Part 40

"Must be nice and stiff," Matilda commented. "I'd hate to have my hair all wire."

Grandmother lifted her spectacles from the wart and peered through them critically. "I dunno," she said, "as it'd look any different, except for the colour. The way you're settin' now, against the light, I can see bristles stickin' out all over it, same as if 'twas wire."

"Fluffy hair is all the style now," said Matilda, complacently.

"Fluffy!" Grandmother grunted. "If that's what you call it, I reckon it'll soon go out. It might have been out for fifteen or twenty years and you not know it. I don't believe any self-respectin' woman would let her hair go like that. Why 'n the name of common sense can't you take a hair brush and wet it in cold water and slick it up, so's folks can see that it's combed? Mine's always slick, and nobody can't say that it isn't."

"Yes," Matilda agreed with a scornful glance, "it is slick, what there is of it."

Grandmother's head burned pink through her scanty white locks and her eyes flashed dangerously. Somewhat frightened, Matilda hastened to change the subject.

"She wears her hair like mine."

"She?" repeated Grandmother, pricking up her ears, "Who's she?"

"You know--the company up to Marshs'."

"Who was tellin' you? The milkman, or his wife?"

"None of 'em," answered Matilda, mysteriously. Then, lowering her voice to a whisper, she added: "I seen her myself!"

"When?" Grandmother demanded. "You been up there, payin' back your own call?"

"She went by here yesterday," said Matilda, hurriedly.

"What was I doin'?" the old lady inquired, resentfully.

"One time you was asleep and one time you was readin'."

"What? Do you mean to tell me she went by here twice and you ain't never told me till now?"

"When you've been readin'," Matilda rejoined, with secret delight, "you've always told me and Rosemary too that you wan't to be disturbed unless the house took afire. Ain't she, Rosemary?"

"What?" asked the girl, placing a saucer of stewed prunes at each place and drawing up the three chairs.

"Ain't she always said she didn't want to be disturbed when she was readin'?" She indicated Grandmother by an inclination of her frowsy head.

"I don't believe any of us like to be interrupted when we're reading," Rosemary replied, tactfully. She disliked to "take sides," and always avoided it whenever possible.

"There," exclaimed Matilda, triumphantly.

"And the other time?" pursued Grandmother. Her eyes glittered and her cheeks burned with dull, smouldering fires.

"You was asleep."

"I could have been woke up, couldn't I?"

"You could have been," Matilda replied, after a moment's thought, "but when you've been woke up I ain't never liked to be the one what did it."

"If it's anything important," Grandmother observed, as she began to eat, "I'm willin' to be interrupted when I'm readin', or to be woke up when I'm asleep, and if that woman ever goes by the house again, I want to be told of it, and I want you both to understand it, right here and now."

"What woman?" queried Rosemary. She had been busy in the kitchen and had not grasped the subject of the conversation, though the rumbling of it had reached her from afar.

"Marshs' company," said both voices at once.