DEVOTED TO COATS AND CASE-KNIVES

"'He moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,'" chanted Mrs. Ray, briskly, turning from the stove, with a hot iron in her hand, towards the visitor then entering the door. "Yes, I'm just pressing the seams. The mail was awful late—they had a bad wreck on the road, killed three pigs—and the crowd is just gone. When the mail's late I'm always late, too. Yes, indeed. Those two in love come up for the hotel mail, while that poor, blind thing went over alone to look at what she fondly supposes is going to be her happy home. Take a chair. How's Lottie Ann? And, Mrs. Wiley, what do you think about those case-knives in the bureau drawer?" for the case-knives were now the main topic of conversation all over Ledge and its attendant villages.

Mrs. Wiley had dropped in to see how her new winter jacket, now in process of active manufacture, was getting on. She sank down on a seat with a sigh which the chair echoed in a groan.

"Oh, I don't know what to do," she said, wearily. "Uncle Purchase came yesterday for a week, driving his colts, and last night one of the colts had colic; and Lottie Ann gets thinner every day. Seems like I do have so much trouble. Sister Anna got so tired with the improvements she's making, that she just up and off for Buffalo Wednesday, and that left Eliza to run things; and Eliza up and bit a chestnut and broke two teeth, so she had to go off to Rochester yesterday early. That leaves me with the whole thing now, and I'm running back and forth between houses from dawn to dark. I wanted to make the dress for Cousin Dolly's graduation, too, and the sewing machine always does for my legs; and yesterday here come Uncle Purchase!"

"Joey Beall is all used up over those case-knives," said Mrs. Ray, pressing assiduously; "he won't say what he thinks."

"How's it getting on?" asked Mrs. Wiley, hitching her chair nearer to the ironing-board. "Oh, Mrs. Ray, you'll never know the sacred feelings this coat will give me in church. Father was a true Christian, I always have that to remember. He had his faults, but he was a true Christian. Whatever went through his hands in the week, it was the plate at church that they held on Sunday."

"You don't need to worry over your father, Mrs. Wiley," said Mrs. Ray; "nobody doubted his religion—it was only that he charged such awful interest."

Mrs. Wiley sighed. "I know," she said; "it wasn't so much what he charged as bothered—"

"No," said Mrs. Ray, "it was his way of insisting on being paid."

Mrs. Wiley sighed again.

"Well, thanks to the braid, the land is saved," Mrs. Ray went on cheerfully. "Mrs. Wiley, do tell me, what do you think of all this at the O'Neil House,—and did you bring the buttons?"

"Why, I thought you said you could use the buttons on the suit," Mrs. Wiley answered, with an unhappy start; "you ain't going to tell me that you can't, are you?"

"No, I ain't," said Mrs. Ray, "it's only that it's so common for folks to forget to bring me their buttons that I forgot that you had brought yours. It's awful, isn't it, about those two Lathbuns?"

"I thought you'd lost 'em by accident," said Mrs. Wiley, seating herself again with a huge relief; "I don't know what I'd of done if you had, for my money is all in the chickens, and I never saw anything like the way my chickens have acted lately. I wondered if it could be that the surveyors upset them. They haven't been a bit regular, and so many weasels!"

"Perhaps the surveyors keep the weasels stirred up. I must say it would stir me up to have the sharp end of one of their little flags suddenly driven into the bosom of my family. Not but what a flag is better than a case-knife. You've heard about the case-knives, of course?"

"Yes, I heard about the case-knives. Mrs. Ray, don't you want me to try it on? What do you think they had 'em for, anyway?"

"Well, I don't know; you might on account of the sleeves, maybe. I don't know what to think—of course they never got any mail; when any one never gets any mail, it blocks my observation in all directions. I never saw any strangers that stayed so long, that never got any mail before. Why, those other girls are getting letters by the dozens. Such nice mail, too,—thick white paper and thin blue paper, and little prints of flags, such real, pretty mail. There, what do you think of that,—that's your back; like it?"

"Wait till I get out my glasses. But of course they must of bought postals, didn't they? Mrs. Ray, you have done that fine! You're the only one in the world that could ever fit me like that out of a suit of father's. I take such a number of under-the-arm pieces."

"Well, that isn't your fault, Mrs. Wiley; you come of a large family and you ought to be very grateful, because if you hadn't you'd never have had this jacket. If there hadn't been close on to two full breadths in each of his legs, I never could have got it out. There's nothing takes more skill than making a man's clothes over for any one but a boy. Yes, indeed. Very few can think how difficult it is to adapt a man's legs with the knees bagged, to either the front or back of a coat for you. No, they never even bought postals. They never write at all. What would they write with? You can't write with a case-knife."

"No, that's so. I must say I think you've put that braid on beautiful. Do you want me to slip it on now, or shall I wait? Uncle Purchase is up at the house always, you know, and I mustn't be gone too long, but Lottie Ann's there, so it don't matter much, after all."

