“Always,” she said, “she does that.”
“Well,” asked Bat, “what of it? I don’t see much in her carrying a small package upstairs. It’ll not tire her.”
Mrs. Kretz folded her strong, thick-fingered hands in her apron, and again she shook her head in a stubborn sort of way.
“It is not that,” she said. “It is not what you see. It is never what you see in Schwartzberg, but always something else.”
“Agreed,” said Mr. Scanlon. “That’s exactly how I feel about it myself. But,” and he looked at her with the interest of a prospector who is about to turn over some fresh soil, “just what is the idea this time?”
“Always,” said Mrs. Kretz, “when a parcel comes by the waggon, she is here to see. Never once does she let me take it in myself. And never once does she take it where it belongs until she has looked inside.”
“Ah!” said Scanlon. “I see.”
“More than once I have watched,” said the woman. “It is not my place, but I want to keep trouble from the house. Hours she will spend looking and searching. Then she will tie the bundle up as it was, and take it to whomever it is for.”
Bat considered this for a space.
“The mail now, does she do the same with that?”