“A camel?” said Newell.
“That’s it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Is that a good sign or a bad one?”
Easter shrugged. “Couldn’t say. I’m just telling you what I see.”
“Camels come from Africa,” said a smooth-faced young sailor. “You headed to Africa, mister?”
Newell smiled and shook his head. “No, but I do
have to head up to my auntie’s house, or my supper will be burned. Thank you for a most diverting afternoon, Mistress Easter,” he said and pressed a coin into her hands as he rose. “I’ll keep a good eye out for camels, though.”
Everyone laughed at that, including Easter. But Riley wouldn’t leave it alone. “Now, Easter,” he wheedled. “If you
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see an elephant in my tea leaves, does it mean I’m going to India? Or that I’m going to need the outhouse in a big way.”
Easter smiled into his face and silently wished him a painful bout of constipation.
When Newell returned six months later with the
unlikely report that he’d seen a camel during an unexpected trip to Quebec City, the story brought a fresh crop of men and even a few women to the tavern, seeking clues to the future. Easter brewed a great deal of tea, laid out cards, and hung straight pins on strings over big bellies, too. No one seemed to mind how rarely she was right in her predictions about business deals, or luck in love, or whether the baby turned out to be a he or she. Easter tried to tell people what they wanted to hear and never hurt a soul with any of her prophecies. With the extra income, she ordered three dresses in bright colors from Polly Younger, and a new cap of fine green batiste, which topped off her smiling face with a rakish flourish that would have looked foolish on anyone but Easter.
Judy Rhines took great satisfaction in seeing the apples return to her friend’s cheeks and the dimples to her hands.
She would stop in at Easter’s rooms in the mornings for tea and conversation, though there were times she grew impatient with Easter’s endless reminiscence about the old days in Dogtown. After Easter spent a solid hour chewing over Cornelius Finson’s fate and fortunes, Judy let a good week pass before visiting again. But when Tammy Younger died, which happened almost a year to the day after Easter
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moved to Gloucester, they attended her funeral arm in arm.
It was Mrs. Pulcifer who had discovered the body. That bony busybody had been making her way home after a long, gossipy tea with Betsy Hodgkins down the road from the Younger place. She heard the lowing of a cow in desperate need of milking and followed the pitiful sound to Tammy’s place. Peeking through the open window, she’d gotten what she called “the shockingest sight of my life.”
Tammy was seated at her table, facedown in a bowl of moldering stew. She must have been lying there for a few days at least. Mice had been in and out, nibbling what was left on the plate and chewing the old woman’s hair. From the look of the round, bloody bites out of her hands and on the back of her neck, some crows must have hopped through the window, too.
“If I didn’t have my grandmother’s constitution,” said Mrs. Pulcifer, taking a third glass of cordial from Oliver, “I would have fainted right on the spot. The smell was the worst part of it. Any other lady would have fallen into a faint.”
Polly Younger argued against having any sort of funeral for Tammy. But Oliver gave in to Mrs. Pulcifer’s fuss about laying her to rest with some dignity after the “shameful”
way she’d been “abandoned” to die.
Oliver agreed to pay for the coffin and bought a better class of spirits than any of them were used to. The day he learned of Tammy’s death, Oliver sold the house and lands to Nathaniel Babson for enough money to buy a share in Everett Mansfield’s store, add two rooms to his house, and buy Polly an extravagant bolt of blue cotton he knew she was pining for.
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