"I've been terr'ble anxious 'bout it ever sence that tramp come to town, an' now sence you've seen an' talked with him, an' I know that he's runnin' 'round loose still, I must go take a look. That's the worst o' prope'ty, it's a dreadful care."
"But it must be just delightful to own such a cute little cottage as yours, all vines and trees—"
"The chimbley smoked," interjected the widow, feeling free to disparage her own "prope'ty," though she would have resented such a remark from another.
"That could be fixed, I reckon. When I saw it from the stage, coming, I thought it was just like a doll-house, or a child's playhouse."
"Huh! You did, did you? Well, let me tell you, Katharine Maitland, that house is a good one. Spriggs, he had it built first-class, with a room finished off in the roof—attic, he called it—three good rooms on the ground floor, white-painted clapboards an' reg'lar blinds, green blinds with slats turnin' easy as nothin'. Not like the old-fashioned wooden shutters, so clumsy 't you can't see out to tell who's comin' along the road without openin' the hull concern. And it has as good a system of water as Squire Pettijohn's, only not so big. Sprigg, he bricked it all up, hauled the bricks himself clean in from the county town, an' it's got a manhole 'twill let ary man down it that wants to go. My house may not be as big as the moon, but it's got as good a system of water as Eunice's even."
Katharine's eyes twinkled. Until she came to Marsden she had never heard of a cistern; all the water used in her city home had been piped into it from a reservoir, which supplied all the other houses also; but she had learned what Susanna meant by "system," because the Turners had had theirs cleaned out only the week before.
"What's the 'manhole,' Susanna?"
"My suz! You do ask the ridicylousest questions. It's a hole left in the top for folks to go down into it, if they want to."
"Well, I shouldn't think they'd ever want to. And the Turners' manhole must be very small, smaller than yours, maybe; because they sent Bob down to clean it, and he got stuck coming out. His mother was scared almost into a fit, and the girls cried and Mr. Turner—said things. He told Bob if he ever got him out alive he'd teach him to live on light rations for awhile. Bob's so fat, you know. It was so funny, and yet I was frightened, too. I suppose if he had stuck too tight they'd have had to break the bricks away, but he squeezed through all right. He hasn't spoken to me since, though. Just because I laughed."
"My suz, Kitty! if you ain't the greatest one for bein' everywhere 't anything's goin' on. You hain't been here but a month, yet you know more folks, been into more houses, seems if, than I have, who've lived here all my life. An' the idee! Tearin' away good bricks just to get a wuthless boy out, like that Bob. I cal'late his pa would ha' thought twice 'fore it come to that. He'd have made the young one scrouge himself up dreadful narrow an' wriggle himself free, somehow. But there. No use worryin' about my system, 'cause I had the leader-pipe turned t'other way so no rain could run into it. It's as dry as a floor now. My suz! What a long walk it is, an' how warm it does keep. I never knowed such a fall, no weather fit for killin' nor nothin', but just like midsummer," bewailed Susanna, lagging on the long woodland path.