"Things went on this way for two or three years, Annie goin' and comin' and gittin' prettier all the time, and Dick waitin' on her whenever she was at home and carryin' on between times with every gyirl in the neighborhood. At last she come home for good, and Dick dropped all the others in a hurry and set out in earnest to git Annie. Folks said he was mightily in love, but accordin' to my way o' thinkin' there wasn't any love about it. The long and the short of it was that Annie knew how to manage him, and the other gyirls didn't. They was always right there in the neighborhood, and it don't help a woman to be always under a man's nose. But Annie was here and there and everywhere, visitin' in town and in Louisville and bringin' the town folks and the city folks home with her, and havin' dances and picnics, and doin' all she could to make Dick jealous. And then I always believed that Annie was jest as crazy about Dick as the rest o' the gyirls, but she had sense enough not to let him know it. It's human nature, you know, to want things that's hard to git. Why, if fleas and mosquitoes was sceerce, folks would go to huntin' 'em and makin' a big fuss over 'em. Annie made herself hard to git, and that's why Dick wanted her instead o' Harriet Amos, that was jest as good lookin' and better in every other way than Annie was. Everybody was sayin' what a blessed thing it was, and now Dick would give up his wild ways and settle down and be a comfort to the Squire in his old age.
"Well, along in the spring, a year after Annie got through with school, Sally Ann come to me, and says she, 'Jane, I saw somethin' last night and it's been botherin' me ever since;' and she went on to say how she was goin' home about dusk, and how she'd seen Dick Elrod and little Milly Baker at the turn o' the lane that used to lead up to Milly's house. 'They was standin' under the wild cherry tree in the fence corner,' says she, 'and the elderberry bushes was so thick that I could jest see Dick's head and shoulders and the top of Milly's head, but they looked to be mighty close together, and Dick was stoopin' over and whisperin' somethin' to her.'
"Well, that set me to thinkin', and I ricollected seein' Dick comin' down the lane one evenin' about sunset and at the same time I'd caught sight o' Milly walkin' away in the opposite direction. Our Mite Society met that day, and Sally Ann and me had it up, and we all talked it over. It come out that every woman there had seen the same things we'd been seein', but nobody said anything about it as long as they wasn't certain. 'Somethin' ought to be done,' says Sally Ann; 'it'd be a shame to let that pore child go to destruction right before our eyes when a word might save her. She's fatherless, and pretty near motherless, too,' says she.
"You see, the Bakers was tenants of old Squire Elrod's, and after Milly's father died o' consumption the old Squire jest let 'em live on the same as before. Mis' Elrod give 'em quiltin' and sewin' to do, and they had their little gyarden, and managed to git along well enough. Some folks called 'em pore white trash. They was pore enough, goodness knows, but they was clean and hard-workin', and that's two things that 'trash' never is. I used to hear that Milly's mother come of a good family, but she'd married beneath herself and got down in the world like folks always do when they're cast off by their own people. Milly had come up like a wild rose in a fence corner, and she was jest the kind of a girl to be fooled by a man like Dick, handsome and smooth talkin', with all the ways and manners that take women in. Em'ly Crawford used to say it made her feel like a queen jest to see Dick take his hat off to her. If men's manners matched their hearts, honey, this'd be a heap easier world for women. But whenever you see a man that's got good manners and a bad heart, you may know there's trouble ahead for some woman.
"Well, us women talked it over till dark come; and I reckon if we had app'inted a committee to look after Milly and Dick, somethin' might have been done. But everybody's business is nobody's business, and I thought Sally Ann would go to Milly and give her a word o' warnin', and Sally Ann thought I'd do it, and so it went, and nothin' was said or done at last; and before long it was all over the neighborhood that pore little Milly was in trouble."
Aunt Jane paused, took off her glasses and wiped them carefully on a corner of her gingham apron.
"Many's the time," she said slowly, "that I've laid awake till the chickens crowed, blamin' myself and wonderin' how far I was responsible for Milly's mishap. I've lived a long time since then, and I don't worry any more about such things. There's some things that's got to be; and when a person is all wore out tryin' to find out why this thing happened and why that thing didn't happen, he can jest throw himself back on the eternal decrees, and it's like layin' down on a good soft feather bed after you've done a hard day's work. The preachers'll tell you that every man is his brother's keeper, but 'tain't so. I ain't my brother's keeper, nor my sister's, neither. There's jest one person I've got to keep, and that's myself.
"The Bible says, 'A word spoken in due season, how good it is!' But when folks is in love there ain't any due season for speakin' warnin' words to 'em. There was Emmeline Amos: her father told her if she married Hal, he'd cut her name out o' the family Bible and leave her clear out o' his will. But that didn't hinder her. She went right on and married him, and lived to rue the day she did it. No, child, there's mighty little salvation by words for folks that's in love. I reckon if a word from me would 'a' saved Milly, the word would 'a' been given to me, and the season too, and as they wasn't, why I hadn't any call to blame myself.
"Abram and Sam Crawford did try to talk to Old Man Bob; but, la! you might as well 'a' talked to the east wind. All he said was, 'If Annie wants Dick Elrod, Annie shall have him.' That's what he'd been sayin' ever since Annie was born. Nobody said anything to Annie, for she was the sort o' girl who didn't care whose feelin's was tramped on, if she jest had her own way.
"So it went on, and the weddin' day was set, and nothin' was talked about but Annie's first-day dress and Annie's second-day dress, and how many ruffles she had on her petticoats, and what the lace on her nightgowns cost; and all the time there was pore Milly Baker cryin' her eyes out night and day, and us women gittin' up all our old baby clothes for Dick Elrod's unborn child."