Ladley ever did that again,--but in thinking we had him.
I washed that next morning, Monday, but all the time I was rubbing and
starching and hanging out, my mind was with Jennie Brice. The sight of
Molly Maguire, next door, at the window, rubbing and brushing at the
fur coat, only made things worse.
At noon when the Maguire youngsters came home from school, I bribed
Tommy, the youngest, into the kitchen, with the promise of a doughnut.
"I see your mother has a new fur coat," I said, with the plate of
doughnuts just beyond his reach.
"Yes'm."
"She didn't buy it?"
"She didn't buy it. Say, Mrs. Pitman, gimme that doughnut."
"Oh, so the coat washed in!"
"No'm. Pap found it, down by the Point, on a cake of ice. He thought
it was a dog, and rowed out for it."
Well, I hadn't wanted the coat, as far as that goes; I'd managed
well enough without furs for twenty years or more. But it was a
satisfaction to know that it had not floated into Mrs. Maguire's
kitchen and spread itself at her feet, as one may say. However, that
was not the question, after all.
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