MRS. ATKINS. (coming out of her sleep with a start) Glory be! What’s the matter with you?
RUTH. It was Rob. He’s just been talking to me out here. I put him back to bed. (Now that she is sure her mother is awake her fear passes and she relapses into dull indifference. She sits down in her chair and stares at the stove—dully) He acted—funny; and his eyes looked so—so wild like.
MRS. ATKINS. (with asperity) And is that all you woke me out of a sound sleep for, and scared me near out of my wits?
RUTH. I was afraid. He talked so crazy. I couldn’t quiet him. I didn’t want to be alone with him that way. Lord knows what he might do.
MRS. ATKINS. (scornfully) Humph! A help I’d be to you and me not able to move a step! Why didn’t you run and get Jake?
RUTH. (dully) Jake isn’t here. He quit last night. He hasn’t been paid in three months.
MRS. ATKINS. (indignantly) I can’t blame him. What decent person’d want to work on a place like this? (With sudden exasperation) Oh, I wish you’d never married that man!
RUTH. (wearily) You oughtn’t to talk about him now when he’s sick in his bed.
MRS. ATKINS. (working herself into a fit of rage) You know very well, Ruth Mayo, if it wasn’t for me helpin’ you on the sly out of my savin’s, you’d both been in the poor house—and all ’count of his pigheaded pride in not lettin’ Andy know the state thin’s were in. A nice thin’ for me to have to support him out of what I’d saved for my last days—and me an invalid with no one to look to!
RUTH. Andy’ll pay you back, Ma. I can tell him so’s Rob’ll never know.