Myron put aside the basket of groceries, took the quilting-frames to an empty corner, and set about her preparations for the weekly washing. The bound girl still stood motionless by the fire, and Mrs. Deans still talked; her husband was shifting uneasily in his chair, for her remarks were beginning to wander from the case in point, and her condemnations and criticisms were becoming too sweeping to be altogether pleasant, when, much to the relief of her hearers, Mrs. Deans' attention was distracted by the arrival of the ragman, with his noisy, rattling van, piled high with coarse, bulging sacks of canvas. Mrs. Deans assumed her sunbonnet, and went out to him. He was a man of sixty or so, thin, good-humored, and with what Mrs. Deans called, "An eye to the main chance." Perched high upon the seat of his old-fashioned blue van, he was exposed to all the variableness of the weather; but he took sunshine and rain in good part, and seemed little the worse, save that he was tanned to a fine mahogany tint.
He went regular rounds through the country, gathering rags and scrap-iron. His calling is a survival of the old classic system of barter. The interior of his van was filled with an array of pans and pails and all sorts of tin-ware; a drawer at the back held common cutlery, horn-handled knives and forks, and tin spoons, such as his customers used. With these wares he paid for the rags and old iron. Many a thousand pounds of each had he and his old black horse collected.
He had a faculty for gauging the weight of a bag of rags that was truly impressive. "That'll go thirty pound," he would say; then weighing it hastily, "Turned at thirty and a half," he would announce with an air of surprise at his own mistake. Then, by a quick fling, the bag would be skillfully bestowed upon the top of the van; his load was always one-sided, but never fell off.
Mrs. Deans always had rags for him, and invariably bought pie-plates.
"Who is that?" said he to Mrs. Deans, after the chaffering process was over, and she stood, pie-plates in hand, watching him put the wooden peg through the staple to keep the hasp tight. He had caught a glimpse of Myron Holder.
"That—oh, Jed Holder's Myron," returned Mrs. Deans, assuming the face with which she taught Sunday school.
"'Tis, eh? What do you have her for?"
"I feel a duty to have her here, but it goes ag'in me, Mr. Long—it does that; but there, we all have our cross and we must help along as well as we can. Are you going to call at old Mrs. Holder's? She takes it most terrible hard."
"Yes, I'll call there; it's a lucky job for the girl she's got such a backer as you, Mrs. Deans. 'Twould be a good thing if there was more like you. It beats all what wimmen is coming to these days! Who's the man?"
"Don't ask me—ask her; that's the only place I know to find out; she's that close, though! And stubborn! Even I, for all I've done for her, and put up with, don't know! No more does her grandmother. But I'll find out."