MRS. ATKINS. Can’t! It do make me mad, Kate Mayo, to see folks that God gave all the use of their limbs to potterin’ round and wastin’ time doin’ everything the wrong way—and me powerless to help and at their mercy, you might say. And it ain’t that I haven’t pointed the right way to ’em. I’ve talked to Robert thousands of times and told him how things ought to be done. You know that, Kate Mayo. But d’you s’pose he takes any notice of what I say? Or Ruth, either—my own daughter? No, they think I’m a crazy, cranky old woman, half dead a’ready, and the sooner I’m in the grave and out o’ their way the better it’d suit them.
MRS. MAYO. You mustn’t talk that way, Sarah. They’re not as wicked as that. And you’ve got years and years before you.
MRS. ATKINS. You’re like the rest, Kate. You don’t know how near the end I am. Well, at least I can go to my eternal rest with a clear conscience. I’ve done all a body could do to avert ruin from this house. On their heads be it!
MRS. MAYO. (with hopeless indifference) Things might be worse. Robert never had any experience in farming. You can’t expect him to learn in a day.
MRS. ATKINS. (snappily) He’s had three years to learn, and he’s gettin’ worse ’stead of better. Not on’y your place but mine too is driftin’ to rack and ruin, and I can’t do nothin’ to prevent.
MRS. MAYO. (with a spark of assertiveness) You can’t say but Robbie works hard, Sarah.
MRS. ATKINS. What good’s workin’ hard if it don’t accomplish anythin’, I’d like to know?
MRS. MAYO. Robbie’s had bad luck against him.
MRS. ATKINS. Say what you’ve a mind to, Kate, the proof of the puddin’s in the eatin’; and you can’t deny that things have been goin’ from bad to worse ever since your husband died two years back.
MRS. MAYO. (wiping tears from her eyes with her handkerchief) It was God’s will that he should be taken.