Down she went, deliberate, to the kitchen. Old Mrs. Deemis bent rhythmically over a padded board ironing towels.
“Hot, eh? Mrs. Luve.”
“Yes.”
“Anything I kin do for you, dearie?” the woman filled the pause. Her gray hair fell in wet patches over her wide bland forehead. “Never you hesitate if there’s anything I kin do for ye, now.”
Fanny, quailing before her sudden resolve to give notice, sat in a chair.
“You couldn’t remove that Church for me, could you, Mrs. Deemis?”
Mrs. Deemis stamped the steaming iron with elbows right-angled to the board.
“Now, will you believes me, Mrs. Luve, I wisht I could!”
Fanny tried to laugh.—Haven’t I been joking?
“You mean Saint—acrost the way there, don’t you? They own this house, and they’re the meanest landlords ... the downright stingiest, meanest landlords, now, you ever seen. I been here twenty years. On the first of the month, it’s the rent quick, you bet. But if it’s the roof that leaks, or the plumbin’ that stinks—O any year’ll do for fixin’ that.”