Hillsboro People | Page 9

or let them go on? In
an instant the question was settled for her. It was too late. She would
only shame them if they knew her there. She had caught her own name.
They were talking of her.
"Well, you needn't," said the voice of Mrs. Pritchard "You can just save
your breath to cool your porridge You can't get nothin' out'n her."
"But she's traveled 'round so much, seems's though ..." began the other
woman's voice.
"Don't it?" struck in old Mrs. Pritchard assentingly, "But 'tain't so!"
The other was at a loss. "Do you mean she's stuck-up and won't answer
you?" Mrs. Pritchard burst into a laugh, the great, resonant good-nature
of which amazed Virginia. She had not dreamed that one of these sour,
silent people could laugh like that. "No, land no, Abby! She's as
soft-spoken as anybody could be, poor thing! She ain't got nothin' to
say. That's all. Why, I can git more out'n any pack-peddler that's only
been from here to Rutland and back than out'n her ... and she's traveled
all summer long for five years, she was tellin' us, and last year went
around the world."
"Good land! Think of it!" cried the other, awestruck. "China! An'
Afriky! An' London!"

"That's the way we felt! That's the reason we let her come. There ain't
no profit in one boarder, and we never take boarders, anyhow. But I
thought 'twould be a chance for the young ones to learn something
about how foreign folks lived." She broke again into her epic laugh.
"Why, Abby, 'twould ha' made you die to see us the first few days she
was there, tryin' to get somethin' out'n her. Italy, now ... had she been
there? 'Oh, yes, she adored Italy!'" Virginia flushed at the echo of her
own exaggerated accent. "Well, we'd like to know somethin' about Italy.
What did they raise there? Honest, Abby, you'd ha' thought we'd hit her
side th' head. She thought and she thought, and all she could say was
'olives,' Nothing else? 'Well, she'd never noticed anything else ... oh,
yes, lemons.' Well, that seemed kind o' queer vittles, but you can't
never tell how foreigners git along, so we thought maybe they just lived
off'n olives and lemons; and Joel he asked her how they raised 'em, and
if they manured heavy or trusted to phosphate, and how long the trees
took before they began to bear, and if they pruned much, and if they
had the same trouble we do, come harvest time, to hire hands enough to
git in th' crop."
She paused. The other woman asked, "Well, what did she say?"
The echoes rang again to the old woman's great laugh. "We might as
well ha' asked her 'bout the back side of th' moon! So we gave up on
olives and lemons! Then Eben he asked her 'bout taxes there. Were
they on land mostly and were they high and who 'sessed 'em and how
'bout school tax. Did the state pay part o' that? You see town meetin'
being so all tore up every year 'bout taxes, Eben he thought 'twould be a
chance to hear how other folks did, and maybe learn somethin'. Good
land, Abby, I've set there and 'most died, trying to keep from yellin'
right out with laugh to see our folks tryin' to learn somethin' 'bout
foreign parts from that woman that's traveled in 'em steady for five
years. I bet she was blind-folded and gagged and had cotton in her ears
the hull time she was there!"
"Didn't she tell you anythin' 'bout taxes?"
"Taxes? You'd ha' thought 'twas bumble-bees' hind legs we was askin'
'bout! She ackshilly seemed s'prised to be asked. Land! What had she

ever thought 'bout such triflin' things as taxes. She didn't know how
they was taxed in Italy, or if they was ... nor anywhere else. That what
it come down to, every time. She didn't know! She didn't know what
kind of schools they had, nor what the roads was made of, nor who
made 'em. She couldn't tell you what hired men got, nor any wages, nor
what girls that didn't get married did for a living, nor what rent they
paid, nor how they 'mused themselves, nor how much land was worth,
nor if they had factories, nor if there was any lumberin' done, nor how
they managed to keep milk in such awful hot weather without ice.
Honest, Abby, she couldn't even say if the houses had cellars or not.
Why, it come out she never was in a real house that anybody lived in ...
only hotels. She hadn't got to know a single real person that b'longed
there. Of course she never found out anything 'bout how