Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/253

 Dr. Baxter. Rheumatism, if rheumatism it was, was an entirely new guest in the sound old frame, and Harriet did not quite believe in it.

Just as she was about to leave her mother she said, abruptly: "Have you done anything to strain yourself, Mother? It don't seem quite natural for you to give out all at once so. Come, tell me."

The old lady looked up at her from among her feather pillows and said, rather petulantly: "You always was a sight smarter 'n Betsy. I sometimes think you're a leetle too smart."

Harriet sat down again, not ill pleased to be thus taxed with an excess of smartness.

"Tell me about it, Mother."

"That's jest as I choose," said the old lady, with some defiance in her tone. "Will you promise not to tell anybody?"

"Of course I will if you say so. Did you fall on the ice?"

"Not exactly."

Then, with a curious manner, half-reluctant, half-amused, she said: "I went out into the kitchen yesterday afternoon when Eliza was up attic changin' her gown, and there was that curtain over the sink all askew ag'in. I'vespoke to that girl about it forty times if I have once, and I was too mad to speak the forty-fust time. So I thought I'd fix it myself and it might be a lesson to her."

"But, Mother, you couldn't reach it! You're not tall enough."