Aunt Selina came down just then and I left everybody trying to explain Bella’s presence to her, and fled to the kitchen. The Harbison man appeared while I was sitting hopelessly in front of the gas range, and showed me about it.
“I don’t know that I ever saw one,” he said cheerfully, “but I know the theory. Likewise, by the same token, this tea kettle, set on the flame, will boil. That is not theory, however, that is early knowledge. ‘Polly, put the kettle on; we’ll all take tea.’ Look at that, Mrs. Wilson. I didn’t fight bacilli with boiled water at Chickamauga for nothing.”
And then he let out the policeman and brought him into the kitchen. He was a large man, and his face was a curious mixture of amazement, alarm and dignity. No doubt we did look queer, still in parts of our evening clothes and I in the white silk and lace petticoat that belonged under my gown, with a yellow and black pajama coat of Jimmy’s as a sort of breakfast jacket.
“This is Officer Flannigan,” Mr. Harbison said. “I explained our unfortunate position earlier in the morning, and he is prepared to accept our hospitality. Flannigan, every person in this house has got to work, as I also explained to you. You are appointed dishwasher and scullery maid.”
The policeman looked dazed. Then, slowly, like dawn over a sleeping lake, a light of comprehension grew in his face.
“Sure,” he said, laying his helmet on the table. “I’ll be glad to be doing anything I can to help. Me and Mrs. Wilson—we used to be friends. It’s many the time I’ve opened the carriage door for her, and she with her head in the air, and for all that, the pleasant smile. When any one around her was having a party and wanted a special officer, it was Mrs. Wilson that always said, Get Flannigan, Officer Timothy Flannigan. He’s your man.’”
My heart had been going lower and lower. So he knew Bella, and he knew I was not Bella, although he had not grasped the fact that I was usurping her place. The odious Harbison man sat on the table and swung his feet.
“I wonder if you know,” he said, looking around him, “how good it is to see a white woman so perfectly at home in a civilized kitchen again, after two years of food cooked by a filthy Indian squaw over a portable sheet-iron stove!”
SO PERFECTLY AT HOME? I stood in the middle of the room and stared around at the copper things hanging up and the rows of blue and white crockery, and the dozens and hundreds of complicated-looking utensils, whose names I had never even heard, and I was dazed. I tried with some show of authority to instruct Flannigan about gathering up the soiled things, and, after listening in puzzled silence for a minute, he stripped off his blue coat with a tolerant smile.
“Lave em to me, miss,” he said. The “miss” passed unnoticed. “I mayn’t give em a Turkish bath, which is what you are describin’, but I’ll get the grease off all right. I always clean up while the missus is in bed with a young un.”