[Cabinet card]: A Curious Tableau of Three Women

Troy, Ohio: Schnell, 1880. Unbound. Fine. Albumen cabinet card. Image size approximately 4" x 5.5" on a slightly larger card. A curious image of two demurely dressed and grim-faced young women holding a letter between them, while a third more masculine looking woman pours water from a watering can onto the head of one of the other women. Water appears to stream on to the head of the victim, but whether it does do so truly, or it is a photographer's effect, is unclear. Someone has written the names of the women in ink on the image at a later date, but the results are nearly invisible. With difficulty we can identify the woman with the watering can ("Mailey") and the woman on the right ("Grandma") but the written identity of the woman on the left has been subsumed within her ample bosom. What does it all mean?