CHAPTER XVI

“Most like it’s the Spring,” said Martha.  It was Memorial Day.  She and Miss Lang were at home, sitting together in Claire’s pretty room, through the closed blinds of which the hot May sun sent tempered shafts of light.

Claire regarded Mrs. Slawson steadily for a moment, seeming to make some sort of mental calculation meanwhile.

“Well, if it is the Spring,” she observed at length with a whimsical little frown knitting her brows, “it’s mighty forehanded, for it began to get in its fine work as far back as January.  Ever since the time Sam went to the Sanatorium you’ve been losing flesh and color, Martha, and—­I don’t know what to do about it!”

“Do about it!” repeated Mrs. Slawson.  “Why, there ain’t nothin’ to do about it, but let the good work go on.  I’m in luck, if it’s true what you say.  Believe me, there’s lots o’ ladies in this town, is starvin’ their stummicks an’ everythin’ else about ’em, an’ payin’ the doctors high besides, just to get delicate-complected, an’ airy-fairy figgers, same’s I’m doin’ without turnin’ a hand.  Did you never hear o’ bantin’?  It’s what the high-toned doctors recommend to thin down ladies who have it so comfortable they’re uncomfortable.  The doctors prescribes exercise for’m, an’ they take it, willin’ as doves, whereas if their husbands said, ‘Say, old woman, while you’re restin’, just scrub down the cellar-stairs good—­that’ll take the flesh off’n you quicker’n anythin’ else I know!’ they’d get a divorce from him so quick you couldn’t see ‘em for dust.  No, they’d not do anythin’ so low as cellar-stairs, to save their lives.  You couldn’t please ’em better’n to see another woman down on her marra-bones workin’ for ’em, but get down themselves?  Not on your sweet life, they wouldn’t.  They’d rather bant.  Bantin’ sounds so much more stylisher than scrubbin’.”

Claire smiled, but her eyes were very serious as she said, “All the same, Martha, I believe you are grieving your heart out for Sam.  I’ve been watching you when you didn’t know it, and I’ve seen the signs and the tokens.  Your heart has the hunger-ache in it!”

“Now, what do you think o’ that!” exclaimed Mrs. Slawson.  “What do you know about hearts an’ hunger-aches, I should like to know.  You, an unmarried maiden-girl, without so much as the shadder or the skelegan of a beau, as far as I can see.  What do you know about a woman hungerin’ an’ cravin’ for her own man?  You have to have reelly felt them things yourself, to know the signs of ’em in other folks.”

Claire’s lip trembled, but she did not reply.

When Martha spoke again it was as if she had replied.