Granny Joslin filled her pipe and went on smoking and chuckling. She stared so steadily into the ashes of the fireplace, was so deeply engaged with her own self-communings, that she scarcely noticed her grandson as he pushed back his chair, arising.
“Good-by, Davy,” said she, as he reached the threshold.
He turned from her and once more closed the door. It was his door no more.
“Meliss’,” said the old woman when at length she heard no more his feet passing on the hard ground walk. “Come on back in. He’s done gone.”
“What did I say!” broke out the younger woman as she clumped in once more. She flung herself into a chair, her face distorted with her jealous anger. “I knowed it—I knowed it all along. I knowed he’d be a-carryin’ on with wimmern-folks outside—he done owned up to two—ye heerd him, didn’t ye? Us a-starvin’ here, an’ him livin’ soft with them rich! Well, I fixed him, an’ I’m glad of it—he had it a-comin’ to him, that’s one thing shore.”
“Well,” said Granny Joslin after a time, “hit don’t look to me like thar was much hope; that’s right.”
“Hope!” half screamed the other, unrestrained. “I don’t want no hope. If he quits me, I reckon I’ve quit him. I hain’t so old, come to that. I kin raise my fam’ly yit, somewhars else. Thar’s other men in the world besides him—an’ real men at that.”
“What do you mean, Meliss’?” said the old woman, quietly. “You’ve said that twict now. I know the Joslins. He hain’t nuvver comin’ back agin—not in all his hull life. He’s done. He’ll have enough trouble—but he’ll nuvver trouble ye agin. He’s gone.”
“All right, then,” retorted the other angrily. “Let him go. He’s been gone fer two year, an’ he mought as well have been gone fer another year afore that. What do I need with him, with all the other men thar is in the world?”
“Huh!” rejoined the old lady, “as though I didn’t know ye’d been a-carryin’ on a civil courtship already! Seen him lately, Meliss’? ‘Pears to me like ye git worse favored every year, Meliss’. Ye’re a powerful homely womern, like I done tolt Davy now.” She still chuckled savagely, fearless as ever.