Divided between these two inclinations, she gazed at Julia now;
the shining eyes of the deacon's daughter conquered, and she
launched forth into an eager description of how she had just seen
a "wondeful striped anamule" with a "pow'ful long neck walk right
out of the tent," and how he had "come apart afore her very
eyes," and two men had slipped "right out a' his insides." Mandy
was so carried away by her own eloquence and so busy showing
Julia the sights beyond the window, that she did not hear Miss
Perkins, the thin-lipped spinster, who entered, followed by the
Widow Willoughby dragging her seven-year-old son Willie by the
hand.
The women were protesting because their choir practice of "What
Shall the Harvest Be?" had been interrupted by the unrequested
acompaniment{sic} of the "hoochie coochie" from the nearby circus
band.
"It's scandalous!" Miss Perkins snapped. "Scandalous! And
SOMEBODY ought to stop it." She glanced about with an
unmistakable air of grievance at the closed doors, feeling that
the pastor was undoubtedly behind one of them, when he ought to
be out taking action against the things that her soul abominated.
"Well, I'm sure I'VE done all that _I_ could," piped the widow,
with a meek, martyred air. She was always martyred.
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