This particular spring things promised to be unusually lively. But the rains, though gentle, had been persistent and Fanny was a full two weeks behind with her news schedule. But if late, her report was thorough. She dropped wearily into Grandma's soft cushioned kitchen rocker, slipped her cold feet without ceremony into the warm stove oven and began:
"Good land! I never see such a town and such people and such weather! Jim Tumley's drunk again and as sick as death and Mary's crying over him as usual and blaming the hotel crowd. She says he's a good man and don't care for liquor at all and that their liking to hear him sing ain't no reason for getting him drunk and a poor way of showing their thanks and appreciation, and that they all know that he can't stand it, him being weak in the stomach that way, like all the Tumleys. Mary's just about ready to give up everything and everybody, she's that discouraged.
"Well—that's one mess and now there's Uncle Tony in another. It seems Uncle Tony sold Seth Curtis a hand axe for a dollar and ten cents. Of course Seth paid for it like he always does—right away. But you know how forgetful Uncle Tony is getting. Well, it seems he clean forgot about Seth paying and sent in a bill for a dollar. And now Seth's hanging around, wanting his ten cents back and saying mean, smart things.
"And that lazy, gossiping crowd of worthless men folks was just killing themselves laughing and making fun of poor Uncle Tony, sitting right in his very own chairs and warming their lazy feet at his comfortable fire. Uncle Tony happened to be out and those loafers just started in and what they said about that kind old man made my blood boil. They were all mean enough, with Seth egging them on every now and then about that dime that he was cheated out of. But Mert Hagley was the worst. Of course, everybody knows Mert's just dying to hog Uncle Tony's business along with his shop, as if the stingy thing wasn't rich enough already. Well, when Mert heard about that ten-cent mistake he said it was about time there were a few business changes in Green Valley, that a few business funerals would help a lot and freshen up things; that Uncle Tony was no business man, and a lot of that sort of stuff. And of course Hughey Mason, being a smart Aleck, pipes up and says, 'That's so, Uncle Tony is no business man. Why, Tom Hall says that when you find Uncle Tony's emporium locked at eleven o'clock of a winter morning you can bet your bottom dollar Uncle Tony's home shaking down the furnace, and if it's closed at four of a summer afternoon Uncle Tony's sneaked off home to mow the lawn.'
"Well, those idiots and old hypocrites were talking just like that, goodness knows how long. They never took the trouble to see if Uncle Tony was really around or not. But all of a sudden I looked around the corner of the middle row of shelves and there was that poor old man sitting as still as death in his cashier's cage and looking sick to death. You know he wouldn't cheat a soul, and as for that store, he'd die without it. It's all the family he has. Well I had stepped in there to buy a couple of flat-irons. The children mislaid mine. But I walked right out for I didn't want to call him out to wait on me.
"I was so mad I just walked around the block till I met Mrs. Jerry Dustin right at Simpson's corner and I told her the whole thing. She was as hurt about it as Uncle Tony and kept holding on to Simpson's garden fence and saying, 'Dear me, Fanny, we must do something. I have a message for Tony, anyway, and this is just the time to deliver it.'
"So back we went and we met Uncle Tony stepping in at the front door too. He must have sneaked out the back way and come around the front so's not to let on he'd heard anything. He was kind of white and miserable about the mouth and his eyes looked out kind of blind. But he smiled when Mrs. Jerry Dustin said, 'Good morning, Tony.' I wonder," Fanny digressed, "if it's true that Uncle Tony wanted to marry Mrs. Dustin once. Sadie Dundry says so but you know how unreliable Sadie is about what she knows.
"Well, anyhow, those miserable men things around that stove just smiled at Uncle Tony like so many Judases and all commenced talking at once. But Mrs. Dustin didn't give them much chance. She just took up all Uncle Tony's attention and time. She bought and bought, being real careful of course to ask only for the things she knew he had; and to top it all she bought four quarts of robin's-egg blue paint. You know that's Uncle Tony's favor-ite woodwork paint and nobody goes in there for paint but what he's trying to get them to buy robin's-egg blue. Seems his mother's kitchen on the old farm was done that way and Uncle Tony's never been able to see any other color.
"Well, I thought those four cans of paint was about the highest kind of good luck but when Mrs. Dustin give her message I nearly fell dead, and as for them old he-gossips they were about paralyzed, I guess. Why even you, Grandma, couldn't hardly guess what that message was;" here Fanny pulled up a sagging stocking and hurried on lest she should be interrupted.
"It was nothing more nor less than that Bernard Rollins, the artist, wants to paint Uncle Tony's portraiture. 'And, of course, Tony,' said Mrs. Dustin in that sweet way of hers, 'you won't refuse, will you?' And I declare the lovely way she looked at him and he at her I come near believing Sadie might be right by accident. But, land—in this town everybody has growed up with everybody else and somebody is always saying that somebody is sweet on somebody else or was when he or she were young.