Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/191

Rh want to walk you can walk about in the grounds. There's lots of shady paths.'

"'Can't go out!' says I. 'Can't go out! What do you mean by that?'

"'I mean jus' what I say,' said she, an' she locked the gate.

"I was so mad that I could have pushed her over an' broke the gate, but I thought that if there was anything of that kind to do I had a husband whose business it was to attend to it, an' so I runs aroun' to him to tell him. He had gone in, but I met Mrs. Jackson an' her brother.

"'What's the matter?' says she, seein' what a hurry I was in.

"'That woman at the gate, I sayd, almost chokin' as I spoke, ' won't let me out.' "'She won't? ' said Mrs. Jackson. 'Well that's a way she has. Four times the Bank of the United States has closed its doors before I was able to get there, on account of that woman's obstinacy about the gate. Indeed, I have not been to the Bank at all yet; for of course it is of no use to go after banking hours."

"'An' I believe, too,' said her brother in his heavy voice, 'that she has kept out my team of little oxen. Otherwise it would be here now.'

"I couldn't stand any more of this, an' ran into our room where my husband was. When I told him what had happened he was real sorry.

"'I didn't know you thought of going out,' he said, 'or I would have told you all about it. An' now sit down an' quiet yourself, an' I'll tell you jus' how things is.' So down we sits, an' says he, jus' as carm as a summer cloud; 'My dear, this is a lunertic asylum. Now, don't jump,' he says; 'I didn't