eath.

"She's makin' it over again right now," she announced, rising from her
chair and moving toward the pantry. "You can always tell when she is
'cause she pulls down all her front curtains an' won't come to the door
when folks knock. The shades was down when Abbie an' me drove by there
last week an' to make sure Abbie got out an' tapped to' see if
anybody'd come to let us in, but nobody did. We said then: '_Minnie's
resurrectin' the black satin_.' You mark my words she'll be in church
in it Sunday. It generally takes her about ten days to get it done. I
was expectin' she'd give it another overhauling, for she ain't done
nothin' to it for three months at least an' the styles have changed
quite a little in that time. Sometimes I tell Willie I believe we'll
live to see her laid out in that dress yet."

"You can bet Bart would draw a sigh of relief if we did," chimed in the
inventor. "Why, the money that woman's spent pullin' that durn thing
to pieces an' puttin' it together again is a caution. Bart said you'd
be dumbfounded if you could know what he's paid out. If the coffin lid
was once clamped down on the pest he'd raise a hallelujah, poor feller."

"Willie!" gasped the horrified Celestina.

"Oh, I ain't sayin' he'd be glad to see Minnie goin'," the little old
man protested. "But that black satin has been a bone of contention
ever since the day it was bought. To begin with, it cost about ten
times what Bart calculated 'twould; he told me that himself. An' it's
been runnin' up in money ever since. When he got it he kinder figgered
'twould be an investment somethin' like one of them twenty-year
endowments, an' that for nigh onto a quarter of a century Minnie
wouldn't need much of anything else. But his reckonin' was agog. It's
been nothin' but that black satin all his married life. Let alone the
price of continually reenforcin' it, the wear an' tear on Minnie's
nerves when she's tinkerin' with it is somethin' awful. Bart says that
dress ain't never out of her mind. She's rasped an' peevish all the
time plannin' how she can fit the pieces in to look like the pictures.
It's worse than fussin' over the cut-up puzzles folks do. Sometimes at
night she'll wake him out of a sound sleep to tell him she's just
thought how she can eke new sleeves out of the side panels, or make a
pleated front for the waist out of the girdle. I guess Bart don't get
much rest durin' makin'-over spells. I saw him yesterday a