The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [14]
"Mrs. Duff showed considerable presence of mind. I admired that very much."
"I’ve heard something about you, Miss Harkness."
"That’s not a very kind thing to say, sir."
"You have swum across the river."
"My nephew Frank told you that."
"He did."
"You and Frank seem to be on terms of great intimacy."
"We are."
"I have to admit that he wasn’t lying, but it’s been over a year since I did that, and the river was lower then and not so fast. I wouldn’t try it this year."
"Few girls can have done the same."
"None that I know of, but my sisters would say that the fact hardly speaks in my favor. Quite the contrary."
"And you ride your brother Roland’s horses bareback and have beaten Frank in every race."
"You shouldn’t be quizzing Frank about me."
"I would if I had to, but I don’t. He’s terrifically proud of you. He considers you hardly a female at all."
This I would have taken as an insult, if Mr. Thomas Newton hadn’t said it in such a merry way. As it was, his tone made me laugh out loud, and then he looked at me most candidly, and I found myself having to look down to my shoes. This reminded me of Alice’s shoes, and I saw that we had long since passed the bootmaker. I exclaimed, "Oh!" and turned around, and Mr. Newton caught me tightly by the elbow. I said, "I’ve forgotten my sister’s shoes!"
And then we walked back there in silence, and I am sure that we were both thinking hard. I certainly was.
After the bootmaker’s, he walked me back to Seventh Street. We hardly spoke, but I was aware of his presence every step of the way, as if something about him had grown excessively large and was pushing at me. This was new in my experience, and I didn’t know what to think. I glanced at him a couple of times and noticed that I found his looks much more pleasant than I had only a few days before. Where I had seen only pale fecklessness, I now saw a subtle play of expression, evidence of considerable intelligence, and a certain grace of figure that was set off by plain, everyday clothing. I saw evidence of cogitation and choice where I had seen only a dull surface before.
When I took him in to Alice, who was hemming shirts by a window in the parlor, it was clear that she as yet saw only the dull surface. She hardly looked up, said, "You’ll be Mr. Newton," and promptly stuck three or four pins between her lips.
I said, "I can pick up your shoes Monday, Alice," and she exclaimed, the pins falling into her lap, "Can you believe it, those boys had a squirrel in here! It was running all over the house! I would have fainted dead away, except that I had to help them catch it!"
"A wild squirrel?" said Thomas Newton.
"They snared it on the roof! They’ve been climbing out on the roof and setting snares all summer! Can you imagine? It ran right over the dining room table; I will never eat there again!" She took three or four angry stitches. ’And last week, they caught a crow and brought it into their bedroom and kept it there all night in a box!"
I laughed.
"This is most assuredly not funny! I am not amused in the slightest. Why the good Lord should have sent me five boys, and the last two hooligans, and I am nearly in my dotage, I shall never in my life understand. Ahh!" She threw down the shirt. ’And now you’ll be wanting tea, though what wild animals have been nesting in the teacups I cannot tell you. You will have to take your chances!" She said this in a tone of doom and steamed into the kitchen.
The silence fell around myself and Mr. Newton with muffling thickness. Any words I might then have uttered seemed destined to fall unheard to the floor. Thomas Newton said, "You live here with your sister?"
"Yes; seven years it’s been. Lawrence was one then and Frederick three, and I was meant to be useful in all ways and to lighten