Nobody Part 63

"I reckon it must ha' been; but I don't see the use of it," said uncle Tim.

"That wasn't all," Lois went on. "Everybody had his own salt-cellar."

"Table must ha' been full, I should say."

"No, it was not full at all; there was plenty of room for everything, and that allowed every pretty thing to be seen. And those salt-cellars were a study. They were delicious little silver figures--every one different from the others--and each little figure presented the salt in something. Mine was a little girl, with her ap.r.o.n all gathered up, as if to hold nuts or apples, and the salt was in her ap.r.o.n. The one next to her was a market-woman with a flat basket on her head, and the salt was in the basket. Another was a man bowing, with his hat in his hand; the salt was in the hat. I could not see them all, but each one seemed prettier than the other. One was a man standing by a well, with a bucket drawn up, but full of salt, not water. A very pretty one was a milkman with a pail."

Uncle Tim was now reduced to silence, but Charity remarked that she could not understand where the dishes were--the dinner.

"It was somewhere else. It was not on the table at all. The waiters brought the things round. There were six waiters, handsomely dressed in black, and with white silk gloves."

"White silk gloves!" echoed Charity. "Well, I _do_ think the way some people live is just a sin and a shame!"

"How did you know what there was for dinner?" inquired Mrs. Marx now.

"I shouldn't like to make my dinner of boiled beef, if there was partridges comin'. And when there's plum-puddin' I always like to know it beforehand."

"We knew everything beforehand, aunt Anne. There were beautifully painted little pieces of white silk on everybody's plate, with all the dishes named; only many, most of them, were French names, and I was none the wiser for them."

"Can't they call good victuals by English names?" asked uncle Tim.

"What's the sense o' that? How was anybody to know what he was eatin'?"

"O they all knew," said Lois. "Except me."

"I'll bet you were the only sensible one o' the lot," said the old gentleman.

"Then at every plate there was a beautiful cut gla.s.s bottle, something like a decanter, with ice water, and over the mouth of it a tumbler to match. Besides that, there were at each plate five or six other goblets or gla.s.ses, of different colours."

"What colours?" demanded Charity.

"Yellow, and dark red, and green, and white."

"What were _they_ all for?" asked uncle Tim.

"Wine; different sorts of wine."

"Different sorts o' wine! How many sorts did they have, at one dinner?"

"I cannot tell you. I do not know. A great many."

"Did you drink any, Lois?"

"No, aunt Anne."

"I suppose they thought you were a real country girl, because you didn't?"

"n.o.body thought anything about it. The servants brought the wine; everybody did just as he pleased about taking it."

"What did you have to eat, Lois, with so much to drink?" asked her elder sister.

"More than I can tell, Charity. There must have been a dozen large dishes, at each end of the table, besides the soup and the fish; and no end of smaller dishes."

"For a dozen people!" cried Charity.

"I suppose it's because I don't know anythin'," said Mr.

Hotchkiss,--"but I always _du_ hate to see a whole lot o' things before me more'n I can eat!"

"It's downright wicked waste, that's what I call it," said Mrs. Marx; "but I s'pose that's because I don't know anythin'."

"And you like that sort o' way better 'n this 'n?" inquired uncle Tim of Lois.

"I said no more than that it was prettier, uncle Tim."

"But _du_ ye?"

Lois's eye met involuntarily Mrs. Barclay's for an instant, and she smiled.

"Uncle Tim, I think there is something to be said on both sides."

"There ain't no sense on that side."

"There is some prettiness; and I like prettiness."

"Prettiness won't b.u.t.ter n.o.body's bread. Mother, you've let Lois go once too often among those city folks. She's nigh about sp'iled for a Shampuashuh man now."

"Perhaps a Shampuashuh man will not get her," said Mrs. Barclay mischievously.

"Who else is to get her?" cried Mrs. Marx. "We're all o' one sort here; and there's hardly a man but what's respectable, and very few that ain't more or less well-to-do; but we all work and mean to work, and we mostly all know our own mind. I do despise a man who don't do nothin', and who asks other folks what he's to think!"

"That sort of person is not held in very high esteem in any society, I believe," said Mrs. Barclay courteously; though she was much amused, and was willing for her own reasons that the talk should go a little further. Therefore she spoke.

"Well, idleness breeds 'em," said the other lady.

"But who respects them?"

"The world'll respect anybody, even a man that goes with his hands in his pockets, if he only can fetch 'em out full o' money. There was such a feller hangin' round Appledore last summer. My! didn't he try my patience!"

"Appledore?" said Lois, p.r.i.c.king up her ears.

"Yes; there was a lot of 'em."

"People who did not know their own minds?" Mrs. Barclay asked, purposely and curiously.

"Well, no, I won't say that of all of 'em. There was some of 'em knew their own minds a'most _too_ well; but he warn't one. He come to me once to help him out; and I filled his pipe for him, and sent him to smoke it."

"Aunt Anne!" said Lois, drawing up her pretty figure with a most unwonted a.s.sumption of astonished dignity. Both the dignity and the astonishment drew all eyes upon her. She was looking at Mrs. Marx with eyes full of startled displeasure. Mrs. Marx was entrenched behind a whole army of coffee and tea pots and pitchers, and answered coolly.

"Yes, I did. What is it to you? Did he come to _you_ for help too?"