Blair could find no adequate utterance. She selected the
straightest chair in the room, ostentatiously turned its back to her
enemy, and seated herself. Then, taking out her knitting, she strove to
keep silence; but that was too heavy a task, and at last she broke
forth, with renewed bitterness,--
"To think of all the wood I've burnt up in my kitchen stove an'
air-tight, an' never thought nothin' of it! To think of all the wood
there is now, growin' an' rottin' from Dan to Beersheba, an' I can't
lay my fingers on it!"
"I dunno what you want o' wood. I'm sure this room's warm enough."
"You don't? Well, I'll tell ye. I want some two-inch boards, to nail up
a partition in the middle o' this room, same as Josh Marden done to
spite his wife. I don't want more'n my own, but I want it mine."
Miss Dyer groaned, and drew an uncertain hand across her forehead.
"You wouldn't have no gre't of an outlay for boards," she said,
drearily. "'Twouldn't have to be knee-high to keep me out. I'm no hand
to go where I ain't wanted; an' if I ever was, I guess I'm cured on't
now."
Mrs. Blair dropped her knitting in her lap. For an instant, she sat
there motionless, in a growing rigidity; but light was dawning in her
eyes. Suddenly she came to her feet, and tossed her knitting on the
bed.
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