“Ner ag’in your behavin’ like a great, cross youngun yerself, if I do say so!” said Mary Jane, dishing apple-fritters with a skilful hand.
“Ain’t cross. An’ if I be, ain’t it enough ter make a critter a’most sw’ar? Here was we livin’ like pigs in clover; and in come Mr. Daniel an’ the gal. Now, ’s if that wa’n’t upsettin’ enough—piles in a heathen Mexican an’ a calico horse ter boot! I do say, an’ I mean it, folks does sometimes get more o’ trouble ’n they desarve in this world.”
“Calico horses is lucky. Hain’t you never heerd that? I always wish when I see one, an’ that ain’t often. An’, though it does make a pile o’ work, I—no, sir!—I ain’t a mite sorry ’t Mr. Dan’l an’ Steenie come!”
“Ma-ry-Ja-ne!” Tubbs half rose from his chair, in astonishment at his sister’s words. “An’ you—a perfessor!”
“Perfessor from my youth up,” assented the spinster, piously. “That’s why it’s borne in on me ter witness fer the truth. I hated it—Here! you Mr. Sutry! Jest fetch all them things out, fust. Don’t leave anything on the table, savin’ the bread an’ the salt. And—there ye be! Handy as a womern, I do declare!—Yes, sir, I hated it wuss ’n pisen. So ’t I couldn’t sleep, worryin’ ’bout the victuals ter cook an’ the dishes ter wash, an’ the hull job. An’ I knowed Madam hated it even wusser. But now—mebbe it’s grace ’at’s ’gin me, an’ mebbe it’s only natur’; but that little creetur has ’bout changed the hull outlook o’ things. She jest acted as if I loved her the terr’blest’t ever was, an’ fust I knowed—I did! Thar wasn’t no holdin’ out ag’in them big innercent eyes o’ her’n, a smilin’ so right inter a body till a body can’t help smilin’ back. So—now I’ve told it out, an’ I feel better. You b’lieve my words, brother Resolved, an’ mark ’em well: Thar’s a blessin’ come with poor Mr. Dan’l’s comin’, an’ it’s took visible shape in that thar child!”
“Well—I swan!”
“Hm-m. Ye needn’t swan’ nothin’. Madam’s through. Come along an’ eat yer dinner. An’ remember ter let yer candle burn afore that poor, yaller-skinned, heathen stranger, who, if he hain’t got the grace o’ perfessorship has got it o’ perliteness.”
Thus adjured, “professor” Tubbs arose and followed Mary Jane into the dining-room, where Sutro had already seated himself in the chair designated by his new confrère, and was smiling blandly kitchen-wards, when that person’s bent figure darkened the doorway. But if there was any spiritual light-shining or candle-burning, it was not of a sort to impress the Catholic Christian with the beauty of the Puritan creed.
Alas! It was war from the beginning with these two; and, though both were inwardly conscious of their own blame in the matter, no amount of self-abusive prayers on one side or muttered Ave Marias on the other could ever change the course of nature.
“Water won’t run up-hill; an’ folks ’at ’s born contrary stays contrary. All you kin expect is ter keep the peace,” said the shrewd Mary Jane, and determined to make a bridge of her own patience which should serve both sides of the hostile camp.