Mrs. Abby Daggett gazed at the scene in rapt admiration through the
clouds of dust which uprose from under Dolly's scuffling feet.
"Ain't that place han'some, now she's fixed it up?" she demanded of
Mrs. Deacon Whittle, who sat bolt upright at her side, her best
summer hat, sparsely decorated with purple flowers, protected from
the suffocating clouds of dust by a voluminous brown veil. "I declare
I'd like to stop in and see the house, now it's all furnished up--if
only for a minute."
"We ain't got time, Abby," Mrs. Whittle pointed out. "There's work to
cut out after we get to Mis' Dix's, and it was kind of late when we
started."
Mrs. Daggett relinquished her random desire with her accustomed
amiability. Life consisted mainly in giving up things, she had found;
but being cheerful, withal, served to cast a mellow glow over the
severest denials; in fact, it often turned them into something
unexpectedly rare and beautiful.
"I guess that's so, Ann," she agreed. "Dolly got kind of fractious
over his headstall when I was harnessin'. He don't seem to like his
sun hat, and I dunno's I blame him. I guess if our ears stuck up
through the top of our bunnits like his we wouldn't like it neither."
Mrs. Whittle surveyed the animal's grotesquely bonneted head with
cold disfavor.
"What simple ideas you do get into your mind, Abby," said she, with
the air of one conscious of superior intellect. "A horse ain't human,
Abby. He ain't no idea he's wearing a hat.
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