Читать книгу Plowing On Sunday - Sterling North - Страница 10

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Miss Temperance Crandall bustled along the road with the air of a woman who has a mission in life. She noticed with shocked delight that there were several pairs of young women's bloomers on the Barton wash lines, no corset covers, and scarcely any petticoats. Bloomers, of all things! That was really too much. Temperance Crandall still wore drawers, and she always said the underwear her mother wore was good enough for her.

The diapers hanging in snowy squares behind the tumble-down Oleson household reminded her that the Oleson baby was born less than seven months after the young couple were married.... September, October, November, December, January, February, March, she counted again. And you couldn't tell her it was a seven-month baby. She had traipsed all the way out from town the second day after it was born to bring Mrs. Oleson a baby sweater she had knitted, and she had had a good look at the cute little brat. Perfectly good fingernails and a huge mass of blond hair.

Peter Brailsford and Dutchy Bloom were coming down the road a mile a minute on their motorcycles, and just before they reached the spot where she was standing Dutchy stood up on the seat, let go the handlebars, and started yelling like a wild Indian. Why, he might have killed her! He might have run right over her.

"You better watch out, young man," she shouted after him, shaking her parasol. "You can't go up the narrow road to heaven on a motorcycle. You're just tearing down the wide, primrose path to hell."

The motorcycles were making so much noise that Dutchy did not catch the full import of her remarks, but he turned, nevertheless, and thumbed his nose in answer.

She went in at the Brailsford gate, took the letters out of the mail-box as she went by, stopped behind the lilac bush at the turn of the flagstone walk to peer through the envelopes, then composing bonnet, shawl, flounced skirt, and lace parasol climbed briskly up the wooden steps and opened the front door.

"Sarah!" she called. "Oh-h, Sarah! It's just me, Temperance Crandall. I just came to tell you...."

"Why, do come in, Miss Crandall," said Sarah, wiping her hands on her apron. "Won't you sit down?"

"I really haven't a minute," said the determined and bright-eyed person. "I've got to tell everybody along the road about the church supper next Wednesday night. I knew you'd bake the pies, Sarah. You do bake the loveliest pies if you would only use a little more shortening in the crust and be careful not to put too much cinnamon on your apples."

"Yes," said Sarah, "I suppose I can bake the pies."

"Oh, not all of them. Just ten or fifteen. I'll have the Barton girls bake the rest. They ought to do something for the good of their souls. Why, when I went past there a minute ago I saw they had bloomers on the line."

"I think bloomers are real sensible," said Sarah Brailsford.

"Oh, you do!" said Temperance. "Well, I don't. And what's more when I was listening in this morning to see if old man Whalen had got over his D.T.'s I heard Kate Barton and that good-for-nothing Joe Whalen going on something scandalous, throwing kisses over the wire and whispering about Saturday night. You can't tell me that silk bloomers do a girl's morals any good."

"Why shouldn't a girl have pretty underclothes?" asked Sarah. "They won't have many years to dress pretty and have a good time."

"I'm going to tell Reverend Tooton to preach a sermon on girls' bloomers," said Temperance. "What those girls need is a good dressing down and not so much dressing up. I must hurry back to town and see him this very afternoon.... But what I came to tell you about, Sarah...."

"Yes?"

"Well, now I sorta hate to do it. But it's for your own good."

"I'm sure we understand each other," said Sarah Brailsford, coolly, sitting proudly in her straight-backed chair.

"Well, I'm no one for beating about the bush," said Miss Crandall. "And far be it from me to stir up any trouble in a Christian household. But if you ask me, I'd watch that Early Ann."

"Would you mind if I closed the door into the kitchen?" Sarah asked quietly.

"No, shut the door so the hussy can't hear us," said Miss Crandall, "not that you can ever keep a secret from a hired girl so long as there are keyholes."

"What was it you were going to say?"

"Well, now, Sarah. I just want to do you a good turn same as I would expect you to do for me."

"Will you please come to the point, Miss Crandall?"

"Since you insist, Sarah, and may the Lord forgive me for telling you. But I think you ought to know that Early Ann Sherman is Stanley Brailsford's daughter, and the way they cut up together makes it all the nastier."

Sarah Brailsford swayed faintly, caught herself, and rose unsteadily to her feet. Her face was white and pinched, but her voice was clear and proud.

"I'll bake the pies, Miss Crandall." She opened the door with a hauteur which quieted even the garrulous Temperance Crandall. And it was not until she was beyond the lilacs that Temperance started worrying. "Now I've done it again. But someone had to tell her."