He slouched out now with a fresh lot of apples, and, squatting on the door-stone, resumed the conversation.
“I s’pose naow Sissly’s gone, ther’ won’t be no livin’ under th’ same roof with Sabriny fer any of us. Ther’ ain’t nobuddy lef’ fer her to rassle with ’cep’ us. Ole Lemuel’s so broken-up, he won’t dare say his soul’s his own; ’n John—well, Lize Wilkins says she heerd him say he didn’t know’s he’d come to th’ funer’l ’t all, after th’ way him ’n’ Sabriny hed it aout las’ time he was here.”
“I wasn’t talkin’ o’ them!” said Alvira, slapping the flour from her hands’ and beginning with the roller; “it’d be nothin’ new, her tryin’ to boss them. But she’s got her dander up naow agin somebuddy that beats them all holler. They won’t no Richardsons come puttin’ on airs ’raoun’ here, an’ takin’ th’ parlor bedroom ’thaout askin’, not ef th’ ole lady knaows herself—’n’ I guess she does.”
“What Richardsons?” asked Milton. “Thought Sissly was th’ last of ’em—thet they wa’n’t no more Richardsons.”
“Why, man alive, ain’t Albert’s wife a Richardson, th’ daughter of Sissly’s cousin—you remember, that pock-pitted man who kep’ th’ fast hoss here one summer. Of course she’s a Richardson—full-blooded! When she come up from th’ train here this mornin’, with Albert, I see by th’ ole lady’s eye ’t she meant misch’f. I didn’t want to see no raow, here with a corpse in th’ haouse, ’n’ so I tried to smooth matters over, ’n’ kind o’ quiet Sabriny daown, tellin’ her thet they had to come to th’ fu-ner’l, ’n’ they’d go ’way soon’s it was through with, ’n’ that Albert, bein’ the oldest son, hed a right to th’ comp’ny bed-room.”
“’N’ what’d she say?”
“She didn’t say much, ’cep’ thet th’ Richardsons hed never brung nothin’ but bad luck to this haouse, ’n’ they never would, nuther. ’N’ then she flaounced upstairs to her room, jis’s she allus does when she’s riled, ’n’ she give Albert’s wife sech a look, I said to m’self, ‘Milady, I wouldn’t be in your shoes fer all yer fine fixin’s.’”
“Well, she’s a dum likely lookin’ woman, ef she is a Richardson,” said Milton, with something like enthusiasm. “Wonder ef she wears one o’ them low-necked gaowns when she’s to hum, like th’ picters in th’ Ledger. They say they all dew, in New York.”
“Haow sh’d I knaow!” Alvira sharply responded. “I got enough things to think of, ’thaout both’rin’ my head abaout city women’s dresses. ’N’ you ought to hev, tew. Ef you’n’ Leander’d pay more heed to yer work, ’n’ dew yer chores up ship-shape, ’n’ spen’ less time porin’ over them good-fer-nothin’ story-papers, th’ farm wouldn’t look so run-daown ’n’ slaouchy. Did yeh hear what Albert said this mornin’, when he looked ’raoun’? ‘I swan! ’ he said, ‘I b’lieve this is th’ seediest lookin’ place ’n all Northern New York.’ Nice thing fer him to hev to say, wa’n’t it!”
“What d’ I keer what he says? He ain’t th’ boss here, by a jug-full!”