Indeed, before she had only chuckled and
silently shaken her sides; now she broke out into a scream.
"Well, I never!" she said. "That flounce of your mother's out of the
room was certainly as much like old times as if the thing had happened
yesterday."
"What had happened yesterday?" asked Jerusha and I, both in a breath.
"O, I _shall_ die of laughing," said Aunt Clara.
"We shall die of impatience," said I, "if you don't tell us what you
mean."
"No you won't. Nobody, especially no woman, ever yet died of unsatisfied
curiosity. It rather keeps folks alive."
We very well knew that nothing would be made of Aunt Clara by teasing
her. So Jerusha turned over the great family Bible, her custom always of
a Sunday afternoon. Over her shoulder I happened to see that the good
book was open at the first chapter of I Chronicles, "Adam,
Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jared." Though her lips moved
diligently, I am afraid she did not make much of it. As for me, I turned
to the window, and studied the landscape. Father, his custom of a Sunday
afternoon, walked down into the meadow, and the cattle came
affectionately up to him. It was the salt in his broad pocket that they
were after. "I might salt them of a Monday," he says, "but they kind of
look for it, and it isn't kind to disappoint the creetur's on a
Sabba'-day.
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