"You don't see many of her like now," she returned with a sigh, "the mo's the pity. 'Thar ain't room for two in marriage,' she used to say, 'one of 'em has got to git an' I'd rather 'twould be the other!' 'Twa'nt that way with the palaverin' yaller-headed piece that yo' pa married arterwards. She'd a sharp enough tongue, but a tongue don't do you much good with a man unless he knows you've got the backbone behind to drive it. It ain't the tongue, but the backbone that counts in marriage. At first he was mighty soft, but befo' two weeks was up he'd begun to beat her, an' I ain't got a particle of respect for a woman that's once been beaten. Men air born mean, I know, it's thar natur, an' the good Lord intended it; but, all the same, it's my belief that mighty few women come in for a downright beatin' unless they've bent thar backs to welcome it. It takes two to make a beatin' the same as a courtin', an' whar the back ain't ready, the blows air slow to fall."
"I never saw her but once, and then I ran away," I remarked to fill in her pause.
"Wall, you didn't miss much, or you either, ma'am," she rejoined politely; "she was the kind that makes an honest woman ashamed to belong to a sex that's got to thrive through foolishness, an' to git to a place by sidlin' backwards. That wa'nt yo' ma's way, Benjy, an' I've often said that I don't believe she ever hung back in her life an' waited for a man to hand her what she could walk right up an' take holt of without his help. 'The woman that waits on a man has got a long wait ahead of her,' was what she used to say."
Rising to her feet, she stood with the empty plate in her hand, and her back ceremoniously bent in a parting bow.
"Is that yo' youngest? Now, ain't he a fine baby!" she burst out, as little Benjamin appeared, crowing, in the arms of Aunt Euphronasia, "an he's got all the soft, pleasant look of yo' po' pa a'ready."
I opened the door, and with a last effusive good-by, she passed out in her stiff, rustling black, which looked as if she had gone into perpetual mourning.
"Will you have some syllabub, Ben?" enquired Sally primly, as the door closed.
"Sally, how will you stand it?"
"She wants to be kind—she really wants to be."
Crossing moodily to the table, I pushed aside the waffles, the muffins, and the syllabub, with an angry gesture.