then I’ll fling the laylock square into her lap, as she sets there a-ridin’ on them cushions. Oh! my!” murmured Sophy to herself, wanting another listener.