II

THE DUMBLES


Looking back, I am quite sure that John Jacob Dumble's chief claim to
the confidence of our community--a confidence invariably abused--was
the fact that the rascal's family were such "nice folks," "so well-
raised," so clean, so respectable, such constant and punctual "church-
members." After the Presbyterian Church was built in Paradise, no more
edifying spectacle could be seen than the arrival on Sunday mornings
of the Dumble family in their roomy spring wagon. The old man--he was
not more than fifty-five--had two pretty daughters and a handsome son.
Mrs. Dumble, a comely woman, always wore grey clothes and grey thread
gloves. She had a pale, too impassive face, and her dark hair, tightly
drawn back from her brows, had curious white streaks in it. Ajax said
a thousand times that he should not sleep soundly until he had
determined whether or not Mrs. Dumble was a party to her husband's
misdemeanours. My brother's imagination, as I have said before, runs
riot at times. He was of opinion that the wearing of grey indicated a
character originally white, but discoloured by her husband's dirty
little tricks. Certainly Mrs. Dumble was a woman of silence,
secretive, with lips tightly compressed, as if--as Ajax remarked--she
feared that some of John Jacob's peccadilloes might escape from them.

The father was inordinately proud of his son, Quincey, who in many