But it was not Billy’s voice that he heard screaming when the films of sleep really cleared away. The little cripple was nestling close up to him with the same panic-stricken air as when they rode that flying sled together. This time it was impossible to mistake their mother’s voice for the wind--it rose clearly in hysterical vituperation.
“An’ you orter be ’shamed o’ yourself, I do declare, goin’ home all alone in a sleigh with a young man--in the dead o’ night, too!”
“There were more nor ourn on the road; and since Abner Preep was perlite enough--”
“Yes, an’ you didn’t think o’ _me_ on the road oncet, I bet! If young Preep wanted to do the perlite, he’d’ a’ took me in his father’s sleigh, not a wholesome young gal.”
“But I was tar’d out with dancin’ e’en a’most, and you on’y--”
“Don’t you talk about _my_ dancin’, you blabbin’ young slummix! Jest keep your eye on your Preeps with their bow-legs an’ their pigeon-toes.”
“His legs is es straight es yourn, anyhow.”
“P’raps you’ll say thet I’ve got Injun blood next. Look at his round shoulders and his lanky hair--he’s a Micmac, thet’s what he is. He on’y wants a few baskets and butter-tubs to make him look nateral. Ugh! I kin smell spruce every time I think on him.”
“It’s you that hev hed too much spruce-beer, _hey_?”
“You sassy minx! Folks hev no right to bring eyesores into the world. I’d rather stab you than see you livin’ with Abner Preep. It’s a squaw he wants, thet’s a fact, not a wife!”
“I’d rather stab myself than go on livin’ with _you_.”
For a moment or two Matt listened in silent torture. The frequency of these episodes had made him resigned, but not callous. Now Harriet’s sobs were added to the horror of the altercation, and Matt fancied he heard a sound of scuffling. He jumped out of bed in an agony of alarm. He pulled on his trousers, caught up his coat, and slipped it on as he flew barefoot down the rough wooden stairs, with his woollen braces dangling behind him.
In the narrow icy passage at the foot of the stairs, in the bleak light from the row of little crusted panes on either side of the door, he found his mother and sister, their rubber-cased shoes half-buried in snow that had drifted in under the door. Mrs. Strang was fully dressed in her “frolickin’” costume, which at that period included a crinoline; she wore an astrakhan sacque, reaching to the knees, and a small poke-bonnet, plentifully beribboned, blooming with artificial flowers within and without, and tied under the chin by broad, black, watered bands. Round her neck was a fringed afghan, or home-knit muffler. She was a tall, dark, voluptuously-built woman, with blazing black eyes and handsome features of a somewhat Gallic cast, for she came of old Huguenot stock. She stood now drawing on her mittens in terrible silence, her bosom heaving, her nostrils quivering. Harriet was nearer the door, flushed and panting and sobbing, a well-developed auburn blonde of sixteen, her hair dishevelled, her bodice unhooked, a strange contrast to the other’s primness.