Anna made her way to the kitchen. Dave was sitting there smoking. Anna found strength and sustenance in his mere presence, though she did not say a word to him, but he was such a faithful soul. Good, honest Dave.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE VILLAGE GOSSIP SNIFFS SCANDAL.
"Flavia, most tender of her own good name,
Is rather careless of her sister's fame!
Her superfluity the poor supplies,
But if she touch a character it dies."—Cowper.
It was characteristic of Marthy Perkins and her continual pursuit of pleasure, that she should wade through snowdrifts to Squire Bartlett's and ask for a lift in his sleigh. The Squire's family were going to a surprise party to be given to one of the neighbor's, and Marthy was as determined about going as a debutante.
She came in, covered with snow, hooded, shawled and coated till she resembled a huge cocoon. The Squire placed a big armchair for her near the fire, and Marshy sat down, but not without disdaining Anna's offers to remove her wraps. She sniffed at Anna—no other word will express it—and savagely clutched her big old-fashioned muff when Anna would have taken it from her to dry it of the snow.
The sleighbells jingled merrily as the different parties drove by, singing, whistling, laughing, on their way to the party. The church choir, snugly installed in "Doc" Wiggins' sleigh, stopped at the Squire's to "thaw out," and try a step or two; Rube Whipple, the town constable, giving them his famous song, "All Bound 'Round with a Woolen String."
Rube was, as usual, the pivot around which the merry-making centered. A few nights before, burglars had broken into the postoffice and carried off the stamps, and the town constable was, as usual, the last one to hear of it. On the night in question, he had spent the evening at the corner grocery store with a couple of his old pals, the stove answering the purpose of a rather large bulls-eye, at which they expectorated, with conscientious regularity, from time to time. Seth Holcomb, Marthy Perkins' faithful swain, had been of the corner grocery party.
"Well, Constable, hear you and Seth helped keep the stove warm the other night, while thieves walked off with the postoffice," Marthy announced; "what I'd like to know is, how much bitters, rheumatism bitters, you had during the evening?"