Fran's conception of the Clinton Boarding-House, the home of jollity, was not warranted by its real atmosphere. Since there were not many inhabitants of Littleburg detached from housekeeping, Miss Sapphira Clinton depended for the most part on "transients"; and, to hold such in subjection, preventing them from indulging in that noisy gaiety to which "transients" are naturally inclined—just because they are transitory—the elderly spinster had developed an abnormal solemnity.
This solemnity was not only beneficial to "drummers" and "court men" acutely conscious of being away from home, but it helped her brother Bob. Before the charms of Grace Noir had penetrated his thick skin, the popular Littleburg merchant was as unmanageable as the worst. Before he grew accustomed to fall into a semi-comatose condition at the approach of Grace Noir, and, therefore, before his famous attempt to "get religion", the bachelor merchant often swore—not from aroused wrath, but from his peculiar sense of humor. In those Anti-Grace and heathen days, Bob, sitting on the long veranda of the green frame building, one leg swinging over the other knee, would say, "Yes, damn it," or, "No, damn it," as the case might be. It was then that the reproving protest of his sister's face would jelly in the fat folds of her double chin, helping, somewhat, to cover profanity with a prudent veil.
Miss Sapphira liked a joke—or at least she thought so—as well as anybody; but like a too-humorous author, she found that to be as funny as possible was bad for business. Goodness knows there was enough in Littleburg to be solemn over, what with the funerals, and widowers marrying again, yes, and widows, too; and there wasn't always as much rejoicing over babies as the county paper would have you believe! The "traveling men" were bad enough, needing to be reminded of their wives whom they'd left at home, and, she'd be bound, had forgotten. But when one man, whether a traveler or not—even a staid young teacher like Abbott Ashton, for instance—a young man who was almost like a son to her—when he secluded himself in the night-time—by himself? with another male? oh, dear, no!—with a Fran, for example— what was the world coming to?
"There they stood," she told Bob, "the two of them, all alone on the foot-bridge, and it was after nine o'clock. If I hadn't been in a hurry to get home to see that the roomers didn't set the house afire, not a soul would have seen the two colloguing."
"And it don't seem to have done you any good," remarked her brother, who, having heard the tale twenty times, began to look upon the event almost as a matter of course. "You'd better not have saw them,"—at an early age Bob had cut off his education, and it had stopped growing at that very place. Perhaps he had been elected president of the school-board on the principle that we best appreciate what does not belong to us.
"My home has been Abbott Ashton's home," said Miss Sapphira, "since the death of his last living relation, and her a step, and it a mercy, for nobody could get along with her, and she wouldn't let people leave her alone. You know how fond I am of Abbott, but your position is very responsible. You could get rid of him by lifting your finger, and people are making lots of talk; it's going to injure you. People don't want to send their tender young innocent girls—they're a mighty hardened and knowing set, nowadays, though, I must say—to a superintendent that stands on bridges of nights, holding hands, and her a young slip of a thing. All alone, Robert, all alone; there's going to be a complaint of the school-board, that's what there's going to be, and you'll have to look out for your own interests. You must talk to Abbott. Him a-standing on that bridge—"
"He ain't stood there as often as I've been worried to death a-hearing of it," growled the ungrateful Bob, who was immensely fond of Abbott.
Miss Sapphira spoke with amazingly significant double nods between each word—"And…I…saw…only…four…days…ago—"
She pointed at the school-house which was almost directly across the street, its stone steps facing the long veranda. "They were the last to come out of that door. You may say she's a mere child. Mere children are not in Miss Bull's classes."
"But Abbott says the girl is far advanced."