Alethea turned away abruptly to her work, and as she lightly tossed the shuttle to and fro she heard, amidst the creaking of the treadle and the thumping of the batten, her step-mother’s persistent voice droning on:—
“An’ so ye hed yer say, an’ done yer preachin’, an’ he profited by it. I reckon he ’lowed ef ye jawed that-a-way afore ye war married, thar war no yearthly tellin’ what ye could say arterward. An’ now,” rising to the dramatic, “hyar kems along Ben Doaks, powerful peart an’ good enough ter satisfy ennybody; perlite, an’ saaft-spoken, an’ good-lookin’, an’ respected by all, an’ ready ter marry ye ter-morrer, ef ye’ll say the word. He owns cattle-critters”—
“An’ sheep,” put in an unexpected voice. A dawdling young woman, with a shallow blue eye and a pretty, inane soft face, had stepped into the back door, and heard the last words of the monologue which apparently had been often enough repeated to admit of no doubt as to its tenor. She had a slatternly, ill-adjusted look, and a snuff-brush in the corner of her mouth.
“An’ herds cattle in the summer season,” said Mrs. Sayles.
“He hev a good name ’mongst the cattle-owners,” observed the young woman, her daughter-in-law.
“An’ hev bought him right smart land,” added Mrs. Sayles.
“Down in Piomingo Cove! not h’isted up on the side o’ the mounting, like we-uns!” exclaimed the young woman, with more enthusiasm than one would have believed possible from the flaccid indifference of her manner.
“An’ he put in all the fair weather las’ winter a-raisin’ him a house,” Mrs. Sayles pursued.
“An’ he ’lowed ter me ez every log war hefted, an’ every pat o’ clay war daubed on the chinkin’, with the thought o’ Lethe!” cried the other.