The postmistress herself was a snuffy old woman of great antiquity, with a shrivelled face, two dull eyes like those of a dead codfish, a toothless mouth, and a wisp of straggling gray hair generally hidden under a dingy black straw bonnet with rusty velvet trimmings; she wore a doubtfully black gown, which had acquired a greenish tinge from great age, a tartan shawl of faded colours pinned over her bony shoulders, and rusty mittens on her skinny hands. She always wore her bonnet--it was her badge, her symbol, her sign of authority; and although, perhaps, she did not, as scandal averred, sleep in it all night, she certainly wore it all day. She was deaf, too, and spoke to other people in a shrill, loud voice, like a querulous wind, as if she thought, as she did, that they suffered from the same infirmity. She was also doubtful as to her powers of vision, so it can easily be seen that the Suburban Ironfielders had good ground for complaint against her. As to Abraham, he was a dull-looking youth, who thought of nothing but eating, and only delivered the letters because walking gave him an appetite for his meals. He never hurried himself, and at the present moment was deliberating as to whether he would then take the letters in his hand to their recipients, or let them wait until the afternoon.
"Now then, Abraham," piped Mrs. Wevelspoke, viciously, "ain't you gone yet?"
"You see I ain't," growled Abraham, in a fat voice.
"Don't say you won't go," said his mother, shrilly, "'cause you've got to earn bread and butter. Not that it's good, for that baker's failin' off awful, and as to the butter, it ain't got nothin' to do with the cows, I'm certin. But bread and butter's butter an' bread, so git out and git it."
"I'm goin', I'm goin'!" grumbled Abraham, slowly, putting on his hat, "but I ain't well, mar, I ain't. That corfee's a-repeatin' of itself like 'istory, an' the h'eggs weren't fresh! Poach 'em, fry 'em, or biled, they taste of the chicken."
"Pickin'," said Mrs. Wevelspoke, giving her rusty bonnet a hitch, "pickin' up the letters, which you don't do, Abraham. Do 'urry, there's a good boy. Mrs. Wosk is waitin' for that blue un--a bill, maybe--and Mr. Manks is gettin' noos of 'is son from Australy in that thin paper un, an' there's Drip and Pank and Wolf all waitin' to 'ear the 'nocker, so lose no time, my deary."