“Look-a-hyar, Lethe!” exclaimed Jerry, seriously. “Don’t joke ’bout sech ez that. Ye know the moonshiners mought fairly kill ye, ef they fund out ye knowed an’ tole on ’em. They hev done sech afore now. Ye keep yer mouth shet an’ yer tongue ’twixt yer teeth, ef ye knows what’s healthy fur ye.”
“I ain’t jokin’,” said Alethea.
“Ye mind what I say,” declared Jerry. “I ain’t afeard myself o’ the moonshiners nor the revenuers, nare one,—ain’t got no call ter be,—but words sech ez ye air speakin’ air powerful ticklish an’ techy kind o’ talk. Ye better tend ter the cows an’ sheep an’ weavin’ an’ sech, an’ leave the men’s business alone. I hev never knowed,” continued Jerry, a trifle acrimoniously, “a woman git ten steps away from home but what she acts ez ef she hed tuk off her brains an’ lef’ ’em thar along of her every-day clothes.”
“I jes’ went ter git the lam’ out’n a hole,” said Alethea, in no wise daunted, and ready with her retort. “His leg’s mendin’, though he hops some yit. An’ I war in the cow-pen when the moonshiner kem an’ talked ter me.”
“Listen at ye, a-settin’ talkin’ ’bout law-breakers,” said the fastidious Mrs. Purvine, who had abruptly waked. “I ain’t kin ter none o’ ’em. Naw, sir, an’ I wouldn’t own it ef I war. Mind me o’ yer uncle Pettin Guyther, ez war always talkin’ ’bout murder an’ robbery: every tale he told they killed the folks a diff’ent way,—spilled thar blood somehows, an’ cracked thar skulls bodaciously; an’ whenever he’d git hisself gone from hyar I useter be ’feared lawless ones would kem hyar of a night ter thieve an’ kill, knowin’ ez I hed consider’ble worldly goods. The Bible say riches ain’t no ’count. Mebbe so, but I ain’t so sure ’bout that.”
Perhaps it was her clock which she had in mind, for—without any monition from it, however—she added, “Time ter go ter bed, chill’n,—time ter go ter bed.”
She did not rise from her chair at once. She admonished Jerry to “kiver” the fire with ashes, and watched him as he did it. Then he tramped up the ladder to the roof-room, noisily enough to wake the dead, perhaps, but not aunt Dely’s boys.
She gave a long, mournful yawn of sleepiness and fatigue, and stretched her arms wearily above her head. Then with sudden cheerfulness she exclaimed, “Lethe, ye hain’t never hed a chance ter sleep in the bedroom!”
She spoke as if there were but one on the face of the earth.
“Ye hev never been down hyar ’thout yer elders an’ sech, ez ye hev hed ter show respec’ ter, an’ stan’ back fur,—yer step-mam, an’ Jacob Jessup’s wife, an’ sech; but ye shell sleep in the bedroom one time, sure, instead o’ in this room, ez be het up so hot with cookin’ supper in it.”