“I don’t see where under the sun and moon he can be,” she was saying, when “I’ll be dumbed!” fell on her ear and she knew the delinquent had arrived.
“I’ll be dumbed” was his favorite expression, which he used on all occasions. It was not a swear, he said, when his wife remonstrated with him for using language unbecoming a church member. It was not spelled with an “a,” and it only meant that he could not find suitable words with which to express himself when he must say something.
When he left for the ammonia he knew a cleaning up was in progress, but he had no idea it would assume so vast proportions, until he found the piazza blockaded with furniture and his wife on a stepladder arrayed in her regimentals, which meant business, and which for length might almost have satisfied a ballet dancer.
“Come down, Dotty; come down. You’ve no idea how you look up there so high in that short gown. Shall I help you? I’ve brought you a telegraph,” he said, and his wife came down quickly, while he explained that he had stopped to talk with Deacon Hewett, and it was lucky he did, for he was on hand to get the telegraph the minute it was ticked off. He met the boy as he was leaving the office.
Mrs. Taylor took the telegram from him and read: “New York, July 15. To Zacheus Taylor, Esq., Prospect House, Ridgefield, Mass.: My niece is coming with me. Please have a room prepared for her and meet us at the 8 train instead of the 4.—Mrs. Freeman Tracy.”
“If this don’t beat all. Another room to clean. I’m about melted now,” and Mrs. Taylor sank into a chair and wiped her face with her apron. “Where’s Zach?” she continued. “I want him to help move them things out of the northwest room, so we can tackle that next. Where is he, I wonder. Find him, Jeff.”
Zach had disappeared. Mrs. Tracy’s telegram, addressed to Zacheus Taylor, Esq., was of nearly as much importance as her daughter’s note had been, and a second pilgrimage was made to the garret and square trunk where Taylor’s Tavern and Johnny’s blanket were hidden away.
“It kinder seems as if I was of some account to have them Tracys so respectful and callin’ me ’Squire twice,” he thought, and he went down stairs with a pleasureable sensation of dignity not common with him.
“Miss Taylor wants you,” the irrepressible Jeff said, rolling round the corner on his head and hands like a hoop, and nearly upsetting Zacheus as he landed on his feet.
“What is it, Dotty; what can I do for you? It’s most too hot to do much,” Zacheus asked his wife, and in his voice there was something which made her glance curiously at him.