Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss Cornelia’s ample lap. It was certainly a baby’s dress, and it was most beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks. Miss Cornelia adjusted her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.
“This is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen,” she announced. “She’s expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready for it. The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and she’s never had time or strength or spirit to make any more. That woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME. When she married Fred Proctor I knew how it would turn out. He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. After he got married he left off being fascinating and just kept on being wicked. He drinks and he neglects his family. Isn’t that like a man? I don’t know how Mrs. Proctor would ever keep her children decently clothed if her neighbors didn’t help her out.”
As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbor who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.
“When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things for it,” Miss Cornelia went on. “This is the last and I want to finish it today.”
“It’s certainly very pretty,” said Anne. “I’ll get my sewing and we’ll have a little thimble party of two. You are a beautiful sewer, Miss Bryant.”
“Yes, I’m the best sewer in these parts,” said Miss Cornelia in a matter-of-fact tone. “I ought to be! Lord, I’ve done more of it than if I’d had a hundred children of my own, believe ME! I s’pose I’m a fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby. But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isn’t to blame for being the eighth, and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it WAS wanted. Nobody’s wanting the poor mite—so I put some extra fuss on its little things just on that account.”
“Any baby might be proud of that dress,” said Anne, feeling still more strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.
“I s’pose you’ve been thinking I was never coming to call on you,” resumed Miss Cornelia. “But this is harvest month, you know, and I’ve been busy—and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more’n they work, just like the men. I’d have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs. Roderick MacAllister’s funeral. At first I thought my head was aching so badly I couldn’t enjoy myself if I did go. But she was a hundred years old, and I’d always promised myself that I’d go to her funeral.”
“Was it a successful function?” asked Anne, noticing that the office door was ajar.
“What’s that? Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral. She had a very large connection. There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in the procession. There was one or two funny things happened. I thought that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never darkens the door of a church, singing 'Safe in the Arms of Jesus’ with great gusto and fervor. He glories in singing—that’s why he never misses a funeral. Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didn’t look much like singing—all wore out slaving. Old Joe starts out once in a while to buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery. Isn’t that like a man? But what else would you expect of a man who never goes to church, even a Methodist one? I was real thankful to see you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday. No doctor for me who isn’t a Presbyterian.”