The outside condition of things gave Miss Keith much more satisfaction than did the inside arrangement of the house. Her only concern about them was lest the mischievous boy should upset everything and doubtless stone the cows, torment Laura, the sedate barn cat, and turn the laying hens out in the cold; for to her spinster mentality if there was a dubious quantity, it was the growing boy, the last straw under which the many-humped back of female patience must break.
She had considered the house the pink of perfection until she peopled it with New Yorkers accustomed to every luxury, and then the gay flowers of the chintz slip covers that hid the haircloth gloom of the parlour furniture began to pale and fail to hold their own, and the texture of the freshly laundered dimity curtains, those upstairs having wide hems, while those below were edged with tatting of the wheel pattern, seemed to grow coarser as the days went by.
And all the while that she bustled to and fro, now in the cellar to see that the stones had not slipped in the pork barrel and allowed the meat to rise above the brine, then to the attic to be sure that her personal possessions of bedding, linen, and tableware, neatly put up in barrel, bale, and bundle until her marriage and final move, did not take up more room than was necessary,—Tatters followed her, either so close to heel that he literally seemed to dog her footsteps, or else sitting a little way apart with his eyes fastened upon her with a blended look of dread and reproach. Then she would often drop whatever she held and raising his face (yes, Tatters had a face, not a “muzzle”) between her hands, plead with him to tell her what he made of it all and if he believed she could be happy away from Gilead, and if he thought that he could follow any one else to market, allow her to shake out his mat, and choose juicy bones that were not too hard for his middle-aged teeth. All of which showed that she did not rejoice in thought at the _First Cause_ as completely as would, under the circumstances, have been desirable; while Tatters understood that this was not the accustomed affectionate babble or the confidential discourse of everyday doings in which he was frequently consulted, and he would raise his head and give, not his usual howl belonging to moonlight nights, but a strange bay like an echo, deep down in his throat.