“Now look here, Lizzie, if what I said t’ th’ Hornbys has made any difference, I’ll go t’ him an’ take it back right before your face.”
Elizabeth’s eyes opened in astonishment.
“Uncle Nate did not mention it to me,” Elizabeth replied.
“Well, I’ve made up my mind I want t’ tell it, an’ have it off my mind.”
Sadie considered a moment and then plunged into her tale hurriedly, for fear that her courage would cease to support her.
“Well, when I was to your house last summer, an’ you told me about th’ effect it had on a baby t’ have a mother that never got mad, I come home an’ tried t’ do everything I thought you meant an’—seems t’ me I never was s’ mean in my life. Mean feelin’ I mean. I got along pretty well at first—I guess it was somethin’ new—? but th’ nearer I got t’ th’ time, th’ worse I got. I scolded Luther Hansen till I know he wished he’d never been born. Th’ worst of it was that I’d told ’im how—what a difference it made, and he was that anxious——?”
Luther raised his hand to protest, but Sadie waved him aside and continued:
“Oh, you needn’t defend me, Luther!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been meaner ’n you know of.” Turning to Elizabeth again, “I used t’ look over t’ your house an’ feel—an’ feel ’s if I could only see you an’ talk a while, I’d git over wantin’ t’ be s’ mean, but you wouldn’t never come t’ see us—an’—an’ I didn’t feel’s if—I didn’t feel free t’ go any more, ’cause ma said you didn’t want t’ be sociable with our kind of folks.”
Sadie paused a moment to crease the hem of her apron and get the twitching out of the corners of her distressed mouth.
“Well, at last, when you didn’t come, an’ I couldn’t git no help from no one, I just said every mean thing I could. I told Hornby a week ’fore his wife died that you said you didn’t want t’ change visits with us country jakes, ’cause you wanted your boy t’ be different from th’ likes of us. Ma’d heard that somewhere, but I told it t’ ’im ’s if you’d said it t’ me. Sue Hornby put ’er hand on my arm an’ said, so kind like, ‘Sadie, ain’t you ’fraid t’ talk that way an’ you in that fix?’ An’ I just cried an’ cried, an’ couldn’t even tell ’er I’d tried t’ do different.”