“'Tain't no use,” snapped Debby, “I can't hear you, you speak so faint. Wait till I get my horn; it's in the settin' room.”
Phoebe's wonder as to what the “horn” might be was relieved by the widow's appearance, a moment later, with the biggest ear trumpet her caller had ever seen.
“There, now!” she said, adjusting the instrument and thrusting the bell-shaped end under the teacher's nose. “Talk into that. If you ain't a peddler, what be you—sewin' machine agent?”
Phoebe explained that she had come some distance on purpose to see Mrs. Beasley. She was interested in the Thayers, who used to live in Orham, particularly in Mr. John Thayer, who died in 1854. She had been told that Debby formerly lived with the Thayers, and could, no doubt, remember a great deal about them. Would she mind answering a few questions, and so on?
Mrs. Beasley, her hearing now within forty-five degrees of the normal, grew interested. She ushered her visitor into the adjoining room, and proffered her a chair. That sitting room was a wonder of its kind, even to the teacher's accustomed eyes. A gilt-framed crayon enlargement of the late Mr. Beasley hung in the center of the broadest wall space, and was not the ugliest thing in the apartment. Having said this, further description is unnecessary—particularly to those who remember Mr. Beasley's personal appearance.
“What you so interested in the Thayers for?” inquired Debby. “One of the heirs, be you? They didn't leave nothin'.”
No, the schoolmistress was not an heir. Was not even a relative of the family. But she was—was interested, just the same. A friend of hers was a relative, and—
“What is your friend?” inquired the inquisitor. “A man?”
There was no reason why Miss Dawes should have changed color, but, according to Debby's subsequent testimony, she did; she blushed, so the widow declares.
“No,” she protested. “Oh, no! it's a—she's a child, that's all—a little girl. But—”