“To be sure I did. I ask you to direct me to her residence.”
“Certainly, sir. Well, you see the widow lives in that small house yonder, on the bank of the creek—that is, she has a room there; an honest little woman, but poor—very poor!”
“Drive on!” cried the gentleman, sternly, without deigning further notice of the loquacious landlord.
The driver cracked his whip, and the spirited horses obeying the impulse, dashed through the crowd at the imminent risk of trampling some of the throng under their feet.
“There, I told you,” cried the landlord, “there was something uncommon about them Oakly’s, poor as they are; and now you see what a grand coach comes after them. Run down there, Jimmy, my boy, and find out what it means.”
And not only Jimmy, but a dozen others set off on full trot in the rear of the carriage.
In the meantime the object of so much curiosity had reached the house pointed out as the residence of the widow; and carefully mincing his steps across the muddy pathway, Mr. Oakly rapped loudly at the door with his gold-headed cane, for knocker there was none. After several repetitions of the same, each more vehement than the last, the door was finally opened by a middle-aged woman, whose red face, and scowling brows told she was in no very pleasant frame of mind. Around her head was tied an old black handkerchief through which, in several places, her grizzly hair shot up like “quills upon the fretted porcupine.” She was slip-shod, and stockingless—her dress drabbled and torn.
“Well,” she exclaimed, not at all daunted at sight either of the carriage or its owner, “what’s all this rumpus—what do you want, that you knock a body’s house down about their ears?”
“Is there a Mrs. Oakly lives here?” inquired the gentleman, involuntarily retreating a step or two.
“Well, if there is—what do you want?” said the woman, surlily.