“She acts dretful sort o’ pleasant,” says the other woman, “seems willin’ to accomidate her neighbors; stands ready to help ’em in times of trouble; and seems to treat everybody in a lady-like, quiet way; but I persume it is all put on.”
“Put on! I know it is put on,” says Miss Horn, “She has got a proud, haughty soul, or she would be willin’ to do as the rest of us do.” And then she stopped whisperin’ for half a minute and looked round the house again, and hunched the other woman, and whispered—“For a minister’s wife that ort to be a pattern, such housekeepin’ is shameful.”
And the Bible agent spoke up jest then, and says he, “Of course, as a minister’s wife and a helper in Israel, you are willin’ to give your time to us, and bear our burdens.”
And Serepta sithed and said she was—and she meant it too. I declare, it was all I could do to keep my peace. But I am naterally very close-mouthed, so I kep’ still. Serepta couldn’t hear what the wimmen said, for she was a tryin’ with that anxious face of hern to hear every word the Bible agent had to say, and to try to do jest what was right by the colporters. And the mournful lookin’ woman hunched Miss Horn, and says she,—
“Jest see how she listens to them men. She seems to talk to ’em jest as free as if they was wimmen. It may be all right, but it don’t look well. And how earnest they are a talkin’ to her; they seem to sort o’ look up to her, as if she was jest about right. Men don’t have no such a sort of a respectful, reverential look onto their faces when they are a talkin’ to you or me; they don’t look up to us in no such sort of a way. There may be nothin’ wrong in it, but it don’t look well. It would almost seem as if they was after her.”
“After her! I know they are after her, or else they wouldn’t be a talkin’ to her so respectful, and she is after them that is plain to be seen, or else she wouldn’t be a listenin’ to ’em just as quiet and composed as if they was wimmen. A right kind of a woman has a sort of a mistrustin’ look to ’em, when they are a talkin’ to men; they have a sort of a watchful turn to their eye, as if they was a lookin’ out for ’em, lookin’ out for sunthin’ wrong. I always have that look onto me, and you can see that she haint a mite of it. See her set there and talk. If ever a woman was after a man she is after them three men.”
I couldn’t have sot and heerd another word of their envious, spiteful, low-lived gossip, without bustin’ right out on the spot, and speakin’ my mind before ’em all, so I baconed the childern out into Serepta’s room, and washed and dressed ’em, and then I took holt and put on her dish-water and bilt a fire under it, for it had gone out while she was a tusslin’ with them agents. When I went back into the sittin’-room again, I see the colporters had gone, and the wimmen had tackled her. They wanted her to join a new society they had jest got up, “The Cumberin’ Marthas.”
Serepta’s face looked awful troubled, her mind a soarin’ off I knew out into the kitchen, amongst her dishes that wasn’t washed, and her infant babes, and I could see she was a listenin’ to see if she could hear anything of her husband, and whether he needed headin’ off. But she wanted to do jest right, and told ’em so.
“She would join it, if the church thought it was her duty to, though as she belonged to fourteen different societies now, she didn’t know really when she could git time—”
“Time!” says Miss Horn. “I guess there is time enough in the world to do duties. ‘Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.’” And as she repeated this line of poetry, she groaned some, and rolled up the whites of her eyes.