“Well, ye’ll see a moughty big building up on yon hill, Ma’am,” said Granny Williams with pride. “Davy, he’s a-buildin’ it. Hit sartin is bigger’n arything ye ever seen in New York. Hit’s bigger’n ary church house ever was knowed in these mountings. I reckon it was part of the boarding they had in that load of lumber they brung yore man in on.
“But Davy,” she went on, “he’s changed a heap, these last two years. Used to be as natteral fer him to swear as to take a drink—an’ in buildin’ a house swearin’ comes natteral to ary man. But thar hain’t nary man heerd Davy Joslin say one cuss word sence he come back from the North. All the trouble he’s had with his wife, too—— Ye know about his wife?”
“I knew he was married.”
“He was, an’ he hain’t,” said Granny Williams. “Well, Meliss’, she tuk an’ up an’ went over to the railroad an’ seen the new lawyer that’s come in thar, an’ last term of co’te she got her a divorce—that’s what she done. That was a few weeks ago, while ye was sick.”
“Divorce? He didn’t tell me——”
“That must of been a right interestin’ term of co’te, Ma’am. Thar was only two men kilt, an’ this here one divorce—but it’s the fust divorce ever knowed in this country. They say he didn’t make no furse at all about her leavin’ of him. Somebody was a-tellin’ me that that leaves her free to marry agin if she wants to, or him either. Nuvver was such a thing knowed in these mountings afore, fur as I can tell—there shorely wasn’t nuvver such a thing knowed among my people, nor my dad’s people, nor my mammy’s neither.
“Of course, they didn’t have no children—er only leastways two puny ones, that died. An’ ye said ye never had no children at all, Ma’am?”
“No,” said Marcia Haddon, her face flushed.
“Well, ye look to me right triflin’,” said Granny Williams with calm candor. “Ye kain’t knit, ye kain’t spin, an’ I reckon ye couldn’t hoe corn noways. Maybe the Lord knows His business—what could a womern like ye do with children if she had ‘em?