"No, I ain't a mite stiffened up to-day," she would reply.
"Because I'll stop and let you out if you'd rather," Mr. Warner continued.
"Oh, I wouldn't put you to no trouble," Ann demurred, politely.
"It wouldn't be no trouble," he would feebly protest.
But Ann only said: "I'm all right, Mr. Warner. No rheumatics in my knees, thank Providence and red flannels! I can sit, walk, or ride with the best of them yet." Then, animated by sudden concern for him: "But look here, if you're crippled up, jest get out and walk alongside and I'll drive. Do now, just reach the reins acrost here. I can drive as straight as a string."
But this ordering of affairs was still less to his liking; so, resigning himself to the inevitable and comforting himself with the thought of the fifty cents, he drove on to the Post-Office.
Here Ann alighted, and then began making inquiries as to the precise time of leaving, which side of the street he would be on, whether any one else was going, besides many other details that suggested themselves to her as legitimate excuses for prolonging the conversation, during which she surveyed Warner haughtily. Finally she sailed off, with, a last imperative injunction "to be punkshul."
When she returned, she was usually pretty far gone. She rolled in her walk, and fiery glances shot from her eyes. The tippet was usually screwed around, so that the tassel depended like an epaulet upon one shoulder, and the magenta ribbon did duty upon the other. Her bonnet had a trick, that amounted to a habit, of cocking itself hilariously over one ear, and the "front" usually pointed straight at the other.
Mr. Warner took care always to be ready to leave when she came. He had a painful recollection of a day when he loitered about the Post-Office longer than usual, and came out at length, mailbag over his shoulders, to find Ann the centre of an admiring group that applauded her whilst she gave a full, particular (and, be it whispered, true) account of the Warner family history.
In every little village there are certain stock stories that are told about certain families. If it be a scandal-monging little hole, the stories usually have a tang to them.