Every year, twice a year, as this box, that trunk or chest was opened
and its contents revealed, Mis' Merz would say "You keepin' this, Miz'
Brewster?"
"That? Oh, dear yes!" Or: "Well--I don't know. You can take that home
with you if you want it. It might make over for Minnie."
Yet why, in the name of all that's ridiculous, did she treasure the
funeral wheat wreath in the walnut frame? Nothing is more _passe_ than
a last summer's hat, yet the leghorn and pink-cambric-rose thing in the
tin trunk was the one Mrs. Brewster had worn when a bride. Then the
plaid kilted dress with the black velvet monkey jacket that Pinky had
worn when she spoke her first piece at the age of seven--well, these
were things that even the rapacious eye of Miz' Merz (by-the-day) passed
by unbrightened by covetousness.
The smell of soap and water, and cedar, and moth balls, and dust, and
the ghost of a perfumery that Pinky used to use pervaded the hot attic.
Mrs. Brewster, head and shoulders in a trunk, was trying not to listen
and not to seem not to listen to Miz' Merz' recital of her husband's
relations' latest flagrancy.
"'Families is nix,' I says. 'I got my own family to look out fuh,' I
says. Like that. 'Well,' s's he, 'w'en it comes to _that_,' s's he, 'I
guess I got some--'" Punctuated by thumps, spatterings, swashings and
much heavy breathing, so that the sound of light footsteps along the
second-floor hallway, a young clear voice calling, then the same
footsteps, fleeter now, on the attic stairway, were quite unheard.
Pages:
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371