And when our babies wander away, we no longer run frantically
up and down the street hunting for them. We ask Carrie to advertise for
a lost child seven hands high, and wearing a four-hour-old face-wash;
and within five minutes she has called up fifteen people in various
parts of the town and has discovered that said child is playing Indian
in some back yard a few blocks away.
Carrie is also our confidante. I hate to think of the number of things
Carrie knows. Prowling into our lines while we are talking, as she does,
in search of connections to take down, she overhears enough gossip to
turn Homeburg into a hotbed of anarchy if she were to loose it. But she
doesn't. Carrie keeps all the secrets that a thousand other women
can't. She knows what Mrs. Wimble Horn said to Mrs. Ackley over the
line which made Mrs. Ackley so mad that the two haven't spoken for three
years. She knows just who of our citizens telephone to Paynesville when
Homeburg goes dry, and order books, shoes, eggs, and hard-boiled shirts
from the saloons up there to be sent by express in a plain package. She
knows who calls up Lutie Briggs every night or two from Paynesville, and
young Billy Madigan would give worlds for the information, reserving
only enough for a musket or some other duelling weapon.
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