We walked down the street and in front of the post-office was a crowd standing around a couple of men that was arguing so you could have heard them in the next township. Mark and I ran over to see what was going on, because newspaper men always ought to be right where things are happening. We edged into the crowd and found out it was Mr. Strubber and Mr. Bobbin, and they was quarreling about how smart their wives was.
“Huh!” says Strubber. “Your wife wouldn’t never have dared to git into a contest with my wife if she hadn’t been forced. She was cornered and dassen’t back down.”
“Strubber,” says Bobbin, “I hain’t denyin’ your wife has her p’ints. There’s ways where she can beat my wife all holler. Why, when it comes to takin’ the broom and chasin’ her husband around the house Mrs. Bobbin wouldn’t even tackle the job at all. She knows without tryin’ that Mrs. Strubber kin beat her good and plenty there.”
“You mean,” hollered Strubber, “that my wife chases me with a broom? You dast say that? Why, you miserable little swiggle-legged, goggle-eyed, slumgullion, Mrs. Strubber’s as gentle as a lamb! Yes, sir, she’s all brain, that’s what she is. If you was to take Mrs. Strubber’s brain out and lay it on top of that thing your wife calls a brain, it ’u’d be like coverin’ a pea with a bushel basket.”
“Sure!” says Bobbin. “It’s big all right, but you’re right when you compare it to a bushel basket. It’s as thin and empty as any bushel basket in Michigan.”
Strubber pretended to look at Bobbin careful, and then he laughed out loud. “Folks tells me,” says he, “that you really eat the stuff Mrs. Bobbin cooks.”
“You bet I do,” says Bobbin.
“Lookin’ at you,” says Strubber, “I’m prepared to admit it. Nothin’ else would make you look that way. I always wondered what made you sich a peeked, ornery, yaller-complected, funny-lookin’ little runt like you be. You must ’a’ had a tough constitution when you got married, or you wouldn’t never have survived all these years—if what you be can be called survivin’. As for me, I guess I’d rather not ’a’ survived at all as to be what that cookin’ has made of you.”
“Huh!” says Bobbin. “I hain’t no tub of lard like you be. What I git is good wholesome food that makes muscles and brain. You get fed on sloppy stuff to fatten you. You know what we feed hogs, don’t you, eh? Gather it up out of pails at folks’ back doors. It fats up the hogs, too. Well, Mrs. Strubber, she uses that same method on you.”
“Be you comparin’ my wife’s cookin’ to swill?” yelled Strubber, wabbling all over like a bowl of jelly he was that mad.