“She's—she keeps house—that is, she used to keep house for my father over in Ostable. I don't suppose she will any more now he's dead. She'll be glad, I guess. Perhaps she won't have to be a perfect slave now. She used to wear aprons same as you do. I never saw a man wear an apron before. Do you have to wear one?”
“Hey? Have to? No, course I don't have to unless I want to.”
Mary-'Gusta reflected.
“I suppose,” she went on, after a moment, “it saves your pants. You'd get 'em all spotted up if you didn't wear the apron. Pneumonia is a good thing to take out Spots.”
Isaiah was surprised.
“What is?” he asked.
“Pneumonia. . . . No, I don't think that's right. It's pneumonia that makes you sick. Somethin' else takes out the spots. I know now; it's am-monia. It's very good for spots but you mustn't smell the bottle. I smelled the bottle once and it went right up into my head.”
“What on earth are you talkin' about? The bottle went up into your head!”
“No, the ammonia smell did. It was awful; like—like—” she paused, evidently in search of a simile; “like sneezin' backwards,” she added. “It was terrible.”
Isaiah laughed. “I should think 'twould be,” he declared. “Sneezin' backwards! Ho, ho! That's a good one!”