The next day Ann was up early. She took her beer (it was home-brewed and not of great value) and deliberately poured it out, bottle after bottle, into a large puddle in the front road. The men who were passing early saw her action, and she told them that she had "turned temp'rance." She washed the bottles, and set them upside down before the house to dry where all the world might see them. The sign by which she had advertised her beer and its price had been nothing but a sheet of brown paper with letters painted in irregular brush strokes. Ann had plenty of paper. This morning she laid a sheet upon her table, and rapidly painted thereon with her brush such advertisements as these:
Tea and Coffee, 3 Cents a Cup.
Ginger Bread, Baked Beans,
Lemonade.
Cooking done to order at any hour
and in any style.
By the time this placard was up, Christa had sauntered out to smell the morning air, and she looked at it with what was for Christa quite an exertion of surprise.
She went in to where Ann was scrubbing the tables. Christa never scrubbed except when it was necessary from Ann's point of view that she should, but she never interfered either. Now she only said:
"Ann!"
"I'm here; I suppose you can see me."
"Yes; but, Ann——"
It was so unusual for Christa to feel even a strong emotion of surprise that she did not know in the least how to express it.
Ann stopped scrubbing. She had never supposed that Christa would yield easily to all the terms of the condition; she had not sufficient confidence in her to explain the truth concerning the secret compact.
"Look here, Christa, do you know that Walker died last night? Now I'll tell you what it is; you needn't think that the people who are respectable but not religious will have anything more to do with us, even in the off-hand way that they've had to do with us before now. Father's settled all that for us. Now the only thing we've got to do is to turn religious. We're going to be temp'rance, and never touch a game of cards. You're going to wear plain black clothes and not dance any more. It wouldn't be respectable any way, seeing they may catch father any day, and the least we can do is sort of to go into mourning."