"Come
in," said Robert in a nervous shout.
"Land sakes! did I scare ye? Seem so, way ye yelled," said a
high-keyed nasal voice, and a tall woman came in, followed by an
equally stalwart man.
"How d'e do, Mrs. Folsom? My wife, Mr. Folsom."
Folsom's voice was lost in the bustle of getting settled, but Mrs.
Folsom's voice rose above the clamor. "I was tellin' him it was
about time we got neighborly. I never let anybody come to town a
week without callin' on 'em. It does a body a heap o' good to see a
face outside the family once in a while, specially in a new place.
How do you like up here on the hill?"
"Very much. The view is so fine."
"Yes, I s'pose it is. Still, it ain't my notion. I don't like to climb
hills well enough. Still, I've heard of people buildin' just for the
view. It's all in taste, as the old woman said that kissed the cow."
There was an element of shrewdness and sell-analysis in Mrs.
Folsom which saved her from being grotesque. She knew she was
queer to Mrs. Bloom, but she did not resent it. She was still young
in form and face, but her teeth were gone, and, like so many of her
neighbors, she was too poor to replace them from the dentist's.
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