Then she crossed the road, and seeing Avisa Mogridge in her garden with the little girls and the infant Billy, who had been left in trust with her, Honor spoke:
“Just one word, an’ only one, afore I go down to the village an’ give that old cat-a-mountain, Jane Bloom, the lie to her crooked face.”
“Ah! What have she said, then?” asked the other. Mrs. Mogridge rose from pulling up weeds, and lifted her shoulders to ease her back.
“She’ve told me as you told her that my child was fat an’ ugly. I answered in one word that she was a wicked liar. An’ she answered back that I’d better ax you, for you’d never been known to tell a falsehood in all your born days. Did you say it or didn’t you, Avisa? I only want your word. Then I’ll go back-along and give her what for.”
Mrs. Mogridge paused with a bit of groundsel in her hand. The children frolicked beside her, and she bade them be silent, sharply. Then she dropped the groundsel and turned and spoke.
“I told you that you was wrong to go an’ speak to her. I warned you against it. Now, I suppose, the fat’s in the fire. You’d made me cross a fortnight agone, when you said that my Minnie’s second teeth would never come right. An’ I got talking like a fool just afterward, an’ I certainly said to Mrs. Bloom that your goose was a swan—same as it is with all of us mothers—an’ I said that your little, dear boy was—was ugly. ’Twasn’t a right or a kind thing to say, an’ I’m very—”
“You said it! An’ like enough you’ve said it a thousand times. You’m a wicked traitor; an’ I’ll never speak to you again, so help me God; an’ if your beastly childer cross my threshold any more, or so much as touch my garden palings, I’ll throw boiling water over ’em, so now you know, you evil-minded, jealous devil!”
Mrs. Haycraft spoke no more, and waited for no answer. She snatched up her child, rushed into her own house, banged the door and was soon sobbing over her fat-nosed Billy.
CHAPTER IV
When Jane Bloom’s husband took his lady out of Postbridge, so that she might live down a connubial scandal and pursue her cleansing occupation elsewhere, it was supposed that the deadly and famous quarrel between Avisa and Honor would be healed. The gossips of Postbridge all prophesied a speedy return to friendship between the two widows, and not a few well-meaning women set to work to play peacemaker. But their efforts met no response. Both Avisa and Honor made it clear that arbitration must be in vain, since this tragic matter went deeper than plummet of peacemaker could ever sound. Neither woman would make the first move; but Mrs. Mogridge was prepared to welcome any overture from the other. She accepted the inevitable with considerable philosophy; rightly appreciated the significance of the position; perceived how the idlest, least malignant word may sometimes fall like a scourge upon the back of the careless speaker. She held herself punished, and quite deservedly punished, for a very foolish error. She mourned the event, and with secret tears recalled the wisdom of her dead partner. Mrs. Haycraft, on the other hand, nursed her wrath and kept it warm. Her little boy justified the bygone criticism, and he grew less and less personable. But how could she know that? To her eyes he was beautiful above the children of men. Daily he grew more like his father; daily his little weak eyes reflected more of the blue of the sky.