In a Mysterious Way

"Well, I'd like to know how I can help it, with my farm and my chickens and my grocery business, not to speak of the boarders and the children and the post-office. When one's a mother and a farmer and a sexton and an employee under bond to the United States Government one has to keep on the jump."

Mrs. Dunstall rearranged the set of her lips slightly. "The mail's very late, ain't it?" she asked.

"Late! I should think it was late. I guess that open switch has settled Forty-four for to-day. But that train's always late. It isn't in the block yet, and the mail-train follows it."

"If it don't come soon, I can't wait," said Mrs. Dunstall; "this is one of my awful days, and speaking of awful days, what do you think of the doings over at the old Whittaker house, Mrs. Ray?"

"I've heard she's wrecking it completely."

"Josiah Bates' been doing some carting there. He says it's enough to make old Grandma Whittaker shiver in her grave. He says they've turned the house just about inside out. That girl must be crazy."

"She is crazy," said Mrs. Ray with decision; "she's in love."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Dunstall, "with him, you mean?"

"Of course. But she's crazy two ways, I think, to go bringing that pretty girl here, and she so thin and white herself. You can't tell me that that man doesn't know a pretty girl when he sees her, even if he ain't seen her yet – which he hasn't, for he didn't see 'em this morning. I know that, for I was watching."

"That's the train now, isn't it?" said Mrs. Dunstall, listening.

Mrs. Ray pricked up her ears. "Yes, that's the train, rushing along and sprinkling soot over everything. Picking hops used to be such nice clean work, but now they're all over soot."

"The canal was better, I think," said Mrs. Dunstall.

Mrs. Ray made no answer; she was absorbed in looking out of the window.

"It was cleaner, anyhow," Mrs. Dunstall continued; "but they do say the men swore most awful locking boats through in the night. I never lived on the canal, myself, but you did, Pinkie; did they swear much or not?"

"They swore," said Pinkie.

"Well," said Mrs. Ray, now facing about and making certain active preparations for the reception of the mail, "it must be nice to spend your days ways that lets you lay awake nights listening to anything swear. I've never had time nor money to lay awake nights. I leave that for those who can, but I can't. Walking to the Lower Falls and laying awake nights is pleasant, I've no doubt, but I need my days other ways. Summer folks is always coming in here and saying, 'Oh, have you seen the gorge this morning, Mrs. Ray,' and me like enough out ploughing in the opposite direction since sun up. I haven't got any time to lay awake or to look at views. If the weeds grew up all around my fence-posts while I was hanging over the bridge looking at the gorge, I guess you'd hear of it, and since I've taken to raising chickens, there's hen-houses to spray and me busier than ever. If I was a hen, my day's work would be over when I'd laid my egg and I could run out with a free mind and look at the gorge, but as it stands now, I ain't got time to look at nothing," – in testimony whereof she disappeared into the kitchen.

"I'll tell you who's got time," said Mrs. Dunstall as soon as she reappeared; "it's those Lathbuns down at Nellie's. How long are they going to stay around here, do you suppose?"

"I don't know; I don't know anything about them. They don't get any mail, so I've no way of knowing a thing. My own opinion is that if I was Nellie I'd keep a sharp eye on my shawls, for folks who come walking along without baggage, can go walking off without baggage, too. Those are her shawls they're wearing, you know; they haven't got so much as a jacket between them of their own."

"Nellie says they're very nice people," said Mrs. Dunstall; "and the girl has got a love affair. She don't mind their wearing her shawls."

"Why don't he write her, then," said Mrs. Ray; "that's the time even the poorest letter-writer writes letters. Mr. Ray wrote me the first Thursday after he was in love. I've got the letter yet."

"What did he write you for, when you was keeping house for him, anyway?" asked Mrs. Dunstall.

"He was gone to Ledge Centre for the license."

"I never see why you married him," said Mrs. Dunstall; "he paid you for keeping house for him before that, didn't he?"

