CHAPTER XXXIX.
“HOW DO YOU DO, AUNT CATHERINE?”
One drizzling November morning, Mattie was standing at the hall door, looking out a little blankly through the open gateway at the prospect before her,—at the rotting leaves that lay heaped up in the road, and at the gray, humid sky,—when a very big man suddenly blocked up the entrance, and startled her dreadfully.
Mattie afterwards described the occurrence very graphically to her brother:
“He was the biggest man I ever saw in my life, Archie. He looked as strong as a navvy; and his shoulders reminded me of one of those men one sees in brewers’ drays. And his face 284 was so red, and his hair, too,—that dreadfully red color, you know, that no one admires; and his hands, and even his voice, were big.”
“What a fascinating description!” laughed Archie. “Upon my word, Mattie, you are rather tremendous in your language. Well, and what did the navvy say to you?”
“Oh, he was not a navvy, really! Of course he was a gentleman. He could not help his big voice, and what he said was nice; but, I assure you, Archie, he nearly took my breath away;” and so on, and so on, to the end of her story.
But it was enough to surprise any one whose nerves were not of the strongest, when one lives in a lonely country road, and the master of the house is out, to see a gigantic specimen of manhood, not very carefully dressed, and with hair like a red glory, come suddenly striding through one’s open gate, without “by your leave,” or waiting for any possible permission.
Mattie dropped her umbrella,—for she was dressed in her waterproof, and her oldest hat, ready for her district-work; and the stranger picked it up, and handed it to her promptly, and then he removed his hat politely.