“Tied up?” Galusha's smile broadened. “Oh, I see,” he observed. “Well, I lost my hat. It blew off into the—ah—sea. It was rather too cold to be about bareheaded, so I used the scarf you so kindly lent me.”
Martha gazed at him for an instant and then burst into a hearty laugh.
“Mercy on me!” she cried. “WHAT an idiot I am! When I saw you come into the yard with your head bandaged—at least I thought it was bandaged—and your face—But what IS the matter with your face?”
“My face? Why, nothing.”
“Nonsense! It's a sight to see. You look the way Erastus Beebe's boy did when the cannon-cracker went off too soon. Primmie, hand me that little lookin'-glass.”
Primmie snatched the small mirror from the wall.
“See, Mr. Bangs,” she cried, holding the mirror an inch from his nose. “Look at yourself. You're all broke out with a crash—rash, I mean. Ain't he, Miss Martha?”
Galusha regarded his reflection in the mirror with astonishment.
“Why, I—I seem to be—ah—polka-dotted,” he said. “I never saw anything so—Dear me, dear me!”
He drew his fingers down his cheek. The speckles promptly became streaks. He smiled in relief.