This variety of talk was entirely new to
her, nobody in Aunt Harriet's conscientious household ever making
anything but plain statements of fact. It was one of the "queer Putney
ways" which Aunt Harriet had forgotten to mention. It is possible that
Aunt Harriet had never noticed it.
When Elizabeth Ann finished her breakfast, Cousin Ann made three
suggestions, using exactly the same accent for them all. She said:
"Wouldn't you better wash your dishes up now before they get sticky? And
don't you want one of those red apples from the dish on the side table?
And then maybe you'd like to look around the house so's to know where
you are." Elizabeth Ann had never washed a dish in all her life, and she
had always thought that nobody but poor, ignorant people, who couldn't
afford to hire girls, did such things. And yet (it was odd) she did not
feel like saying this to Cousin Ann, who stood there so straight in her
gingham dress and apron, with her clear, bright eyes and red cheeks.
Besides this feeling, Elizabeth Ann was overcome with embarrassment at
the idea of undertaking a new task in that casual way. How in the world
DID you wash dishes? She stood rooted to the spot, irresolute, horribly
shy, and looking, though she did not know it, very clouded and sullen.
Cousin Ann said briskly, holding an iron up to her cheek to see if it
was hot enough: "Just take them over to the sink there and hold them
under the hot-water faucet.
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