XII

A Grey Kitten

With her mouth firmly set, and assuming the air of a martyr trying to make himself a little more comfortable against the stake, Miss Mehitable climbed the hill.  In her capable hands were the implements of warfare—­pails, yellow soap, and rags.  She carried a mop on her shoulder as a regular carries a gun.

“Havin’ said I would clean house, I will clean house,” she mused, “in spite of all the ingratitude and not listenin’.  ’T won’t take long, and it’ll do my heart good to see the place clean again.  Evelina’s got no gumption about a house—­never did have.  I s’pose she thinks it’s clean just because she’s swept it and brushed down the cobwebs, but it needs more ‘n a broom to take out twenty-five years’ dirt.”

Her militant demeanour was somewhat chastened when she presented herself at the house.  When the door was opened, she brushed past Miss Evelina with a muttered explanation, and made straight for the kitchen stove.  She heated a huge kettle of water, filled her pail, and then, for the first time, spoke.

“I’ve come to finish cleanin’ as I promised I would, and I hope it’ll offset your nursin’ of Minty.  And if that blackmailing play-doctor comes while I’m at work, you can tell him that I ain’t speakin’ to Minty from the hall, nor settin’ foot in her room, and that he needn’t be in any hurry to make out his bill, ‘cause I’m goin’ to take my time about payin’ it.”

She went upstairs briskly, and presently the clatter of moving furniture fairly shook the house over Miss Evelina’s head.  It sounded as if Miss Mehitable did not know there was an invalid in the house, and found distinct pleasure in making unnecessary noise.  The quick, regular strokes of the scrubbing brush swished through the hall.  Resentment inspired the ministering influence to speed.

But it was not in Miss Hitty’s nature to cherish her wrath long, while the incense of yellow soap was in her nostrils and the pleasing foam of suds was everywhere in sight.

Presently she began to sing, in a high, cracked voice which wavered continually off the key.  She went through her repertory of hymns with conscientious thoroughness.  Then a bright idea came to her.

“There wa’n’t nothin’ said about singin’,” she said to herself.  “I wa’n’t to speak to Minty from the hall, nor set foot into her room.  But I ain’t pledged not to sing in the back room, and I can sing any tune I please, and any words.  Reckon Minty can hear.”

The moving of the ladder drowned the sound made by the opening of the lower door.  Secure upon her height, with her head near the open transom of the back room.  Miss Mehitable began to sing.