"I.W., she's too—young. Don't give him our little Effie; she's too young!"
"I married her mother, Hattie, when she wasn't yet eighteen."
"I know, I.W., but not to Leon Kessler. She's such a baby, I.W.
He—didn't I work for him nine years, I.W.—don't I know what he is!"
"I'm surprised, Hattie, you should hold so against a man his wild oats."
"Then why ain't oats for the man oats for the woman? It's the men that sow the wild oats and the women—us women that's got to reap them!"
"S-ay, life is life. Do you want to put your head up against a brick wall?"
"A wall that men built!"
"It's always hard, Hattie, for good women like you and like poor Lenie was to understand. It's better you don't. You shouldn't even think about it."
"But, I.W.—"
"If I didn't know Leon Kessler was no worse than ninety-nine good husbands in a hundred, you think I would let him lay a finger on the apple of my eye? I don't understand, Hattie; all of a sudden this evening, you're so worked up. Instead of happiness, you come like with a funeral. Is that why you wake me up out of a sleep? To cry about it? Don't think, Hattie, that just as much as you I haven't got the good of my child at heart. Out of a sound sleep she wakes me to cry because a happiness has come to us. Leon Kessler can have any girl in this town he wants. Maybe he wasn't a Sunday-school boy in his day—but say, show me one that was."