"Let me go down and see what they are doing," and Mary Cary laid gloves and parasol on the chair, unpinned her hat and put it beside them. "We were so late I was afraid the children would be gone. Look at that little rascal tying two dogs' tails together!" Down the steps she ran and across the yard, and as she approached there was a rush toward her. Instantly she was the centre of a crowding, swarming group of children, all talking at once, and all trying to see what she had come to do, but as she raised her hand there was momentary stillness.
"Now I can set down." With a sigh of relief Mrs. McDougal took the chair offered to Miss Cary, folded her arms, and began to rock, her eyes fastened on the man still on the railing of the little porch, but now with his back against a post and hands clasped over the knee of his right leg.
"I can set down in peace for a few minutes anyhow," she went on, "for as long as Miss Mary is out there things will go right. Some women is born with a way to manage children. She was." She nodded toward the yard. "Remember how she used to do those 'sylum children? Led 'em into more mischief than all the rest put together, but she always led 'em out, and they were like sheep behind her. Loved her. That was it. Ain't it funny the things folks will do for a person just on account of lovin' 'em? And ain't it funny how you can't love some people to save your life? You know you ought to, specially if they're kin, and you try to, but you can't do it. The very sight of some folks makes the old boy rise up in you, and you wish they was in—well, I ain't sayin' where you wish they was. My grandmother always told me you'd better keep some wishes to yourself.
"But there's one person in this town what makes me want to do to her just what Billy Bickles did to that rooster just now. She's that superior, and so twisty in the corners of her mouth, that I'm always wishin' I could fix the kind of fall her pride's goin' to have some day. Bound to have it, pride is. 'Ain't no law to hold it up any more than an apple in the air, and both of 'em is got to come down. When folks pass other folks what they know in the street, and don't any more speak to 'em than if they was worms of the dust, they think it's on account of bein' who they are, and they don't know it's on account of bein' what they is. Of course a person can't be blamed for bein' born a fool, but a fool ought to know better than to be fooler than it's bound to be. I don't mind Mrs. Deford not noticin' me, but Susie, who sells her all her hats, says—"
"Mrs. Deford?" John Maxwell, who was only half listening, and who had been watching the children, turned toward Mrs. McDougal. "You mean Mrs. Walter Deford?"
"That's who I mean, though I don't see what she's called Mrs. Walter Deford for, being as 'tis Mr. Walter Deford don't seem to enjoy her company any more than I do. If he's been in Yorkburg for eight years, nobody's heard of it. When she dies she oughtn't to be res'rected. In heaven there'll be saints, born plain. She couldn't associate with them. In hell there'll be blue-blooded sinners, and she can't mix with sinners. The grave's the place for her, and won't anybody round here weep when she's put in it. But Lord-a-mercy, what am I wastin' time talking about an old teapot like her for? She's hurt Susie's feelin's so often, Susie bein' like her pa, and not havin' much spirit, that I get kinder riled when her name is mentioned. But my grandmother always did say if you didn't like a person, spew them out of your heart and shut your mouth. And here I am talkin' about a nothin', 'stead of askin' you 'bout yourself. It's been a long time since I seen you. Them other times when you've been down I ain't even had a chance to glimpse you on the street, but the children told me, Susie and Hunt did, that you was a New-Yorker all right, and you is that. I tell you good clothes and an easy air don't hurt anybody." She nodded her head. "You look like where you come from."
"Any difference in New-Yorkers and other people? Mind my smoking?" He took a package of cigarettes out of his pocket, lighted one and put the rest back. "In New York I tell people I'm from Yorkburg. Could I have arranged it I would have been born here. Not my fault I'm not a Virginian." He laughed, knocking the ashes from his cigarette. "You've got a bunch of them. All those yours?"
She peered above the railing and counted. "Ain't but five of 'em mine. The four oldest works. Susie stays in Miss Patty Moore's millinery store, Lizzie lives with her grandpa, Hunt is at the woolen mills with his pa, and Teeny helps Mrs. Blick with the children. The youngest is twins, they're seven. The next is twins, too. They will be nine on the Fourth of July, and over who was to be invited that I had to keep 'em in bed all day yesterday, and not let it be their party at all. I told 'em 'twas Peggy's, but I'd do the invitin' myself. I didn't want that Billy Bickles, but if I hadn't asked him there'd been trouble for me as long as life. I know his ma too well. Don't reckon you ever knew Mis' Bickles? She's one of them kind of women who's always seein' she gets what's comin' to her, and takes what ain't. Her husband lives up the country. He warn't much to leave: one of them lazy, good-natured kind what always had a pain handy; and Mis' Bickles says she left him while her family was small. Mis' Bickles says she left him while her family was small. Mis' Bickles's got more sense than you'd think from lookin' at her, and a tongue what tells all it knows and makes up what it don't. It don't do to get that kind of a tongue down on you.
"Them two children over there"—she pointed vaguely toward the now shouting group—"those two with red hair and red ribbons is Mr. Sam Winter's little girls. I don't like 'em, but if there's any one woman in this world I feel sorry for it's Sam Winter's wife, and so I invited 'em. Ain't they the ugliest, freckledest little things you ever saw? Don't reckon you remember their ma, either? She used to stay in Mr. Pat Horston's bakery and confectionery when you lived here. That's been—"
"Ten years ago this October."