“She ain't in town now, is she?” asked Peter nervously. “You didn't tell her I was likely to stop in here?”
“I just naturally had to tell her something,” Rapp said. “She's plumb crazy. She says she's willing to let by-gones be by-gones; that it's all as plain as day to her now.”
“All what?” asked poor Peter.
“Why, all,” said Rapp. “Everything. The whole business. Why you didn't marry her long ago, I reckon. She didn't say so in that many words, but she spoke about how curious it was a man could hang around a woman year in and year out, and saw three times as much wood for her as need be, and take any sort of tongue lashing as meek as Moses, and look kind of marriage-like, and not do it. She said a woman couldn't understand that sort of thing, but it was easy to understand when she knew you had a wife somewhere. She said she's sorry for your loss, and she'd like you to come right up and see her.”
Rapp lay back in his chair and laughed.
“Did she honestly say that?” asked Peter, very white.
“Did she!” said Rapp. “You ought to hear what she said, and me trying to sell her that bay colt of mine all the time. 'Good withers on this animal, Mrs. Potter.''Well, he may be considered worthless by some,' says she, 'but I've studied him many a year, and the whole trouble is he's too good.' 'And he's a speedy colt, speedy but strong,' says I. 'Having a wife like that is what did it,' says she, 'for a wife like that chastens a man too much, but I guess he'll be more human now she's gone, and look after his own rights.' 'Want the colt?' I says, and she just stared at the animal without seeing him and says, 'For my part I'd enjoy having a small boy about the house.'”
“Did she say that?” asked Peter. “She didn't say that!”
“I never told anything nearer the truth,” Rapp assured him. “She said that she believed, now, you were a fully proper person to raise a small boy, but that if Briggles was bound to take the boy, she—”
“Briggles?” asked Peter breathlessly. “Who is Briggles? What has he got to do with it?”