Lizzie May pursed her prim little mouth with a superior air.
"'Taint no use fer you an' me to argy over sech things, Judy," she said haughtily. "We got dif'rent notions about haow a house otta be kep'. Fer me, I like to see things nice an' I'm allus a-goin' to try to keep 'em nice. I like to do housework; an' even though I don't allus feel well, the work wouldn't bother me a bit, if I didn't have other troubles."
She sighed heavily.
"What other troubles have you got?" asked Judith incredulously.
"Oh, I have lots of other troubles. You'll have 'em too, naow your married. For one thing, Dan goes off fox huntin' nights an' nights an' leaves me here alone, an' I git that skairt. You wouldn't believe all the noises there is when anybody's alone at night. Night afore las' I was sure I heard somebody a-walkin' raound an' raound the house. I was in bed, an' I pulled the quilts up over my head an' tried to fergit it; but I kep' on a-hearin' it. At las' I couldn't stand it no longer, an' I got up an' looked out the winder; an' it was only Uncle Jonah Cobb's ole mare Betsy that had broke through the fence an' was a-wanderin' raound an' raound the house a-eatin' grass. But it give me a awful scare jes the same. Things like that makes a person nervous."
"Nonsense, Lizzie May! You born an' raised here to be askairt to stay alone in the house nights! Why, who's ever been bothered in their house that you ever heard on?"
Lizzie May had to admit that she had never heard of any of the neighbors being attacked at night in their homes; but nevertheless she was afraid.
"Them dawgs too," she went on. "He's baound to keep 'em all. You know how I've allus hated a haound. The meal they eat is enough to fatten a hawg. An' of course it's me that has to cook it fer 'em. An' another thing, when he goes fox huntin' I never know if he's a-goin' to come home drunk or sober. Whenever he gits with Edd Whitmarsh, the two of 'em jes drinks theirselves as full as ticks. An' we can't spare the money neither. If I spent the same money on clothes for myse'f or the baby that's cornin' he'd be the first to say it was a awful extravagance. I wonder why men allus has to drink? Us wimmin git along without it. An' no matter if there hain't money in the house to buy a sack o' flour, they kin allus find some to spend on whiskey. One night las' week Dan come in so drunk he jes laid hisse'f daown on the mat beside the bed with all his clothes on an' declared up an' daown he was in bed. An' I had to take off his shoes an' his clothes an' pull an 'yank an' pretty nigh kick him afore I could git him to crawl up into bed. I tell you I was that disgusted. If I'd a thought married life was a-goin' to be anything like this, I don't think I'd a been in such a hurry to git married. There's times when I wish I was back home with dad agin. It wa'n't like that in the books we used to read. You 'member them books?"
Lizzie May named several novels by such purveyors of roseate fiction as Bertha M. Clay, Mary Jane Holmes and Laura Jean Libbey, which in ragged paper covers had found their way into the Pippinger home.
"Yes, but in them books it allus ends when they git married," Judith reminded her. "They never tell what happens after. All they say is that they lived happy ever after."