Chapter XXX
Mrs. Skinner’s Romance
Anne stepped off the train at Valley Road station and looked about to see if
any one had come to meet her. She was to board with a certain Miss Janet Sweet,
but she saw no one who answered in the least to her preconception of that lady,
as formed from Esther’s letter. The only person in sight was an elderly woman,
sitting in a wagon with mail bags piled around her. Two hundred would have
been a charitable guess at her weight; her face was as round and red as a harvest-
moon and almost as featureless. She wore a tight, black, cashmere dress, made in
the fashion of ten years ago, a little dusty black straw hat trimmed with bows of
yellow ribbon, and faded black lace mits.
“Here, you,” she called, waving her whip at Anne. “Are you the new Valley
Road schoolma’am?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I thought so. Valley Road is noted for its good-looking schoolma’ams,
just as Millersville is noted for its humly ones. Janet Sweet asked me this
morning if I could bring you out. I said, ‘Sartin I kin, if she don’t mind being
scrunched up some. This rig of mine’s kinder small for the mail bags and I’m
some heftier than Thomas!’ Just wait, miss, till I shift these bags a bit and I’ll
tuck you in somehow. It’s only two miles to Janet’s. Her next-door neighbor’s
hired boy is coming for your trunk tonight. My name is Skinner—Amelia
Skinner.”
Anne was eventually tucked in, exchanging amused smiles with herself during
the process.
“Jog along, black mare,” commanded Mrs. Skinner, gathering up the reins in
her pudgy hands. “This is my first trip on the mail rowte. Thomas wanted to hoe
his turnips today so he asked me to come. So I jest sot down and took a standing-
up snack and started. I sorter like it. O’ course it’s rather tejus. Part of the time I
sits and thinks and the rest I jest sits. Jog along, black mare. I want to git home
airly. Thomas is terrible lonesome when I’m away. You see, we haven’t been
married very long.”