"I'll be ready in a second. I'd be further along, only Sammy Adams was in last evening, and he hates to see me sew every minute. I sewed a good deal of his visit—I don't know why I should consider Sammy Adams's ideas when he don't consider mine. Taking in any one nights that way! I tell you I had that out with him once for all. There,—that's your pocket; big enough?"

"Well, I wouldn't make it any bigger. What did he tell you about his taking 'em in? Mrs. Ray, I took your advice and tried milk on Lottie Ann, and she can't take any but buttermilk. Will that do her as much good as milk in its first?"

"I don't know why it shouldn't. I tell you frankly, Mrs. Wiley, you'll need every inch of the room in this pocket. You may have your prayer-book and a box of peppermint, and two or three other little things, and you'll find this pocket very handy; the way I've got it cut it'll hold as much as a small valise. I wouldn't cut it off, if it was my coat. I always need all my pockets. But then I always have to carry so many things, a corkscrew and a monkey-wrench and the key to my hens. He said the rain was pouring down, and he didn't see anything to do but take them in. Of course, if you're Sammy's easy kind, and it's raining, too, you can see how that would be. He'd take a snake in, if it asked him with a smile."

"What do you think of cutting off about a half inch? I don't wonder that he took them in, myself. But, Mrs. Ray, she don't like milk, anyhow, and shouldn't you think morning and night was enough?"

"I'll do it if you say so, of course, Mrs. Wiley. But I can't see myself cutting them off, if they were mine. Of course, two glasses is better than none, but two isn't six. I only know if it was me I'd never of let them in, in this world."

"I'll try to get her to take four. Shall I slip it on now? Do tell me what else he said?"

"If she was my girl, I'd see she took what I told her; I don't believe in spoiling children. No, you'll have to wait. Why, Mrs. Wiley, would you believe that that poor innocent didn't know a thing about the case-knives till I told him. You know he don't often come to town."

"Well, I never! I told Uncle Purchase all about it, and he promised me he'd never take any one in. I thought I'd better be on the safe side, even if Uncle Purchase hasn't let any one come into his house for twenty years. Isn't it strange? But then Uncle Purchase is strange. The last time I was in his house was when Abner was a baby. He had a dozen tissue-paper hyacinths planted in real pots with the earth watered, to make them look real. Uncle Purchase's quite a character."

"Sammy said they rapped—that was how he came to first know that they were at the door."

"Uncle Purchase never goes to the door. He's so deaf he couldn't hear a peal of thunder if it stood outside rapping all night, and that last time I was there he had his trunk all packed standing in the hall. He never unpacked it after he went to the Centennial. He said it would be all ready for the next Centennial. They have them so often now, you know. He's so odd. He went to the Insane Asylum once for a little while, you know, but it didn't do him a bit of good, so he came back home. Uncle Purchase is so odd."

"Sammy said they were a sight. He said two drowned rats washed up by a spring flood would be dry and slick beside them. Sammy always did talk just like a poet. Yes, indeed."

"Uncle Purchase says very pretty things, too. He's so loving to Lottie Ann, he said yesterday she winged her way about the house like an angel. I thought that was a sweet way of putting it, but it kind of depressed me, too, she's so awful thin. Shall I slip it on now?"

"Not yet. Don't you think maybe he just meant a fly? The last ones go so slow that they might make him think of an angel."

"No, he meant Lottie Ann. Uncle Purchase always says what he means. He brought Lottie Ann a daguerreotype of his mother. It's so black you can't see a thing, but it showed his kindness. I thought Lottie Ann would bring the chimney down trying to thank him—he's so awful deaf. He thought she was asking who it was, and he just roared about it's being his mother, until I called Lottie Ann for her milk. He's always been so fond of Lottie Ann. If she outlives him, I'm most sure he'll leave her the farm. I wish she'd drink more milk."

"I was speaking about her to Nathan and Lizzie when they were up yesterday. You know Lizzie was delicate, too. Nathan thinks the Lathbuns had those knives to pry open windows."

"Oh, my heavens!"

"He says you can pry open any window-catch with a case-knife. Yes, indeed."

Mrs. Wiley opened her eyes. "Any window?"

"Yes, that's what he said. And poor Clay Wright Benton was in here, too, and I spoke to him about them, too, and he said that you could, too."

"My!" Mrs. Wiley's tone was appalled. "Did Clay seem frightened? I suppose they aren't afraid of anything,—they've got the parrot, you know."

"I don't know how that would help them. It hangs upside down, yelling 'Fire, Fire,' rainy days, until nobody can possibly think it means it."

"Well, but it wouldn't make any difference what it said, would it, if it woke them?"

"But they're so tired being woke, it can't wake 'em any more. Clay says nothing wakes 'em now. Even Gran'ma Benton falls asleep while it's calling her names."

"Dear me," said Mrs. Wiley, seriously. "I wouldn't care about having one for myself. I never let the children call names, and I just couldn't be called names by a parrot."

