She did not notice the unfavorable glances of
her maid-of-all-work. Wednesday morning she spent happily puttering over
"doing up" some handkerchiefs, and she wondered why Nancy kept banging
the oven door so often. Thursday she made a special kind of pie that
Reuben liked, and remarked pointedly to Nancy that she herself never
washed dishes without wearing an extra apron; furthermore, she always
placed the pans the other way in the sink. Friday she rearranged the
tins on the pantry shelves, that Nancy had so unaccountably mussed up.
On Saturday the inevitable explosion came:
"If you please, mum, I'm willin' to do your work, but seems to me it
don't make no difference to you whether I wear one apron or six, or
whether I hang my dish-towels on a string or on the bars, or whether I
wash goblets or kittles first; and I ain't in the habit of havin' folks
spyin' round on me. If you want me to go, I'll go; but if I stay, I want
to be let alone!"
Poor little Mrs. Gray fled to her seat in the parlor, and for the rest
of that winter she did not dare to call her soul her own; but her table
was beautifully set and served, and her house was as neat as wax.
The weeks passed and Reuben began to be restless. One day he came in
from the postoffice fairly bubbling over with excitement.
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