The
stouter ladies wielded their fans with vigor. There were some very pretty
faces in Mr. Halloway's audience, but it is a peculiarity of Plattville
that most of those females who do not incline to stoutness incline far in
the opposite direction, and the lean ladies naturally suffered less from
the temperature than their sisters. The shorn lamb is cared for, but often
there seems the intention to impart a moral in the refusal of Providence
to temper warm weather to the full-bodied.
Old Tom Martin expressed a strong consciousness of such intention when he
observed to the shocked Miss Selina, as Mr. Bill Snoddy, the stoutest
citizen of the county, waddled abnormally up the aisle: "The Almighty must
be gittin" a heap of fun out of Bill Snoddy to-night."
"Oh, Mr. Martin!" exclaimed Miss Tibbs, fluttering at his irreverence.
"Why, you would yourself. Miss Seliny," returned old Tom. Mr. Martin
always spoke in one key, never altering the pitch of his high, dry,
unctuous drawl, though, when his purpose was more than ordinarily
humorous, his voice assumed a shade of melancholy. Now and then he
meditatively passed his fingers through his gray beard, which followed the
line of his jaw, leaving his upper lip and most of his chin smooth-shaven.
"Did you ever reason out why folks laugh so much at fat people?" he
continued.
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