“Say what?” asked the sagamore, for Ephraim had a dim perception of saying something not just what should be said and had stopped.
“Well, they used to say,
‘Whistling gals and crowing hens
Always come to bad ends.’
If women don’t keep the right side of each other, it’s a gone case with ’em, John.”
“You think they would have tortured and killed Hope out of spite, and called it religion?”
“I don’t pretend to be as wise as your sister Nancy, John—la, bless you! I believe the baby’s wiser’n its own father; but I do say they’d a killed her; and it’s better as it is.”
“Who would have had the heart to do it?”
“As to that, any of them. My wife Nancy would a helped, she would. You ought to hear her quote Scriptur’ about witches and wizards, and necromancers, and Moloch, and familiar sperrits. I’ve sot and heard her till every hair in my head stood on end. I think the women are kind of disappointed not to a had a chance at her.”
John Bonyton ground his teeth with fury, and exclaimed: