The Project Gutenberg eBook, Other People's Business, by Harriet L. Smith

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Title: Other People's Business The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale

Author: Harriet L. Smith

Release Date: October 23, 2007 [eBook #23157]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OTHER PEOPLE'S BUSINESS***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

OTHER PEOPLE'S BUSINESS

The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale

by

HARRIET LUMMIS SMITH

Indianapolis
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers

Copyright 1916
The Bobbs-Merrill Company

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I INTRODUCING PERSIS II THE LOVER III A FITTING IV THE WOMAN'S CLUB V DIANTHA GROWS UP VI THE NEW ARRIVAL VII A CONFIDENTIAL CHAT VIII EVE AND THE APPLE IX A DAY TO HERSELF X SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT XI TWIXT THE CUP AND THE LIP XII A CONFESSION TOO MANY XIII THE MAIL BAG XIV AN ACQUISITION XV A WOMAN AT LAST XVI WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD XVII ENID XVIII A STALLED ENGINE XIX A DEFERRED INTERMENT XX CHECKMATE XXI DE PROFUNDIS XXII EAVESDROPPING XXIII WEDDING BELLS XXIV FAIR PLAY

OTHER PEOPLE'S BUSINESS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCING PERSIS

The knocking at the side door and the thumping overhead blended in a travesty on the anvil chorus, the staccato tapping of somebody's knuckles rising flute-like above the hammering of Joel's cane. TO some temperaments the double summons would have proved confusing, but Persis Dale dropped her sewing and moved briskly to the door, addressing the ceiling as she went. "'Twon't hurt you to wait."

The stout woman on the steps entered heavily and fell into a chair that creaked an inarticulate protest. Persis' quick ear caught the signal of distress.

"Mis' West, you'd be more comf'table in the armchair. I fight shy of it because it's too comf'table. If I set back into the hollow, it's because my work's done for the day. And here's a palm-leaf. You look as hot as mustard-plaster."

Having thus tactfully interfered for the preservation of her property, Persis cast a swiftly appraising glance at the chair her caller had vacated. "Front rung sprung just as I expected," was her unspoken comment. "It's a wonder that Etta West don't use more discretion about furniture."

Mrs. West dabbed her moist forehead with her handkerchief, flopped the palm-leaf indeterminately and cast an alarmed glance heavenward. "Gracious, Persis, first thing you know, he'll be coming through."

"'Twon't hurt him to wait," Persis said again, as if long testing had proved the reliability of the formula. "He called me up-stairs fifteen minutes ago," she added, "to have me get down the 'cyclopedia and find out when Confucius was born."

"I want to know," murmured Mrs. West, visibly impressed. "He's certainly got an active mind."

"He has," Persis agreed dryly. "And it's the sort of mind that makes lots of activity for other folks' hands and feet. Does that noise worry you, Mis' West? For if it does, I'll run up and quiet him before we get down to business."

Mrs. West approved the suggestion. "I brought my black serge," she explained, "to have you see if it'll pay for a regular making-over—new lining and all—or whether I'd better freshen it up and get all the wear I can out of it, just as 'tis. But I declare! With all that noise over my head, I wouldn't know a Dutch neck from a placket-hole. I don't see how you stand it, Persis, day in and day out."

"There's lots in getting used to things," Persis explained, and left the room with the buoyant step of a girl. She looked every one of her six and thirty years, but her movements still retained the ardent lightness of youth. Beaten people drag through life. Only the unconquered move as Persis moved, as though shod with wings.

The anvil chorus ceased abruptly when Persis opened the door of her brother's room. She entered with caution for the darkness seemed impenetrable, after the sunny brightness of the spring afternoon. Joel Dale's latest contribution to hygienic science was the discovery that sunshine was poison to his constitution. Not only were the shutters closed, and the shades drawn, but a patch-work bed-quilt had been tacked over the window that no obtrusive ray of light should work havoc with his health. Joel's voice was hoarsely tragic as he called to his sister to shut the door.

"I'm going to as soon as I can find my way to the knob. It's so pitch-dark in here that I'm as blind as an owl till I get used to it."

"Maybe 'twould help your eye-sight if you was the one getting poisoned," Joel returned sarcastically in the querulous tones of the confirmed invalid. "I've 'suffered the pangs of three several deaths,' as Shakespeare says, because you left the door part way open the last time you went to the 'cyclopedia." For twenty years Joel had been an omnivorous reader, and his speech bristled with quotations gathered from his favorite volumes, and generally tagged with the author's name. The quotations were not always apt, but they helped to confirm the village of Clematis in the conviction that Joel Dale was an intellectual man.

By the time Persis had groped her way to the bed, she was sufficiently accustomed to the dim light to be able to distinguish her brother's restless eyes gleaming feverishly in the pallid blur of his face. "What do you want now, Joel?" she asked, with the mechanical gentleness of overtaxed patience.

"Persis, there's a text o' Scripture that's weighing on my mind. I can't exactly place it, and I've got to know the context before I can figure out its meaning. 'Be not righteous over-much, neither make thyself over-wise. Why shouldst thou destroy thyself?' That's the way it runs, as near as I can remember. Now if righteousness is a good thing and wisdom too, why on earth—"

"Goodness, Joel! I don't believe that's anywhere in the Bible. Sounds more like one of those old heathens you're so fond of reading. And anyway," continued Persis firmly, frustrating her brother's evident intention to argue the point. "I can't look it up now. Mis' West's down-stairs."

"Come to discuss the weighty question o' clothes, I s'pose. 'Bonnets and ornaments of the legs, wimples and mantles and stomachers,' as the prophet says. And that's of more importance than to satisfy the cravings of a troubled mind. If the world was given up to the tender mercies o' women, there'd be no more inventions except some new kind of crimping pin, and nothing would be written but fashion notes."

"I'll have to go now, Joel." Persis Dale, having supported her brother from the time she was a girl of seventeen, had enjoyed ample opportunity to become familiar with his opinion of her sex. As the manly qualities had declined in Joel, his masculine arrogance had waxed strong. The sex