PAGE 6
Joint Owners In Spain
by
“Humph!” It was a royal and explosive note. It represented scorn for which Mrs. Blair could find no adequate utterance. She selected the straightest chair in the room, ostentatiously turned its back to her enemy, and seated herself. Then, taking out her knitting, she strove to keep silence; but that was too heavy a task, and at last she broke forth, with renewed bitterness,–
“To think of all the wood I’ve burnt up in my kitchen stove an’ air-tight, an’ never thought nothin’ of it! To think of all the wood there is now, growin’ an’ rottin’ from Dan to Beersheba, an’ I can’t lay my fingers on it!”
“I dunno what you want o’ wood. I’m sure this room’s warm enough.”
“You don’t? Well, I’ll tell ye. I want some two-inch boards, to nail up a partition in the middle o’ this room, same as Josh Marden done to spite his wife. I don’t want more’n my own, but I want it mine.”
Miss Dyer groaned, and drew an uncertain hand across her forehead.
“You wouldn’t have no gre’t of an outlay for boards,” she said, drearily. “‘Twouldn’t have to be knee-high to keep me out. I’m no hand to go where I ain’t wanted; an’ if I ever was, I guess I’m cured on’t now.”
Mrs. Blair dropped her knitting in her lap. For an instant, she sat there motionless, in a growing rigidity; but light was dawning in her eyes. Suddenly she came to her feet, and tossed her knitting on the bed.
“Where’s that piece o’ chalk you had when you marked out your tumbler-quilt?” The words rang like a martial order.
Miss Dyer drew it forth from the ancient-looking bag, known as a cavo, which was ever at her side.
“Here ’tis,” she said, in her forlornest quaver. “I hope you won’t do nothin’ out o’ the way with it. I should hate to git into trouble here. I ain’t that kind.”
Mrs. Blair was too excited to hear or heed her. She was briefly, flashingly, taking in the possibilities of the room, her bright black eyes darting here and there with fiery insistence. Suddenly she went to the closet, and, diving to the bottom of a baggy pocket in her “t’other dress,” drew forth a ball of twine. She chalked it, still in delighted haste, and forced one end upon her bewildered room-mate.
“You go out there to the middle square o’ the front winder,” she commanded, “an’ hold your end o’ the string down on the floor. I’ll snap it.”
Miss Dyer cast one despairing glance about her, and obeyed.
“Crazy!” she muttered. “Oh my land! she’s crazy’s a loon. I wisht Mis’ Mitchell’d pitch her tent here a spell!”
But Mrs. Blair was following out her purpose in a manner exceedingly methodical. Drawing out one bed, so that it stood directly opposite her kneeling helper, she passed the cord about the leg of the bedstead and made it fast; then, returning to the middle of the room, she snapped the line triumphantly. A faint chalk-mark was left upon the floor.
“There!” she cried. “Leggo! Now, you gi’ me the chalk, an’ I’ll go over it an’ make it whiter.”
She knelt and chalked with the utmost absorption, crawling along on her knees, quite heedless of the despised alpaca; and Miss Dyer, hovering in a corner, timorously watched her. Mrs. Blair staggered to her feet, entangled by her skirt, and pitching like a ship at sea.
“There!” she announced. “Now here’s two rooms. The chalk-mark’s the partition. You can have the mornin’ sun, for I’d jest as soon live by a taller candle if I can have somethin’ that’s my own. I’ll chalk a lane into the closet, an’ we’ll both keep a right o’ way there. Now I’m to home, an’ so be you. Don’t you dast to speak a word to me unless you come an’ knock here on my headboard,–that’s the front door,–an’ I won’t to you. Well, if I ain’t glad to be alone! I’ve hung my harp on a willer long enough!”