“Government?” repeated Mary, vaguely, her head still rumbling with the noise and motion of the stage; “I’m afraid I hardly understand.”
“Ain’t you-uns goin’ to teach the Yellett outfit ther spellin’, writin’, and about George Washington, an’ how the Yankees kem along arter he was in his grave an’ fit us and broke up the kentry so we had ter leave our home in Tennessee an’ kem to this yere outdacious place, where nobody knows the diffunce between aig-bread an’ corn-dodger? I war a Miss Tumlin from Tennessee.”
The rocking-chair now began to recover its accustomed momentum. This much-heralded educational expert was far from terrifying. Indeed, to Mrs. Rodney’s hawklike gaze, that devoured every visible item of Mary’s extremely modest travelling-dress, there was nothing so very wonderful about “the gov’ment from the East.” With a deftness compatible only with long practice, Mrs. Rodney now put a foot on the round of an adjoining chair and shoved it towards Mary Carmichael in hospitable pantomime, never once relaxing her continual rocking the meantime. Mary took the chair, and Mrs. Rodney, after freshening up the snuff-brush from a small, tin box in her lap, put spurs to her rocking-chair, so to speak, and started off at a brisk canter.
“I ’low it’s mighty queer you-uns don’t recognize the job you-uns kem out yere to take, when I call it by name.” From the sheltering flap of the pink sun-bonnet she turned a pair of black eyes full of ill-concealed suspicion. “Miz Yellett givin’ herself as many airs ’bout hirin’ a gov’ment ’s if she wuz goin’ to Congress. Queer you don’t know whether you be one or not!” She withdrew into the sun-bonnet, muttering to herself. She could not be more than fifty, Mary thought, but her habit of muttering and exhibiting her depopulated gums while she was in the act of revivifying the snuff-brush gave her a cronish aspect.
A babel of voices came from the open-faced room on the opposite side of the house corresponding to the one in which Mary and Mrs. Rodney were sitting. Apparently supper was being prepared by some half-dozen young people, each of whom thought he or she was being imposed upon by the others. “Hand me that knife.” “Git it yourself.” “I’ll tell maw how you air wolfing down the potatoes as fast as I can fry ’em.” “Go on, tattle-tale.” This was the repartee, mingled with the hiss of frying meat, the grinding of coffee, the thumping sound made by bread being hastily mixed in a wooden bowl standing on a wooden table. The babel grew in volume. Dogs added to it by yelping emotionally when the smell of the newly fried meat tempted them too near the platter and some one with a disengaged foot at his disposal would kick them out of doors. Personalities were exchanged more freely by members of the family, and the meat hissed harder as it was newly turned. “Laws-a-massy!” muttered Mrs. Rodney; and then, shoving back the sun-bonnet, she lifted her voice in a shrill, feminine shriek:
“Eudory! Eu-dory! You-do-ry!”
A Hebe-like creature, blond and pink-cheeked, in a blue-checked apron besmeared with grease and flour, came sulkily into her mother’s presence. Seeing Mary Carmichael, she grasped the skirt of the greasy apron with the sleight of hand of a prestidigitateur and pleated it into a single handful. Her manner, too, was no slower of transformation. The family sulks were instantly replaced by a company bridle, aided and abetted by a company simper. “I didn’t know the stage was in yet, maw. I been talking to Iry.”
“This here be Miz Yellett’s gov’ment. Maybe she’d like to pearten up some before she eats.” She started the rocking-chair at a gallop, to signify to her daughter that she washed her hands of further responsibility. Being proficient in the sign language of Mrs. Rodney’s second self, as indeed was every member of the family, Eudora led Mary to a bench placed in one of the rooms enjoying the distinction of a side wall, and indicated a family toilet service, which displayed every indication of having lately seen active service. A roll-towel, more frankly significant of the multitude of the Rodneys than had been the babel of voices, a discouraged fragment of comb, a tin basin, a slippery atom of soap, these Eudora proffered with an unction worthy of better things. “I declare Mist’ Chugg have scarce left any soap, an’ I don’t believe thar’s ’nother bit in the house.” Eudora’s accent was but faintly reminiscent of her mother’s strong Smoky Mountain dialect, as a crude feature is sometimes softened in the second generation. It was not unpleasing on her full, rosy mouth. The girl had the seductiveness of her half-sister, Judith, without a hint of Judith’s spiritual quality.
Mary told her not to mind about the soap, and went to fetch her hand-bag, which, consistent with the democratic spirit of its surroundings, was resting against a clump of sage-brush, whither it had been lifted by Chugg. Miss Carmichael’s individual toilet service, which was neither handsome nor elaborate, impressed Eudora far more potently in ranking Mary as a personage than did her dignity of office as “gov’ment.”
“I reckon you-uns must have seen Sist’ Judy up to Miz Dax’s. I hope she war lookin’ right well.” There was in the inquiry an unmistakable note of pride. The connection was plainly one to be flaunted. Judith, with her gentle bearing and her simple, convent accomplishments, was plainly the grande dame of the family. Eudora had now divested herself of the greasy, flour-smeared apron, flinging it under the wash-bench with a single all-sufficient movement, while Mary’s look was directed towards her dressing-bag. In glancing up to make some remark about Judith, Mary was confronted by a radiant apparition whose lilac calico skirts looked fresh from the iron.