"May he have one glass, Susan?" asked Tom, appealing to his wife.
"Not another drop, suh," returned Mrs. Spade, immovable as a rock.
"Not another drop, she says," repeated the big storekeeper in a sinking voice. Then he laid his hand sympathetically on Will's shoulder. "To be sure, I know you're in trouble," he said, "an' I'll swear it's an out-an'-out shame, I don't care who hears me. Yes, I'll stand to it in the very face of Bill Fletcher himself."
"Oh, he's a devil!" cried Will, stung by the name he hated.
"I ain't sayin' you've been all you should have been," pursued Tom in his friendly tones, "but as I told Susan yestiddy, a body can't sow wild oats in one generation without havin' a volunteer crop spring up in the next. Now, yo' wild oats were sown long befo' you were born. Ain't that so, Susan?"
Mrs. Spade planted her hands squarely upon her hips and stood her ground with a solidity which was as impressive in its way as dignity.
"I've spoken my mind to Bill Fletcher," she said, "an' I'll speak it again. 'How's that boy goin' to live, suh?' That's what I asked, an' 'twas after he told me to shut my mouth, that it was. Right or wrong, that's what I told him. You've gone an' made the meanest will this county has ever seen."
"What?" cried Will, springing to his feet, while the room whirled round him.
"Thar, thar, Susan, you've talked too much," interposed Tom, a little frightened. "What she means is just some foolishness yo' grandpa's been lettin' out," he added; "but he'll live long enough yet to change his mind an' his will, too."
"What is it about? Speak louder, will you? My ears buzz so I can't hear thunder."