“Mrs. Snyder has been took again, I saw Sam and he says she’s real miserable.”
“You don’t say!” said Temperance, fairly interested now. “She has a sight of sickness.”
“Well, she was took down three days ago,” said Nathan, repeating himself. Having no details to give, he uttered this remark with emphasis, as of one giving forth a brand new idea.
“It’s just a year ago this very month since she was took down before,” went on Miss Tribbey, uttering her reflection aloud as she was wont to do when she had only the cat for auditor. “I remember particularly well because I was making currant jell at the time, and Mame Settle was here and she was helping dish it out, and she burned her hand, and she said she was goin’ to set up with Mrs. Snyder that night, and she said she wouldn’t get drowsy with that hand keepin’ her company. Yes, ’twas this very month.”
Temperance having successfully proved her proposition in regard to the date of Mrs. Snyder’s former illness, returned with renewed vim to her dishes.
“It’s curious how disease comes back,” said Nathan reflectively. “There’s my grandfather, he died two years before the church was opened, and he had quinsy regular every spring, and Aunt Maria had her erysipelas in March every year regular as sugar making, and old Joseph Muir had his strokes always in July. I can mind that well, his funeral came just in hayin’, for it rained terrible when we was comin’ back from the buryin’ and someone said, ‘Lucky is the corpse that the rain rains on,’ and old Ab. Ranger said he guessed luck didn’t cut much figger with a corpse anyhow, and for his part he’d a sight ruther had his hay dry in the barn as wet in the field. It seemed kind of unfeelin’.”
Nathan rose to throw out the dish water for Temperance, a gallantry he always permitted himself when he spent the evening with her. So anxious was he not to miss this pleasure that he usually made a number of false starts, drawing upon himself a kindly rebuke for fidgeting “like a hen with its head off.” Nevertheless Temperance secretly counted upon this bit of attention as much as Nathan did. He was returning with the empty pan when suddenly he stopped.
“Gee!” he said, a strong word giving evidence of excitement. “I clean forgot to tell you the news. Len Simpson’s dead.” Temperance sat down heavily in a chair.