Callista shook her fair head in a proud negative.
"I've got my doubts of Lance ever having said any such," she 165 returned quietly. "Yo' name has never been mentioned between us, Flent; but if Lance has a quarrel, he's mighty apt to go to the person he quarrels with, and not make threats behind they' back. I think little of them that brought you such word as that."
"That's just what I say," Hands pursued eagerly. "Why can't we-all be friends, like we used to be. Here's Mr. Cleaverage that don't hold with no sech," and he turned to include Kimbro, who now came up to greet his daughter-in-law. Again Callista shook her head.
"You men'll have to settle them things betwixt yourselves," she said, sure of her ground as a mountain woman. "But, Flent, I reckon you'll have to keep in mind that a man and his wife are one."
"Oh," said Hands dropping back a step, "so if Lance won't be friendly with me, you won't neither—is that it?"
"I should think yo' good sense would show you that that would have to be it," said Callista doggedly. She had no wish to appear as one submitting to authority, and yet Flenton's evident intention of seeking to find some breach between herself and Lance was too offensive to be borne with.
"Now then, why need we talk of such this morning?" pacified Kimbro. "My son Lance is a good boy when you take him right. 166 He's got a tender heart. If he ever quarrels too easy, he gets over it easy, as well. Flenton, you'll have to tend to the crusher; I got to keep the fire goin' for Roxy.
"Hit 'minds me of that thar lake that it names in the Bible, Callisty," the Widow Griever said meditatively, looking at the seething surface as she wielded her long-handled spoon. "And then sometimes I study about that thar fiery furnace and Ham, Sham and Abednego. Poppy, looks like to me you ain't got fire enough under this eend."
"I've just made it up there," said Kimbro mildly. "I go from one end to the other, steady, and that keeps it as near even as human hands air able to."
"Flenton, he was mighty overreachin' with Poppy," the widow lamented. "He's a mighty hard-hearted somebody to deal with, if he is a perfesser, and one that walks the straight an' narrer way. Poppy has to furnish all the labor, 'ceptin' Flent and Buck Fuson, and we've got to feed them men and their team, and then they git one third of the molasses. With three meals a day, an' snacks between times to keep up they' stren'th, looks like I never see nobody eat what them two can."