"How wasted! How wasted!" she sighed. "Going home to eat her lonely supper and
feed 'Zekiel.... I can bear it for the others, but not for Nancy .... Now she
has lighted her lamp,... now she has put fresh pine on the fire, for new smoke
comes from the chimney. Why should I sit down and serve my dear husband, and
Nancy feed 'Zekiel?"
There was some truth in Mrs. Baxter's feeling. Mrs. Buzzell, for instance, had
three sons; Maria Sharp was absorbed in her lame father and her Sunday-School
work; and Lobelia Brewster would not have considered matrimony a blessing,
even under the most favorable conditions. But Nancy was framed and planned for
other things, and 'Zekiel was an insufficient channel for her soft, womanly
sympathy and her bright activity of mind and body.
'Zekiel had lost his tail in a mowing-machine; 'Zekiel had the asthma, and the
immersion of his nose in milk made him sneeze, so he was wont to slip his paw
in and out of the dish and lick it patiently for five minutes together. Nancy
often watched him pityingly, giving him kind and gentle words to sustain his
fainting spirit, but tonight she paid no heed to him, although he sneezed
violently to attract her attention.
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