“Mother, your remarks seem a little mixed. If you’ll face the other way I’ll have on my clothes in a jiffy. Can’t ’pear to sense things so well, lying a-bed after daylight.”
Mrs. Benton stepped outside the house and paced the beaten path with a tread powerful enough to crush all her enemies, had they been in her way. Swiftly, heavily, back and forth, with clinched hands and grim lips, the woman was rather working her indignation to a higher point than allaying it, and as the carpenter limped from his quarters he saw this, and thought:
“She meant it. No time for fooling when she’s stirred up that way. What in the name of reason can ail her?”
After a plunge of his head in the water of the general washing-trough, through which a fresh stream was continually piped, and a drying on the roller towel suspended near it, his wits were clearer. Finishing his toilet by means of his pocket-comb, he considered himself ready for her story and for anything that it might entail.
“Well, mother?”
Aunt Sally paused and glared at him in such a vicious manner that he felt as if he were again that little boy of hers who needed the usual corporal punishment.
“Yes, but mother–what have I done?”
“Done? Nothing! Not a man jack of you! Let that viper warm himself at her very fireside, least to say, south porch, and not show him up for what he was. Land! The men! I never saw one yet was worth shucks, savin’ hers and mine. If you was half the fellow your father was, John Benton, or that noble Cass’us was–oh! if ever I wanted to be a man in my life I want to be this minute!”
The carpenter darted into his chamber and reappeared with a vial and spoon.
“To please me, mother, ’fore you say any more, just take a spoonful of this dandelion relish. Made it myself, you know, and warrant no alcohol in it!”