Not long after this, all through the day Thella had been working very hard, and in the edge of the evening sat down on the porch to rest. Pa had just come in from the field looking worn out; Thella’s heart ached as she looked at him: “Poor pa, you are tired out,” she said.
“Yes, pretty tired, daughter!” he answered; hearing Mrs. Armitage coming they said no more.
She was in a fearful humor; she had quarreled with one of the neighbors, and seemed to think that the fight extended to her own family. It was quite dark on the porch, and Thella sat in the shadow so that she did not observe her.
“Where is Thella?” she angrily asked of pa, as she came in.
“Not very far away, I guess,” he answered mildly.
“Out trapezing somewhere, I suppose! I seen her whispering to that Judd Tompkins, more’n once; she’ll come to no good, I’ll tell you!”
“Sho! Sho! What’s the use of bein’ so hard, ma? Didn’t you never talk to the boys when you was young?” asked pa very mildly.
“I wish to goodness I’d never seen a pesky man; of all the shif’less, onery things a man’s the wust; and you’re about the laziest of the whole bilin’.”
Pa made no reply, but Thella rose up, white and wrathful; it is not the great things which rouse us to the depth of feeling, but the continued pin-pricking; the nag-nagging which drives us to desperation. Thella could take anything directed against herself; she thought many times that she had grown so used to it that it did not hurt much, but pa, poor pa, she could not hear the good patient soul nagged so, without a word of protest.
“You just let pa alone! You can abuse me all you like, but you needn’t misuse him on my account, he is not to blame for my shortcomings;” she sidled up to him, and clasped his arm with her two hands.