So Betty went with him. She wore a pale yellow dinner gown, with just a
sophisticated touch of black here and there, and cut modestly square in
the neck. Her shoulders are scrawny. And after they were gone--not her
shoulders; Mr. Harbison and she--Aunt Selina announced that the next day
was Monday, that she had only a week's supply of clothing with her, and
that no policeman who ever swung a mace should wash her undergarments
for her.
She paused a moment, but nobody offered to do it. Anne was reading De
Maupassant under cover of a table, and the rest pretended not to hear.
After a pause, Aunt Selina got up heavily and went upstairs, coming down
soon after with a bundle covered with a green shawl, and with a white
balbriggan stocking trailing from an opening in it. She paused at the
library door, surveyed the inmates, caught my unlucky eye and beckoned
to me with a relentless forefinger.
"We can put them to soak tonight," she confided to me, "and tomorrow
they will be quite simple to do. There is no lace to speak of"--Dal
raised his eyebrows--"and very little flouncing."
Aunt Selina and I went to the laundry. It never occurred to any one that
Bella should have gone; she had stepped into all my privileges--such as
they were--and assumed none of my obligations. Aunt Selina and I went to
the laundry.
It is strange what big things develop from little ones. In this case it
was a bar of soap. And if Flannigan had used as much soap as he should
have instead of washing up the kitchen floor with cold dish water, it
would have developed sooner. The two most unexpected events of the whole
quarantine occurred that night at the same time, one on the roof and one
in the cellar. The cellar one, although curious, was not so serious as
the other, so it comes first.
Aunt Selina put her clothes in a tub in the laundry and proceeded
to dress them like a vegetable. She threw in a handful of salt, some
kerosene oil and a little ammonia. The result was villainous, but after
she tasted it--or snuffed it--she said it needed a bar of soap cut up to
give it strength--or flavor--and I went into the store room for it.
The laundry soap was in a box. I took in a silver fork, for I hated to
touch the stuff, and jabbed a bar successfully in the semi-darkness.
Then I carried it back to the laundry and dropped it on the table. Aunt
Selina looked at the fork with disgust; then we both looked at the soap.
ONE SIDE OF IT WAS COVERED WITH ROUND HOLES THAT CURVED AROUND ON EACH
OTHER LIKE A COILED SNAKE.