The turkey was
browning nicely, the vegetables were cooking upon the stove, the odor of
silver-skinned onions pervading the entire house. Eunice was grinding
the coffee, and the clock said it wanted but half an hour of car-time,
when Mrs. Markham finally left the kitchen and proceeded to make
her toilet.
Eunice's had been made some time ago, and the large-sized hoop she wore
had already upset a pail and dragged a griddle from the stove hearth,
greatly to the discomfiture of Mrs. Markham, who did not fancy hoops,
though she wore a small one this afternoon under her clean and
stiffly-starched dress of purple calico. St. Paul would have made her an
exception in his restrictions with regard to women's apparel, for
neither gold nor silver ornaments, nor braided hair, found any tolerance
in her. She followed St. Paul strictly, except at such times as the good
people in the Methodist church at the east end of the village held a
protracted meeting, when she deviated so far from his injunction as to
speak her mind and tell her experience.
She was a good and conscientious woman, practicing what she preached,
and believing more in the inner than the outer adorning; but she looked
very neat this afternoon in her purple calico, with a motherly white
apron tied around her waist, and her soft, silvery hair combed smoothly
back from her forehead and twisted in a knot behind, about the size of a
half dollar.
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