“But look—”
“I been lookin’ a sight longer ’n’ you have, Lady.” At first he had called her Lady as a dignified and polite form of greeting. After that it became a sort of title of affection, which spread from Tubal to Gibeon. “I been lookin’ and seein’, and what I see is that they’s jest one thing folks is real int’rested in, and that’s earnin’ a livin’.”
“I don’t believe it, Tubal. I believe people want to do right. I believe everybody would rather do right and be good—if some one would just show them how.”
“Mebby, but you better let somebody else take the pointer and go to the blackboard. You got to eat three times a day, Lady, and this here paper’s got to step up and feed you. Look at it reasonable. What d’ye git by stirrin’ things up? Why, half a dozen real good folks claps their hands, but they don’t give up a cent. What d’ye git if you keep your hands off and let things slide? You git the county printin’, and consid’able advertisin’ and job work that Abner Fownes kin throw to you. You git allowed to eat. And there you be.... Take that letter of the perfessor’s, fer instance——”
“I’m going to print that letter if—if I starve.”
“Which is what the perfessor’s doin’ right now.... And where’s Sheriff Churchill? Eh? Tell me that.”
“Tubal, what is this about the sheriff? Has he really disappeared?”
“If you don’t b’lieve it, go ask his wife. The Court House crowd lets on he’s run off with a woman or mebby stole some county funds. They would.... But what woman? The’ wa’n’t no woman. And Churchill wa’n’t the stealin’ kind.”
“What do you think, Tubal?”
“Lady, I don’t even dast to think.”