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Keziah Coffin by Joseph Crosby Lincoln
page 54 of 406 (13%)
gate and followed her. Mrs. Didama Rogers, thankful for a clear
atmosphere and an unobstructed view, saw them pass and recognized the
stranger. And, within a quarter of an hour, she, arrayed in a hurried
calling costume, was spreading the news along the main road. The "Trumet
Daily Advertiser" had, so to speak, issued an extra.

Thus the new minister came to Trumet and thus Keziah Coffin became his
housekeeper. She entered upon her duties with the whole-hearted energy
peculiar to her. She was used to hard work, and, as she would have said,
felt lonesome without it. She cleaned that parsonage from top to bottom.
Every blind was thrown open and the spring sunshine poured in upon the
braided mats and the rag carpets. Dust flew in clouds for the first
day or two, but it flew out of windows and doors and was not allowed to
settle within. The old black walnut furniture glistened with oil. The
mirrors and the crockery sparkled from baths of hot water and soap. Even
St. Stephen, in the engravings on the dining-room wall, was forced to a
martyrdom of the fullest publicity, because the spots and smears on the
glass covering his sufferings were violently removed. In the sleeping
rooms upstairs the feather beds were beaten and aired, the sheets and
blankets and patchwork comforters exposed to the light, and the window
curtains dragged down and left to flap on the clothesline. The smell of
musty dampness disappeared from the dining room and the wholesome odors
of outdoors and of good things cooking took its place.

Keziah, in the midst of her labors, found time to coach her employer
and companion in Trumet ways, and particularly in the ways which Trumet
expected its clergymen to travel. On the morning following his first
night in the parsonage, he expressed himself as feeling the need of
exercise. He thought he should take a walk.

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