“I don’t like that word. I nuvver quit nobody nor nothin’ that I owed a duty to. But I’ve got to go away. Hit hain’t right fer ye an’ me to live together no more. Children—why, my God!”
“Dave! Air ye crazy? Hain’t I been a good and faithful womern to ye? Tell me!”
He did not answer her.
“Tell me, Dave—have ye——”
“No! I’ve been as faithful as ye. We made our mistake when we was married—we mustn’t make it no more an’ no wuss.”
“The new doctor!” She blazed out now with scorn, contempt, indignation, all in her voice.
“Yes!” he replied suddenly. “The new doctor—ary doctor—ary man with sense could have told us what he told me. I know now a heap of things I nuvver knowed—what my pap an’ mammy nuvver knowed.”
“Ye’re a-goin’ to quit me like a coward!”
“I quit nobody like a coward. I hain’t a coward, Meliss’, an’ you know it. I’m a-goin’ to quit ye because I’m a brave man. I’ve got to be as brave as ary man ever was in the Cumberlands to do what I’ve got to do. Do ye think it’s easy fer me? Don’t ye think I hear my own children cryin’ still—mine as much as yours? An’ this was all I have to give them. Thank God they died! They’d nuvver orter of been borned.”
His wife sank into a chair, her hands dropped limp in her lap. His own hands were trembling as, after a long time, he turned toward her; his voice trembled also.