Page:Birthright.djvu/335

, who made ten-day round trips from Dubuque to Florence, Alabama, and return. When Mrs. Higgman was not running errands for the women passengers, she was working at her perpetual laundering.

At first Peter was a little uneasy as to how Mrs. Higgman would treat Cissie, but she turned out a good-hearted woman, and did everything she could to make the young wife comfortable. It soon became clear that Mrs. Higgman knew the whole situation, for one day she said to Cissie in her odd dialect, burred with Yankeeish “r's” and “ing's.”

“These river-r towns, Mrs. Siner-r, are jest like one big village, with the river-r for its Main Street. I know ever-r'thang that goes on, through the cabin-boys an' cooks, an'—an'—you cerrtainly ar-re a dear-r, Mrs. Siner-r,” and thereupon, quite unexpectedly, she kissed Cissie.

So on about the second day down the river Cissie dropped her saddened manner and became frankly, freely, and riotously happy. After the fashion of village negresses, she insisted on helping Mrs. Higgman with her work, and, incidentally, she cultivated Mrs. Higgman's Northern accent. When the chambermaid was out on her errands and Cissie found a moment alone with Peter, she would tweak his ear or pull his cheek and provoke him to kiss her. Indeed, it was all the hot, shuddering little laundry-room could do to contain the gay and bubbling Cissie.