Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

Poor Gilbert, entirely oblivious of the undercurrent, protested that he could do all the office work required before night, saying in good-hearted indiscretion, "Go you out, Poppy; the young gentleman will enjoy the trip much better than with a half-deaf old codger like me."

For a moment Poppea struggled for words less abrupt than "I will not go," with which to extricate herself from the net. Then Satira Potts (who was Pegrim, and having once taught Poppea what she called her manners never forgot it), grasping the situation, rose so suddenly from the table that she scattered the crumbs that she had in her apron, and said, "Poppy couldn't go with you noway, nohow, Mister—I don't think you've mentioned your name. Our Newfield County girls don't take up with strangers, and besides, even if they did, Miss Gilbert, holding what might be called a public place, has got to draw the line even shorter!"

Gilbert, who had raised his hand deprecatingly toward his, as he considered, too officious sister, stopped short as he caught sight of Poppea's face, while into the other man's eyes there flashed a glare of rage which was far less offensive than the expression it replaced. Getting up slowly with an affected yawn of boredom, he bit the end from a cigar, lit it without asking leave, nodded curtly to the postmaster and, picking up his bag of papers and hat, which he put on before reaching the door, went on his way.

"Shoo! Scat!" said Satira Potts, who, following him closely, drove away a stray cat from the porch and scattered the remaining crumbs in her apron on the flagging for the birds.

For a minute Gilbert and Poppea sat looking at one another, then he said: "I wonder why that smart Aleck dropped in here just now and hung around so? Most likely missed connections in Bridgeton for somewhere else and thought he'd pass the time and get a dinner. He wasn't mannered like the regular inspector that's been here for three years past. It's too bad he riled you so, Poppy; it's likely he thought he was being polite and pleasuring of you."

It was well for his feeling of content that Gilbert did not look back, for when Satira Potts returned to the kitchen, Poppea, who had left the table for the window and was looking with eyes that did not see up through the orchard to the back garden, wheeled suddenly, and, throwing her arms about Satira's neck, began to sob with the broken-hearted abandon of a child.

"There, there, dearie, that skate has gone flying, so don't you care. I sensed right off the way he was squinting at you, and if only you hadn't been born a lady baby, and so mustn't, I could have wished you'd slapped his face."

All that afternoon and for many days, whenever Poppea paused in her work in the office or in the bank garden, where the flowers seeded from the garden above ran riot and needed much restraining, the thought, "I wonder, oh, I wonder, who sent that man here?" came to her.

One day, as the insistence of the query was beginning to pass, Miss Emmy sent for Poppea to come up to luncheon and hear the plans for the afternoon and evening entertainment that the Felton ladies were in the habit of giving each year, either at rose time or at midsummer. This year, the season being late and also the roses, the twenty-first of June, the summer equinox, was chosen; for, as time went on, the ladies felt less like entertaining and keeping open house in the humid July weather, though they did not yet acknowledge it even to one another. But at sixty and sixty-two, why should not even those to whom that form of tyranny known as duty to society is a law relax, and prepare to spend the afternoon of life a little more naturally?

As for Mr. Esterbrook, at threescore and ten, relaxation of any kind would be impossible. For the last dozen years, having practically ceased to take manly exercise, he was propped by his rigid surroundings, courteous formalities of the old school, and clothes to such a degree, that had he sought to escape from them, collapse would have resulted, and it would have been as impossible to collect him as water that suddenly rebelled against the confines of its pail.