“Mis’ Parmer got mighty red all of a sudden; but she says right out—‘No, I’m a-gettin’ reel short on table cloths an’ things, Miss Presly, but I ain’t goin’ to replenish. Orville’s thinkin’ o’ gettin’ married this year, an’ I guess Emarine’ll have a lot o’ extry things.’ An’ then she ups an’ laughs an’ says—‘I’ll let her stock up the house, seein’s she’s so anxious to get into it.’”
Emarine had turned pale. The egg-beater fairly flew round and round. A little of the golden foam slipped over the edge of the bowl and slid down to the white table.
“Miss Presly thinks a good deal o’ you, Emarine, so that got her spunk up; an’ she just told Mis’ Parmer she didn’t believe you was dyin’ to go there an’ stock up her drawers fer her. Says she—‘I don’t think young people ’ad ought to live with mother-in-laws, any way.’ Said she thought she’d let Mis’ Parmer put that in her pipe an’ smoke it when she got time.”
There was a pulse in each side of Emarine’s throat beating hard and full. Little blue, throbbing cords stood out in her temples. She went on mixing the pudding mechanically.
“Then Mis’ Parmer just up an’ said with a tantalizin’ laugh that if you didn’t like the a-commodations at her house, you needn’t to come there. Said she never did like you, anyways, ner anybody else that set their heels down the way you set your’n. Said she’d had it all out with Orville, an’ he’d promised her faithful that if there was any knucklin’-down to be done, you’d be the one to do it, an’ not her!”
Emarine turned and looked at her mother. Her face was white with controlled passion. Her eyes burned. But her voice was quiet when she spoke.
“I guess you’d best move your chair,” she said, “so ’s I can get to the oven. This puddin’ ’s all ready to go in.”
When she had put the pudding in the oven she moved about briskly, clearing the things off the table and washing them. She held her chin high. There was no doubt now about the click of her heels; it was ominous.
“I won’t marry him!” she cried at last, flinging the words out. “He can have his mother an’ his wore-out table cloths!” Her voice shook. The muscles around her mouth were twitching.
“My mercy!” cried her mother. She had a frightened look. “Who cares what his mother says? I w’u’dn’t go to bitin’ off my nose to spite my face, if I was you!”