"There it is now, on the shelf above your head. But how it got there, I don't know. And Mary would be throwing fits if she saw it."
"Why?"
"Because she says her father used to send her every night, when she was a little girl, to get his Polean pitcher filled with beer. She says she minds him every time she looks at it—Gahd rest his soul."
I turned and looked at the little squat figure of Napoleon. It was the pitcher the little man had given Mary for getting our trade for him, when we were first married.
"She cried once when I put some cream in it to make pot-cheese," said Katie. "And she emptied it and washed it and kissed it; then she stood it on th' shelf with her picture of the Pope that you gave her."
Just then Mary, as if suspecting something, appeared at the door. She looked suspiciously from one to the other.
"I was just afther telling the Missis, Mary, how careful you are of the Polean pitcher you used to rush the growler with for your poor dear father," said Katie, with a shy grin that was gone before we fairly saw it.
Mary turned away without a word. She never spoke to me on the subject, nor I to her.
The next day a gipsy fortune-teller came to Peach Orchard, and told the fortunes of all the servants. She predicted a rich husband for Katie, and a fit of sickness for Mary. I think she could not have pleased each better.
That night we were sitting in the Angel's porch-study, when the most dreadful howls and groans began to emanate from the kitchen. We all hurried to the scene, and there, prone upon the floor, lay Mary, weeping and twitching herself and moaning that she was going to die.