Nevertheless Ellen made no further remark for some time. Finally she burst out fretfully:
“I’m almighty afraid I’ll have to hire in somebody, after all.” 212
The last two words were peculiarly illuminating.
“You mean somebody to help?”
“Yes,” grumbled the older woman with peevish shrillness. “We’ve got a pull ahead of us; I know that well enough. An’ I s’pose you ain’t got enough muscle to lift me. Likely you couldn’t even raise me up on the pillows if you was to try. How you ever got me upstairs beats all.”
Lucy hastily turned her head aside.
“They do say, though,” continued Ellen, “that sometimes when folks are scat to death they can do things they can’t do any other time. You were scat, I s’pose.”
“Yes, I was.”
“Mebbe you was scat worse when you found I warn’t dead,” chuckled the sick woman disagreeably.
The girl did not reply. Ellen paused; then seemed to regret her ill humor.