"
Lucinda, who certainly never felt the slightest inclination toward
contradiction, held her tongue, and the poor, unhappy one twisted about in
bed, and bemoaned the quietude of her environment by the hour at a time.
"Did you say we had a calf?" she asked suddenly one day. "Well, why don't
you answer? When I ask a question I expect an answer. Didn't you say we
had a calf?"
Lucinda nodded.
"Well, I want Joshua to take that calf to the blacksmith and have him shod
behind an' before right off. To-day--this minute."
"You want the calf shod!" cried Lucinda, suddenly alarmed by the fear lest
her mistress had gone light-headed.
Aunt Mary glared in a way that showed that she was far from being out of
her usual mind.
"If I said shod, I guess I meant shod," she said, icily. "I do sometimes
mean what I say. Pretty often--as a usual thing."
Lucinda stood at the foot of the bed, petrified and paralyzed.
Then the invalid sat up a little and showed some mercy on her servant's
very evident fright.
"I want the calf shod," she explained, "so's Joshua can run up an' down
the porch with him."
So far from ameliorating Lucinda's condition, this explanation rendered it
visibly worse. Aunt Mary contemplated her in silence for a few seconds,
and she suddenly cried out, in a tone that was full of pathos:
"I feel like maybe--maybe--the calf'll make me think it's horses' feet on
the pavement."
Lucinda rushed from the room.
"She wants the calf shod!" she cried, bursting in upon Joshua, who was
piling wood.
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