Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/106

 They would take up other matters only for the sake of coining back to it with sudden explosions of contemptuous mirth.

Happily, the one of us most liable to this ignominy remained unbelieving to the bitter end; even did he pretend to a yawning sort of interest in a book carelessly picked up. The Sullivans had been foiled at every turn, and now we were relieved from the covert but not less pointed insult of their presence.

Mrs. Delia, her morning's work done, came out dressed for church, bidding me a briskly sad little "Good marnin', Major!" I responded pleasantly, for in a way I liked Mrs. Sullivan, who came each day from her bare little house under the hill to make a home for Solon and our children. At least she was kind to them and kept them plump. That she remained dismal under circumstances that seemed to me not to warrant it was a detail of minor consequence. Terry Sullivan had been no good husband to her. Beating her and the lesser Sullivans had been his serious aim when in liquor and his diversion when out. But he fell from a gracious scaffolding with a bucket of azure paint one day and fractured his stout neck, a thing which in the general opinion of Little Arcady Heaven had meant to be consummated under more formal auspices.

But when they took Terry home and laid him on her bed, she had wailed absurdly for the lost lover in him. Through the night her cry had been, "Ah, Terry, Terry,—ye gev me manny a haird blow, darlin', but ye kep' th' hairdest til th' last!"