PEEPED IN AT HIM.
Blakemore came out on Sunday morning, snapping his watch and complaining against the pall-bearing march of time. He was full of business. His pockets were stuffed with papers. He made figures on the backs of envelopes as he sat at the table. He asked after Milford. His wife said that the place had somehow lost its charm for Mr. Milford. Mrs. Goodwin and Miss Strand had seen him in the road. Mrs. Stuvic, standing near, pressed her lips close together. She shook her head. She did not understand him, she declared. Lately he had been seen in Antioch. She did not know what business could have taken him there.
"You may not be supposed to know," said George, making his figures.
"Now you keep still," she replied. "I am supposed to know more than you think for. I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm goin' to live longer than any of you, I tell you that."
"It's very natural for us to expect every one else to die," said George. "It's a pretty hard matter to picture one's self as dead. But the old fellow is coming along yonder whetting his scythe as he comes."
"George," said his wife, "don't talk to her that way."
"Oh, let him talk," the old woman spoke up. "I don't care what he says. Goes in at one ear and comes out at the other, with me. I'll live to see him cold, I'll tell you that."
"Oh, please don't talk that way, Mrs. Stuvic; you give me the shudders. By the way, Mr. Dorsey has gone back to town, hasn't he?"
"Yes," Mrs. Stuvic answered. "And he owes me, too."
"That's what you say about everybody," George declared. "You'll be saying it about me, next."