Claude when he got married.”
She slept on her feather bed in winter, and in summer she put it
away in the attic. The attic was reached by a ladder which,
because of her weak back, Mrs. Wheeler very seldom climbed. Up
there Mahailey had things her own way, and thither she often
retired to air the bedding stored away there, or to look at the
pictures in the piles of old magazines. Ralph facetiously called
the attic “Mahailey’s library.”
One day, while things were being packed for the western ranch,
Mrs. Wheeler, going to the foot of the ladder to call Mahailey,
narrowly escaped being knocked down by a large feather bed which
came plumping through the trap door. A moment later Mahailey
herself descended backwards, holding to the rungs with one hand,
and in the other arm carrying her quilts.
“Why, Mahailey,” gasped Mrs. Wheeler. “It’s not winter yet;
whatever are you getting your bed for?”
“I’m just a-goin’ to lay on my fedder bed,” she broke out, “or
direc’ly I won’t have none. I ain’t a-goin’ to have Mr. Ralph
carryin’ off my quilts my mudder pieced fur me.”
Mrs. Wheeler tried to reason with her, but the old woman took up
her bed in her arms and staggered down the hall with it,
muttering and tossing her head like a horse in fly-time.
That afternoon Ralph brought a barrel and a bundle of straw into
the kitchen and told Mahailey to carry up preserves and canned
fruit, and he would pack them. She went obediently to the cellar,
and Ralph took off his coat and began to line the barrel with
straw. He was some time in doing this, but still Mahailey had not
returned. He went to the head of the stairs and whistled.
“I’m a-comin’, Mr. Ralph, I’m a-comin’! Don’t hurry me, I don’t
want to break nothin’.”
Ralph waited a few minutes. “What are you doing down there,
Mahailey?” he fumed. “I could have emptied the whole cellar by
this time. I suppose I’ll have to do it myself.”
“I’m a-comin’. You’d git yourself all dusty down here.” She came
breathlessly up the stairs, carrying a hamper basket full of
jars, her hands and face streaked with black.
“Well, I should say it is dusty!” Ralph snorted. “You might clean
your fruit closet once in awhile, you know, Mahailey. You ought
to see how Mrs. Dawson keeps hers. Now, let’s see.” He sorted the
jars on the table. “Take back the grape jelly. If there’s
anything I hate, it’s grape jelly. I know you have lots of it,
but you can’t work it off on me. And when you come up, don’t
forget the pickled peaches. I told you particularly, the pickled
peaches!”
“We ain’t got no pickled peaches.” Mahailey stood by the cellar
door, holding a corner of her apron up to her chin, with a queer,
animal look of stubbornness in her face.
“No pickled peaches? What nonsense, Mahailey! I saw you making
them here, only a few weeks ago.”
