Putney met Annie at the door, and led her into the parlour beside the hall.
He had a little crippled boy on his right arm, and he gave her his left
hand. In the parlour he set his burden down in a chair, and the child drew
up under his thin arms a pair of crutches that stood beside it. His white
face had the eager purity and the waxen translucence which we see in
sufferers from hip-disease.
"This is our Winthrop," said his father, beginning to talk at once. "We
receive the company and do the honours while mother's looking after the
tea. We only keep one undersized girl," he explained more directly to
Annie, "and Ellen has to be chief cook and bottlewasher herself. She'll
be in directly. Just lay off your bonnet anywhere."
She was taking in the humility of the house and its belongings while she
received the impression of an unimagined simplicity in its life from his
easy explanations. The furniture was in green terry, the carpet a harsh,
brilliant tapestry; on the marble-topped centre table was a big clasp Bible
and a basket with a stereoscope and views; the marbleised iron shelf above
the stove-pipe hole supported two glass vases and a French clock under a
glass bell; through the open door, across the oil-cloth of the hallway, she
saw the white-painted pine balusters of the steep, cramped stairs. It was
clear that neither Putney nor his wife had been touched by the aesthetic
craze; the parlour was in the tastelessness of fifteen years before; but
after the decoration of South Hatboro', she found a delicious repose in
it. Her eyes dwelt with relief on the wall-paper of French grey, sprigged
with small gilt flowers, and broken by a few cold engravings and framed
photographs.
Putney himself was as little decorated as the parlour. He had put on a
clean shirt, but the bulging bosom had broken away from its single button,
and showed two serrated edges of ragged linen; his collar lost itself from
time to time under the rise of his plastron scarf band, which kept escaping
from the stud that ought to have held it down behind. His hair was brushed
smoothly across a forehead which looked as innocent and gentle as the
little boy's.
"We don't often give these festivities," he went on, "but you don't come
home once in twelve years every day, Annie. I can't tell you how glad I am
to see you in our house; and Ellen's just as excited as the rest of us; she
was sorry to miss you when she called."