Part 4 (1/2)
”Why, there's Gran'ma Mullins!” Mrs. Macy exclaimed. ”She's surely coming to see you, too.”
Both ladies remained silent, watching the progress of Gran'ma Mullins.
Gran'ma Mullins arrived a good deal out of breath. Susan brought a chair out of the house for her.
”I come to--tell you,” panted the new visitor as soon as she had attained unto the chair, ”that Jathrop's--things is--coming.”
”What things?” asked Susan.
”They all come on--the ten o'clock--from the junction; Hiram is helping unload.”
”What's he brought?” Susan asked.
”Well, he's brought an automobile,” said Gran'ma Mullins, ”and a lot of other trunks and boxes.”
”An automobile!” exclaimed Mrs. Macy, ”well, he _is_ rich then!”
”I wouldn't be too sure of that,” said Susan, ”some very poor folks is riding that way nowadays.”
”And he brought three trunks and seventeen big wooden boxes,” continued Gran'ma Mullins, ”big boxes.”
”Three trunks and sev-en-teen--Three trunks and sev-en--” Susan's voice faded into nothingness.
”Goodness knows what's in them,” said Gran'ma Mullins. ”Hiram was getting so hot unloading that I wanted him to stop and let me fan him, but he wouldn't hear to it. Hiram's so brave. If he said he'd unload something, he'd unload it if he dropped dead under it and was smashed to nothing.”
There was a pause of unlimited bewilderment while Mrs. Macy and Susan raised Jathrop upon the pedestal erected by his three trunks, seventeen boxes and the automobile.
”And to think of his having a Chinese wife,” Susan exclaimed, the keen edge of sorrow cutting crossways through all her words.
It was just here that Mrs. Lupey now appeared, approaching at a good pace. Mrs. Lupey was a large, imposing woman and wore a silk dolman with fringe. It was immediately necessary for the party to adjourn to the sitting-room, as the piazza was strictly limited.
It was Mrs. Lupey who without loss of time did away with the Lathrop parentage of the young Chinese.
”Why, he's his servant, of course,” she said in a lofty scorn. ”I'm surprised you didn't know that by his age.”
”I did think of his age,” Susan said, ”but I read once in some paper as the women in China get married when they're four years old, so you'd never be able to tell nothing by the age of no one there. Well, well, and so she isn't his wife, nor yet his son. Well, I'm glad--for Mrs.
Lathrop's sake.”
”But if Jathrop's really got a automobile and seventeen trunks, he _must_ be awful rich,” said Mrs. Macy. ”It'll be a great thing for this town if Jathrop's rich. He'd ought to be very grateful to the place where his happy childhood memories run around barefoot.”
”Oh, he'll remember,” said Gran'ma Mullins, ”it's easy to remember when you've got the money to do it. But I hope to heaven he won't set Hiram off on that track again. Hiram does so want to go away and make a fortune; I'm worried for fear he will all the time. And Lucy wants him to, too. I can't understand a woman as wants a fortune worse than she wants Hiram. Lucy doesn't seem to want Hiram 'round at all any more. If he's asleep, she starts right in making the bed the same as if he wasn't in it, and if she's sewing, he don't dare go within the length of her thread.
”Life has come to a pretty pa.s.s when a wife'll run a needle into a husband just for the simple pleasure of feeling him go away when she sticks him.” Gran'ma Mullins sighed.
”I wonder what they're doing now!” Mrs. Macy said.
All four turned at this and looked toward the Lathrop house together. It was quiet as usual.
”I d'n know as it changes my opinion of Jathrop much, that being his servant,” said Miss Clegg suddenly. ”It's kind of different, his handing his wife or his son over to me; but his heathen Chinee servant! I don't know as I'm very pleased.”
”Pleased!” said Mrs. Lupey. ”Why, in San Francisco they make 'em live underground like rats.”
”Maybe that was why you dreamed he was a cat, Susan?” suggested Mrs.