Page:Sheila and Others (1920).djvu/100

Rh the village for the late mail, he opened his mind to me on the scandalous price of chicken-feed. Abel had been in the habit of opening his mind to me on these occasional moon-light excursions for 12 years or more. Its contents have changed considerably during this time. Though the price of chicken-feed and seed potatoes preoccupied it more recently, in remoter times the absorbing topic was young ladies.

By young ladies, Abel meant the damsels who served in our neighbor's kitchens, and I saw that in the alembic of his imagination they took on a radiance unperceived by me. They became units instead of accessories; individuals, instead of a negligible class quantity, and were clothed upon with traits and graces I had never even suspected.

I saw, moreover, that there were more things in Heaven and earth and cottage neighborhoods than I in my isolated ignorance dreamed of. Some of these things were unconsciously revealed to me through the naïveté of Abel's transparent mind. I became aware that he was being played with, cat's paw fashion, by his nearest neighbors, a certain Mrs. Dack, second wife to "Hickory" the fisherman whose