Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/276

264 usual place. "I 'm like our ol' cat Tom," she had explained once, "that was never happy off his own bit o' rag carpet. Leave me be." And Hetty had the parlor to herself.

She was ill-tempered that evening, and ate her dinner in silence, resenting the fact that Bailey had the head of the table, where he carved—and her mother the foot of it, where she poured the tea—while she herself sat at the side and had no hand in anything. She vented her resentment after dinner by objecting again to Bailey's smoking in the parlor; and he moved his smoking-table to the dining-room, where Mrs. Joliffe and he played cribbage. Hetty disliked cards. She disliked sitting in the dining-room beside a table set with dishes. She stayed in the parlor—where she could hear her mother quarreling humorously over the pegging and Bailey laughing with the heartiness of a winner. Finally she went to bed in a sulk.

Bailey, after a midnight supper, came to his sleep chuckling. She said nothing to him.

But next morning, at breakfast, she demanded that they hire a servant so that her mother might not have to spend all her days in the kitchen. "Good heavens!" Mrs. Joliffe cried. "What w'u'd yuh be doin' with a servan' gurl litterin' up the house, an' pokin' her nose into everybody's business, an' talkin' about us to the neighbors, an' stealin' ev'rythin' she c'u'd lay hands to, an' pois'nin' us with bad food! A servan' gurl!"

Bailey was less voluble, but equally determined. A servant was an expensive luxury, which he had no