"Clay says his mother don't like it. She's tried to teach it Bible verses. But names are so much easier. Bible verses are so long. And they don't come in where they make sense. The short ones are worse yet. There's 'Jesus wept'—that's the shortest verse in the Bible, and that never would make sense. The parrot says 'Twenty-three,' and that always makes sense. This world is meant to go wrong, seems to me. Case-knives just swim along without paying board, while an honest woman has to scrub her church once a week on her knees and labor like a heathen Chinese in between times."

"Well, Mrs. Ray, what are we coming to?"

"I told Edward Griggs what Nathan said, but Edward thinks they're government spies sent out to keep track of the surveyors, and they have the knives to dig with."

"To dig with!" Mrs. Wiley was full of amazement.

"You know they do scour the country pretty freely, and that would account for one being broke."

"There's more strength in a broke knife than in one that isn't, of course. Government spies!"

"It would account for a lot of things. Edward Griggs is a pretty smart man; he was at the Chautauqua last year."

"Didn't they used to call them scouts, Mrs. Ray? Seems to me I've heard of them in the war."

"Oh, they call a spy anything—spies don't mind what they're called as long as nobody knows who they really are. If they are government spies, I'm glad to know it, because they'll be having an eagle eye out in every government direction. I think I'll wash the post-office to-morrow, just on the chance. I didn't want to wash it till after I'd filed my bond. I sort of like to get my bond off my mind first, and clean up afterwards."

"I'll ask Abner if he's heard anything from Josiah Bates lately. Joey Beall is going over to Foxtown to-morrow or next day, and he says his cousin there married a Cromwell girl; he's going to ask all about them there. Mrs. Ray, seems like those women must be something out of the ordinary. It would be too barefaced never to pay your board, otherwise."

"Well, whatever they are, we'll soon know now. People are looking them up in all directions. Mrs. Kendall's got an aunt in Cromwell, and she's written her about the case-knives. But she says her aunt never writes letters, so she don't expect to find out much that way; still, you never can tell."

"Well, Joey may find out a good deal. My cousin Eliza always says you'll find out all there is to find out, if you get hold of Joey Beall. Mrs. Ray, can't I slip it on now? I've got to go back to Uncle Purchase, Lottie Ann is so weak she won't be able to make him hear a thing by this time; and if he can't hear, it always worries him because he's so afraid of growing deaf."

Mrs. Ray thoughtfully regarded the jacket. "I'd like to of got the collar on," she said; "but you can put it on now, I guess."

Mrs. Wiley stood up and donned the garment.

"The sleeves are short," said Mrs. Ray; "but that's fashionable this year. There was no other way, anyhow. I had to get 'em out from the knee down, and he was short there—like an elephant."

"How does it look in the back?"

"It's a little short in the back, but nothing to speak of. You see I had to swing the backs to get the coat skirts free of his side-seams; it sets very well, considering that."

"Yes, I like it," said Mrs. Wiley; "and I have my fur to sort of piece it up at the neck, anyway. You know, Mrs. Ray, if those two women are spies, I should think they'd wear nightgowns. I shouldn't think they'd want to attract so much attention, and of course not wearing nightgowns attracts lots of attention."

Mrs. Ray—having her mouth full of pins—made no reply.

"Lucia Cosby thinks they're tramps and nothing better," Mrs. Wiley continued; "nobody can understand Jack's keeping them so long."

Mrs. Ray continued silent.

"Ellen Scott says she's afraid of them; she thinks it's so queer they're not having any coats. But Ellen was always timid. She never got over that time the boys dressed up like Indians and kidnapped her on April Fool's Day when she was little."

Mrs. Ray stuck in the last pin and freed her mouth. "Well, all I can say is, we'll soon know now," she said; "all the wheels in the gods of the mills is turning now, and in the end the Lathbuns will be ground out exceeding small I hope and trust and am pretty sure of."

Mrs. Wiley looked down over herself with an air of intense satisfaction. "I don't see how you ever got it out," she repeated with deeply appreciative emphasis.

"You know those are Nellie O'Neil's shawls they wear," Mrs. Ray went on, beginning to unpin the new winter coat from its owner. "Nellie's an awful idiot to let them have those shawls; they'll walk off some day, and leave her without shawls or pay,—that's the kind they are. Yes, indeed."

"Nellie's too good-hearted."

"She and Jack are both too good-hearted."

Mrs. Wiley went to the door and took hold of the knob. "Well, I must go now. Lottie Ann will be all tired out if I stay any longer. And we never leave Uncle Purchase alone. He always takes the clock to pieces or does something we can't get together again, if he's left alone. He asked after Susan Cosby last night, and I told him she was dead four times and then I got Lottie Ann and the boys in, and they took turns telling him she was dead till nine o'clock, and then Joey brought our mail and we got him to tell him she was dead, and then all Uncle Purchase said was: 'Is she, indeed? When did she die?' Oh, my heavens!"

"Well, if you must be going," said Mrs. Ray, "we may as well part now. The Giffords are coming here for dinner, and I've got to begin to cook it."

Mrs. Wiley thereupon departed.