She said then, if we’d excuse her she’d keep right on with her work, because she had got dretful behindhand in ruffles. She said it kep’ her every minute of her spare time to work a makin’ ruffles in order to keep herself decent, and make the childern keep up with other folks’es childern. So she nipped to and worked away dretfully, and every time the door opened she would look up with such a wild anxious gaze, horrified seeminly, for fear a fly would git in; and every time Josiah or her husband (that man at the barn did prove to be her husband) would move, she would run after ’em, and wipe ’em up with a mop. It was a curious time as I ever see in my life. She didn’t seem to sense anything only ruffles and such like. Her mind all seemed to be narrowed down and puckered up, jest like trimmin’, nothin’ free and soarin’ about it at all—though she would talk some about fly time, and how hard it was to keep ’em out of the house, and once she asked me which I preferred for mops, rags or tow.
I tried to make talk with her; and says I, in a real friendly way:
“You have got three good lookin’ childern Mahala.”
“Yes,” says she, “three and three is six, and three is nine, and three is twelve, and three is fifteen; fifteen ruffles at the least calculation, to make ’em look decent, and like other folks’es childern; and the biggest one ought to have six.”
Says I, “Your husband looks as if he might be a good man, and a good provider.”
“Yes,” says she, “he means well, but he is a awful hand to let in flies. Two years ago this summer he let in four at one time into my best room, I counted them as I drove ’em out. I got so wore out, a chasin’ ’em, and a tryin’ to keep decent, that I made up my mind that we would live out here.”
“You don’t keep a girl, it seems?”
“No,” said she, “I cannot get one to suit me. When I do my work myself I know how it is done.”
Then I atted her on other subjects; says I, “Do you see the Atlantic, and Scribner’s, and Peterson’s and Harper’s, this summer? they are awful interestin’.”
Says she, “I haint seen the ocean sense I was married; and the other families you speak of don’t live any where near us.”