FullReads

“A likely story,” said the red woman.

“We weren’t born yesterday,” said the man.

Madam Black-and-White didn’t say anything, but when the other two had made their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of mirth, shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her hands.

If they had been nice to us, Kate would probably have gone on feeling confused and ashamed. But when they were so disagreeable she quickly regained her self-possession. She sat up again and said in her haughtiest voice, “I do not know when you were born, or where, but it must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If you will have the decency to leave our room–this room–until we can get up and dress we will not transgress upon your hospitality” (Kate put a most satirical emphasis on that word) “any longer. And we shall pay you amply for the food we have eaten and the night’s lodging we have taken.”

The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her hands, but not a sound did she make. Whether he was cowed by Kate’s tone, or appeased by the prospect of payment, I know not, but Mr. Chapman spoke more civilly. “Well, that’s fair. If you pay up it’s all right.”

“They shall do no such thing as pay you,” said Madam Black-and-White in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. “If you haven’t any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you’ve got a mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman lives. Remember that I’ve come down in the world, but I haven’t forgot all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia married you and you’ve made her as bad as yourself. But I’m boss here yet. Here, you, Robert Chapman, take yourself out of here and let those girls get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook a breakfast for them.”

I never, in all my life, saw anything like the abject meekness with which those two big people obeyed that mite. They went, and stood not upon the order of their going. As the door closed behind them, Mrs. Matilda Pitman laughed silently, and rocked from side to side in her merriment.

“Ain’t it funny?” she said. “I mostly lets them run the length of their tether but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it with a jerk. Now, you can take your time about dressing, my dears, and I’ll go down and keep them in order, the mean scalawags.”

When we descended the stairs we found a smoking-hot breakfast on the table. Mr. Chapman was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Chapman was cutting bread with a sulky air. Mrs. Matilda Pitman was sitting in an armchair, knitting. She still wore her bonnet and her triumphant expression. “Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast,” she said.

“We are not hungry,” said Kate, almost pleadingly. “I don’t think we can eat anything. And it’s time we were on the trail. Please excuse us and let us go on.”

Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting needle playfully at Kate. “Sit down and take your breakfast,” she commanded. “Mrs. Matilda Pitman commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman–even Robert and Amelia. You must obey her too.”

We did obey her. We sat down and, such was the influence of her mesmeric eyes, we ate a tolerable breakfast. The obedient Amelia never spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either, but she knitted furiously and chuckled. When we had finished Mrs. Matilda Pitman rolled up her knitting. “Now, you can go if you want to,” she said, “but you don’t have to go. You can stay here as long as you like, and I’ll make them cook your meals for you.”

I never saw Kate so thoroughly cowed.

“Thank you,” she said faintly. “You are very kind, but we must go.”