"What was it that provoked the quarrel?"
"William was too far gone in drink to remember much; but he thinks that they were all talking about these sufferagette women—I'd make them suffer if I was the King!—and the man he fought said something very nasty about the sex. I shouldn't have troubled if I'd been William. Just look at the harm the hussies do! Here's William that knocked about and blackened over the eyes that his own father wouldn't know him, all through talking about them! As if God hadn't made my boy dark enough in his complexion without their interference! But as long as there are women to love there will be men to fight over them. As William—that was my third—used to say: 'When the Almighty gave ould Adam his wife, he handed him the shillelagh and told him to take care and use it like a gentleman. It was only after the devil interfered that Adam thought of turning it against the lady herself.' It was the woman that started men to fight and she will keep it up to the finish," concluded Mrs. Hulver, with some heat.
"I am sorry you are so troubled," said Eola.
"And I'm vexed that any of my trouble should be passed on to you. I felt that I must tell you all about it; it wasn't right to keep it from you and the master. I should have come to you last night only I didn't see the good of worrying you before the morning. This morning, of course, it's my duty to tell you the truth and to hide nothing. As William, the boy's own father, used to say: 'It's easier in the end to face the truth than to back a lie.'"
"You have him in your room, I suppose?"
"Yes, miss; on the camp bed. He has fever as well, through the cold water they soused his head in when he got violent. He will be all right in a few days. I have put a piece of raw beef on his eye and a poultice on his jaw. He won't be able to talk for a day or two, but that won't matter. As William, his father, used to say: 'Many suffer through too much talking, but very few through too much silence.' I want you to come and look at him, miss."
"Me! Oh! Mrs. Hulver! I don't think I need come. I am sure that you know what is best for him, and will see that it is done," said Eola, not at all in sympathy with the suggestion.
"All the same, miss, I should feel more satisfied if you would glance your eye over him," said Mrs. Hulver, in her most determined manner, which, as Eola knew by experience, took no denial. "It will be good for him to see how seriously you take it. As William—that was my second—used to say: 'Get your shot in when and how you can; don't wait for the enemy to come and ask for it.' It's just the same with advice to the young."
"I am afraid I can't do any good."
"Oh yes, you can, miss; and it isn't you to take a back seat where duty calls and you're really wanted. Of course I know that young soldiers are hot-headed, and we can't give them or any one else our experience any more than we can give them our digestions. Experience unbought teaches naught. They've all got to have it like the measles, and it seasons them and makes men of them. As William—that was my first—used to say: 'Man is like a curry; he needs a lot of seasoning, and it can't be done all in a minute.'"