“Did I SPEAK? No, I screeched! What in tunket—”
“I want you to see this picture of the mayor's house in Blazeton. Eva, my husband's niece, lives right acrost the road from him. Many's the time I've set on their piazza and seen him come out and go to the City Hall.”
“Keep it out of my face, I tell you! Reef it! Furl it, you—you woman! I wish to thunder the piazza had caved in on you! I never see such an old fool in my born days. TAKE IT AWAY!”
Mrs. Beasley removed the paper, but only to substitute another.
“Here's Eva's brother-in-law,” she screamed. “He's one of the prominent business men out there, so they put him in the paper. Ain't he nice lookin'?”
Bailey's comments on the prominent business man's appearance were anything but flattering. Debby continued to reach for more papers, carefully replacing those she had inspected in the pile beneath her feet. The wind blew as hard as ever; even harder, for it was now almost dead ahead. Henry plodded along. They were in the hollow at the foot of the last long hill, that from which the blacksmith shop had first been sighted.
“I know what I'll do,” declared the passenger. “I'll hunt for that missin' husband advertisement of Desire Higgins's. Let's see now! 'Twill be down at the bottom of the pile, 'cause the paper it's in is a last year one.”
She bobbed down behind the high dashboard. Mr. Bangs stood up in order that her gymnastics might interfere, to a lesser degree, with his driving. The equipage began to move up the slope of the hill, bouncing and twisting in the frozen ruts.
“Here 'tis!” exclaimed Debby. “I remember it's in this number, 'cause there's a picture of the Palace Hotel on the front page. Let's see—'Dog lost'—no, that ain't it. 'Corner lot for sale'—wish I had money enough to buy it; I'd like nothin' better than to live out there. 'Information wanted of my husband'—Here 'tis! Um—hum!”
She straightened up and eagerly began reading the advertisement. The hill was very steep just at its top, and the sulky slanted backward at a sharp angle. A terrific burst of wind tore around the corner of the bluff. It eddied through the sulky between the dashboard and the curtained sides. The widow, in her excitement at finding the advertisement, had inadvertently removed her feet from the pile of papers. In an instant the air was filled with whirling copies of the Blazeton Weekly Courier.