Neither Clem nor Ann had ever been compelled before to seek township aid, and, with the perversity of human nature, they agreed in associating Myron with their downfall, and persisted in regarding her as being in some way responsible for it. They both were devoted to stimulants—Clem's choice being whiskey, Ann's gin. When the monthly instalments of money from the council arrived, they both, with one accord, set to work to wheedle some of it from Myron, with a view of gratifying their spirituous desires. In this, however, they were entirely balked. Beneath Myron's meekness and patience an iron will was strengthening.
Homer had said: "Don't give either of them any money. I'll give Clem tobacco when he needs it, but don't you begin giving them the money, or there'll be no stop to it."
That was enough. No persuasion moved Myron after that, either to yielding or to anger.
"She be a fair devil for obstinateness," said Clem upon one of these occasions.
"Yes," agreed Ann, venomously, "and who be she to lord it over the likes of us? We're decent, if we be poor."
It was, however, only upon these occasions that Clem and Ann agreed at all. They quarrelled continually, taunting each other with a fondness for liquor, and each making mock of the hypocrisy the other displayed in going to church, much upon the principle of one negro calling another a "black nigger."
The remarks they indulged in were, to say the least, personal, and each displayed a fiendish aptitude for finding out the weak spots in the other's armor.
Ann still cherished the shreds and patches of youthful vanities, mouldy remnants of adornment with which she disfigured herself on high days and holidays. She had a little house in the village, and a lot with some plum trees upon it. In summer she made shift to live very comfortably, what with the plums, and her chickens, and odd days' work. Indeed, she might easily have saved sufficient to keep her during the winter, but Ann was not of those who "go to the ant," and, after due consideration of her ways, become wise.
Her habit was, when she had a few dollars by her, to adorn herself with her best, go to town in the mail-wagon, get as much gin as she could for the money, and then give herself over to the enjoyment of her purchase. Upon these days it was no small excitement for the Jamestown children to watch the going and returning of Mr. Warner and his mail-wagon.
Long before mail-time Ann might be seen arranging her finery. She wore a black merino skirt, draggled into a tattered fringe at the bottom, and stained here and there by the drops that fell more swiftly as Ann's hand grew less steady. By some chance, she had once bought some bright blue ribbon from a peddler. She put two rows of this round her black skirt. Unfortunately the ribbon proved too short for the two rows, so that in the second one there was a hiatus of some twelve inches between the ends of the ribbon. This to some people might have been a somewhat insurmountable difficulty, but not to Ann. Catching her skirt just at that point where the ribbon failed to connect, she raised it gracefully with one hand, displaying the edge of a red flannel petticoat and a goodly length of robust limb. It is not recorded that she was ever seen so drunk as to forget herself sufficiently to loose her hold of the skirt, although upon several occasions she was carried helpless into her house, laid upon her bed, and left, as the good Samaritans of Jamestown expressed it, to "sober up and be ashamed of herself." Her bodice was only an ordinary calico one, but she covered its deficiencies by a black cashmere tippet of antiquated shape and ample size. It had a tassel between the shoulders, and certain lonely sparkles here and there showed that in the days of its youth and beauty it had been be-bugled. At the neck of this she pinned a knot of faded magenta ribbon, fastening it with a shell pin.