“And likely you won’t again. Now you listen, Abby; all I want, is to do what honest business I can with this young woman. She’s bound to spend her money, and she’s kind of took to me; comes into th’ store after her mail, and hangs around and buys the greatest lot o’ stuff— ‘Land!’ I says to her: ‘a body’d think you was getting ready to get married.’”
“Well, now I shouldn’t wonder—” began Mrs. Daggett eagerly.
“Don’t you get excited, Abby. She says she ain’t; real pointed, too. But about this wall paper; I don’t know as I can match up them stripes and figures. I wisht you’d go an’ see her, Abby. She’ll tell you all about it. An’ her scheme about collecting all the old Bolton furniture is perfectly ridiculous. ’Twouldn’t be worth shucks after kickin’ ’round folk’s houses here in Brookville for the last fifteen years or so.”
“But you can’t never find her at home, Henry,” said Mrs. Daggett. “I been to see her lots of times; but Mis’ Solomon Black says she don’t stay in the house hardly long enough to eat her victuals.”
“Why don’t you take the buggy, Abby, and drive out to the old place?” suggested Mr. Daggett. “Likely you’ll find her there. She appears to take an interest in every nail that’s drove. I can spare the horse this afternoon just as well as not.”
“’Twould be pleasant,” purred Mrs. Daggett. “But, I suppose, by rights, I ought to take Lois along.”
“Nope,” disagreed her husband, shaking his head. “Don’t you take Lois; she wouldn’t talk confiding to Lois, the way she would to you. You’ve got a way with you, Abby. I’ll bet you could coax a bird off a bush as easy as pie, if you was a mind to.”
Mrs. Daggett’s big body shook with soft laughter. She beamed rosily on her husband.
“How you do go on, Henry!” she protested. “But I ain’t going to coax Lydia Orr off no bush she’s set her heart on. She’s got the sweetest face, papa; an’ I know, without anybody telling me, whatever she does or wants to do is all right.”
Mr. Daggett had by now invested his portly person in a clean linen coat, bearing on its front the shining mark of Mrs. Daggett’s careful iron.