ing
out to-day, but I wanted some one here to talk to, and I wished him to
hitch up Puss and Bess and go right up and get Mrs. Lenair to come down
and spend the day with me, and to tell her that when she wished to go
home I would take her back. 'Now, if you don't get a move on you, Dan,'
I said, 'you will come home and find a cold stove and no dinner and your
cook gone.' Dan moved round like a cat on hot bricks. That kind of talk
fetches men to time. I did not have to cook much for dinner because the
day before was Dan's birthday. Dan had killed a veal two days previous
and I made two kinds of rich cake, two kinds of pies, and some cream
puffs. They were very rich. Dan is fond of high living, and he ate very
heartily of it all. I laughed at him, and said I never saw a man that
liked to dig his grave with his teeth so well as he did. So you see I
could get up a good dinner for Mrs. Lenair without having to cook much.
It was not long after Dan left before Mrs. Lenair was with me. Well,
after she had taken off her things and we chatted awhile, I thought I
would tell her the news, as she never goes out anywhere. So I said: 'Did
you hear what a hard time Mrs. Dunn had in confinement? The doctor
thought he would have to take the child with instruments;' but Mrs.
Lenair kept looking out of the window, and all she said was, 'Is that
so?' So I said: 'I suppose you have heard about Mrs. Warmstey's case.
She had a doctor from Orangeville and two from Roseland.' Just as I said
that, she rose from her chair and said so sweetly: 'Mrs. Cullom, I do
want to go out and look at your flowers; they look beautiful from the
window.'

"Well, I was clean took off my feet, because I was just beginning to
tell the most interesting part of Mrs. Warmstey's case. I said: 'Why,
yes, Mrs. Lenair,' and I went out with her. She began to be so chatty I
thought she was some one else for awhile. She appeared delighted with my
flowers, and called them such crack-jaw names, and told me all about
their families, and what relation they were to each other. Why, to hear
her talk, you would think flowers had babies, she went on so about male
and female plants. Then she told me that flowers breathed, and told me
all about their coloring, and how they attracted the bee and dusted
themselves on him, and much more I cannot remember. She talked to and
petted them as if they were alive. You would have thought she had been a
flower herself, the way she went on. She sai