"Yes, but he had his mind set on marrying some one, and I thought I'd better marry him than any one else. And I was fond of the children, and I didn't know nothing about the mortgages. I always say we was real fashionable. I didn't know nothing about the mortgages, and he thought I had some money in the bank. Well, it was an even thing when it all came out. I guess marriage generally is. Everything else, too."

"I don't see why the mail don't come, if it's in," said Mrs. Dunstall.

Mrs. Ray went to the window and looked out.

"It'll come soon now," she declared, hopefully.

"But I can't wait any longer," said Mrs. Dunstall, rising, "I wasn't expecting anything, anyway. Come, Pinkie."

They both rose and started to go out together.

But just at the door they met one of the surveyors.

"Oh, that reminds me why I come," said Mrs. Dunstall, stopping; "young man, do you know Sallie Busby?"

The young surveyor looked startled.

"Chestnuts in a blue and white sunbonnet, mainly?" said Mrs. Dunstall.

"I don't recollect."

"Well, you might not have noticed, or she might not have had it on, but either way she's been most amused watching your young men pegging those little flags all through her meadow, but she says that when you got through last night you forgot seven, and she saw 'em when she went out to pick the two trees up the cow-path this morning, and run down and got 'em, and has 'em all laid by for you whenever you want to send for 'em."

The young man stood speechless.

Finally he said: "But they were meant to be left there."

"Were – were they?" said Mrs. Dunstall, in great surprise; "well, you ought to have told her so then. She saw you pull some up, so she thought you meant to pull them all up. Too bad! Now you'll have to get your machine and go peeking all over her land again, won't you?"

"We will if she's pulled up the flags, certainly."

"Well, she's pulled up the flags. If Sallie set out to pull them up, they'd up, you can count on that! How's the dam coming on, anyway?"

The young man laughed. "Why, there's no question of the dam yet. You all seem to think that we're here to build it. We have to make a report to the commission first, and the commission will lay the report before the legislature. That's how it is."

Mrs. Ray folded her arms and joined in suddenly, "So – that's how it is, is it? Well, I don't wonder it's difficult to run a post-office, when anything as plain as a dam has to be fussed over like that. By the way, you're one of the surveyors and you ought to know, – is it true that if they do build the dam, it may get a little too full and run over into our valley or burst altogether and drown Rochester? I'm interested to know."

"That's what we want to know, too," said Ingram's assistant; "that's what we're surveying for."

"How long will it take you to tell? I've got a friend – maybe you know him, Sammy Adams? – and he owns most of the valley back here. He's the worrying kind, and he's worried. Yes, indeed."

"It wouldn't make so much difference about Rochester," said Mrs. Dunstall; "it's a deal easier to go for our shopping to Buffalo from here; but wouldn't it be awful for Sammy Adams! Why, his house is right in the valley."

"Yes," said Mrs. Ray, "and as a general thing Sammy's right in his house. It's bad enough now, with the freshets scooping sand all over the farm every other spring, but if the dam goes and scoops Sammy Adams, the legislature'll have something else to settle besides the Capitol at Albany. Sammy Adams looks meek, but he'd never take being drowned quietly; he's got too much spirit for that. Yes, indeed!"

"We're going to do away with the freshets, Mrs. Ray," the young man said; "the dam – if it comes – will be the biggest blessing that ever came this way, let me tell you. In the summer you'll have a beautiful lake to sail on, and no end of excursions."

"Why, I thought they were going to store up the water in spring, and draw it off in the summer," said Mrs. Dunstall. "A man told my husband that that was what they wanted the dam for, – to save the high water in the spring so as to use it in the summer. Wasn't that what Ebenezer said, Pinkie?"

"Yes, it was," said Pinkie.

"How do you explain that?" asked Mrs. Ray, turning an inquisitorial eye sternly on the surveyor. "Where's your beautiful lake going to be by July? Marsh and mosquitoes, that's what we'll have left. Don't tell me; I've seen too many kind thoughts about making folks happy end that way, and I've seen one or two reservoirs, too. The dam'll drown Sammy Adams, that's what it'll do, and Ledge'll be left high and dry with a lot of dead fish lying all over the fields. I know!"