“Well, it took you a right smart spell to answer, didn’t it? I say, where are you a-goin’, all dressed up so?”
Mrs. Sybert took her black silk bag with round spots brocaded upon it, and put its ribbons leisurely over her arm. “I’m a-goin’ to see Mis’ Nesley,” she said.
Her husband’s face reddened. “What’s that you say, mother? You’re a-goin’ to do what? I reckon I’m a-goin’ a little deef.”
“I’m a-goin’ to see Mis’ Nesley.” Mrs. Sybert spoke calmly. No one would have suspected that she was reproaching herself for not getting out of the house ten minutes sooner. “He never’d ’a’ heard a thing about it,” she was thinking; but she looked straight into his eyes. Her eyelids did not quiver.
The red in Mr. Sybert’s face deepened. He stood in the door, so she could not pass. Indeed, she did not try. Mrs. Sybert had not studied signs for nothing during the thirty years she had been a wife. “I reckon you’re a-foolin’, mother,” he said. “Just up to some o’ your devilment!”
“No, I ain’t up to no devilment, father,” she said, still calmly. “You’d best let me by, now, so’s I can go; it’s half after two.”
“D’ you mean to say that you’re a-ne’rnest? A-talkin’ about goin’ to see that hussy of a Mis’ Nesley?”
“Yes, I’m a-ne’rnest,” said Mrs. Sybert, firmly. “She ain’t a hussy, as I know of. What you got agin ’er, I’d like to know?”
“I ain’t got anything agin ’er. Now, what’s the sense o’ you’re a-pretendin’ you don’t know the talk about ’er, mother?” Mr. Sybert’s tone had changed slightly. He did not like the poise of his wife’s body; it bespoke determination—a fight to the finish if necessary. “You know she’s be’n the town talk fer five years. Your own tawngue hez run on about ’er like’s if ’t was split in the middle an’ loose at both en’s. There wa’n’t a woman in town that spoke to ’er”——
“There was men, though, that did,” said Mrs. Sybert, calmly. “I rec’lect bein’ in at Mis’ Carney’s one day, an’ seein’ you meet ’er opposite an’ take off your hat to ’er—bowin’ an’ scrapin’ right scrumptious like.”