"The boys" no longer came to the table in their shirt-sleeves, for
Melinda always had their coats in sight, just where it was handy to put
them on, and the trousers were slipped down over the boots while the
boys ate, and the soft brown Markham hair always looked smooth and
shining, and Mrs. Markham tidied herself a little before coming to the
table, no matter how heavy her work, and never but once was she guilty
of sitting down to her dinner in her pasteboard sun-bonnet, giving as an
excuse that her "hair was at sixes and sevens." She remembered seeing
her mother do this fifty years before, and she had clung to the habit as
one which must be right because they used to do so in Vermont.
Gradually, too, there came to be napkins for tea, and James' Christmas
present to his wife was a set of silver forks, while John contributed a
dozen individual salts, and Andy bought a silver bell, to call he did
not know whom, only it looked pretty on the table, and he wanted it
there every meal, ringing it himself sometimes when anything was needed,
and himself answering the call. On the whole, the Markhams were getting
to be "dreadfully stuck up," Eunice Plympton's mother said, while Eunice
doubted if she should like living there now as well as in the days of
Ethelyn. She had been a born lady, and Eunice conceded everything to
her; but, "to see the airs that Melinda Jones put on" was a little too
much for Eunice's democratic blood, and she and her mother made many
invidious remarks concerning "Mrs. Jim Markham," who wore such heavy
silk to church, and sported such handsome furs. One hundred and fifty
dollars the cape alone had cost, it was rumored, and when, to this
Richard added a dark, rich muff to match, others than Eunice looked
enviously at Mrs. James, who to all intents and purposes, was the same
frank, outspoken person that she was when she wore a plain scarf around
her neck, and rode to church in her father's lumber wagon instead of the
handsome turn-out James had bought since his marriage. Nothing could
spoil Melinda, and though she became quite the fashion in Olney, and was
frequently invited to Camden to meet the élite of the town, she was up
just as early on Monday mornings as when she lived at home, and her
young, strong arms saved Mrs. Markham more work than Eunice's had done.
She would not dip candles, she said, nor burn them, either, except as a
matter of convenience to carry around the house; and so the tallows gave
way to kerosene, and as Melinda liked a great deal of light, the house
was sometimes illuminated so brilliantly that poor Mrs. Markham had
either to shade her eyes with her hands, or turn her back to the lamp.
She never thought of opposing Melinda; that would have done no good; and
she succumbed with the rest to the will which was ruling them so
effectually and so well.