But the crowning glory of Ann's holiday toilet was her "front." This "front" was the only bit of false hair in Jamestown, and was regarded as an unholy thing, a direct manifestation of "the Devil and his works." Mrs. Deans always declared that Mrs. Wilson had "as good as owned up" that she would like a similar front; and indeed Mrs. Wilson, good woman, had been moved almost to defiance of public opinion by the evil fascinations of that sinful scrap of tousled hair. As a matter of fact, Ann's "front" was somewhat the worse for wear; the parting was a parting indeed, and several curls being gone at one side, there was a bare spot, where the black-net foundation showed. But Ann's bleared eyes looked out right jauntily from beneath this lopsided coiffure.
Perched upon her head was a bonnet. Originally covered with red silk, it had grown glossy and dark from much wear. Upon one side of it was stuck grotesquely a shapeless knot of black crape—limp, rusty, soiled by mud and weather, yet a symbol still of the loss of husband and child, and of a deeper loss than this—the loss of hope, the loss of self-respect, the loss of self-control, and the triumph of an evil appetite.
For long ago Ann had had a husband and a bonny daughter, and she herself was a big, buxom woman, fresh-colored and wholesome. But her husband died, and the daughter was carried home dead to her one day, with the water that had drowned her dripping from her long hair and leaving a dotted line upon the floor as it ran from the hand that hung over the edge of the rude bier.
Ann never "picked up" after that. Despite the admonitions of her Christian neighbors and their warnings against sinful repining, she yet dwelt ever upon her loss, seeking oblivion when she could in drink. Well, she was wrong, of course, but "the heart knoweth its own bitterness," and in the empty niches of her heart there perhaps lurked the shadow of an excuse for her.
In a certain old neckerchief, mottled with gay colors and bordered with purple, were tied a few tawdry relics, a string of black wooden beads, a knot of discolored blue ribbon that had clung to a tress of the drowned girl's hair, a dark pipe with the tobacco still in it, a waistcoat barred with bright stripes of yellow, a heavy plated watchguard—these were all that remained to Ann of the joy of life, and yet upon them fell as bitter tears as ever dimmed a diamond-set portrait or a pearl-clasped lock of hair.
This woman, for whose coming husband and child had once watched, was now an amusing spectacle for Jamestown boys. As Mr. Warner drove along the street Ann would go out and await his coming in all the dignity of conscious grandeur. She never started for town until she had enough to pay for her ride there and back, besides the money for her gin, for, as she often said, she wasn't much of a hand at walking.
Before getting into the mail-wagon, which was simply an ordinary two-seated light wagon, with a flat canopy upheld at the corners by iron rods, she paid Mr. Warner fifty cents, which was the fare to town and back. Then she mounted to the back seat, where she sat enthroned, her feet upon the canvas mail bag.
She enjoyed the drive thoroughly, nodding with much affability to every one they met, irrespective of whether she knew them or not, and saying, "Poor crittur! Who be he, I wonder. He don't know me," when any one failed to return her salute.
At the door of the Post-Office Ann got out, having paid no heed to the gingerly hints Mr. Warner had given her about getting out when they came to the town limits.
"Wouldn't you like to stretch a bit, Mrs. Lemon, before we get into town?" he would say, tentatively.