Page:Weird Tales v41n04 (1949-05).djvu/67

Rh In the big downstairs living-room where Mrs. Renner’s enormous lofty loom occupied space, the landlady had cleared a table and upon it stood a small loom about fifteen inches wide. Lucy examined this with interest for she recognized it at once as a model carried in the store where she worked. She said nothing of this but eyed Mrs. Renner surreptitiously when that lady explained that it was an old machine given her years ago by a former student who had no need for it. There was a white warp threaded in twill, for a plain weave, Mrs. Renner explained.

"What kind of weaving can you do on twill?” Lucy queried, thinking of the antimacassar she had sent to Stan’s mother, the piece with the queer little hand inlaid figures woven into it.

"All manner of things,” Mrs. Renner said. "On a twill, you can do almost anything, Miss. Mostly hand work.” She manipulated the levers in illustration as she talked. "You’d better stick to plain weaving at first. Hand work isn’t so easy and takes a heap more time.”

"That antimacassar you let me have is hand work, isn’t it?” Lucy probed.

Mrs. Renner flung her an oddly veiled look.

"Tomorrow you can weave a white cotton towel with colored borders," she said abruptly. "No use starting tonight. Hard to work with kerosene lamps.”

Lucy opined that she could hardly wait. It seemed incredible that she was actually to manufacture the fabric of a towel with her own hands and within the brief limits of a day. She went up to her room fairly early and, as she had done from the first, locked her door, a habit acquired from living in city boarding houses. From deep sleep she stirred once into half waking at the sound of a cautious turning of the doorknob and retreating foot-steps and the moaning plaint of the little sick girl’s "Mom, I'm hungry!” which seemed so close that for a moment she could have believed the child to be standing closely without her locked door. She thought she heard the child say, "Mom, I can’t get in! I can’t get in!”

Mrs. Renner was obviously feeling far from well the following morning. Her eyes were ringed by dark circles and she wore a loosely knotted kerchief about her neck, although the sweltering heat would have seemed sufficient to have made her discard rather than wear any superfluous article of clothing. When Lucy was seated at the loom, she showed her how to change the sheds and throw the shuttle for a plain weave, then left her working there while she went upstairs to tidy her guest’s room. When she came down a few moments later, she walked up to Lucy, her face dark and grim, her lips a hard uncompromising line.

"Did you put those flowers up in your room?” she demanded.

Lucy stopped weaving and turned her face to Mrs. Renner in feigned surprise but her intuition told her that there was more to the inquiry than was apparent on the surface.

"I love flowers so much,” she murmured, deprecatorily.

"Not in a room at night,” snapped Mrs. Renner. "They're unhealthy at night. That’s why I took out the others. I don’t want flowers in my bedrooms at night.”

The tone was that of an order and Lucy’s natural resentment, as well as her heightened curiosity, made her rebel.

"I’m not afraid of having flowers in my room at night, Mrs. Renner,” she persisted stubbornly.

"Well, I won’t have it,” said her landlady with determined voice and air.

Lucy raised her eyebrows.

"I see no good reason to make an issue of a few flowers, Mrs. Renner.”

"I’ve thrown those flowers out, Miss. You needn’t bring any more, for I'll just throw them out, too. If you want to stay in my house, you’ll have to get along without flowers in your room.”

"If you feel so strongly about it, of course I won’t bring flowers inside. But I must say frankly that it sounds silly to me, their being unhealthful.”

Mrs. Renner stalked away. She appeared satisfied at the assertion of her authority as hostess and the balance of Sunday was spent initiating Lucy into the intricacies of decorative twill weaves, to such good effect that by the time evening came Lucy had completed a small towel in white cotton with striped twill borders in color.