Miss Cottle made another dive at him, and was met by a copious shower of red ink from the loosely corked bottle, which Jimmy discharged at his assailant with the practised aim of the small boy. Then he took to his heels, to be received into asylum by Peg Morrison, who was watching the proceedings from the barn-door.
“Wall, Cap’n,” he said, “you sure did put that red ink to good use. Don’t you cry, son; I’ll git ye another bottle twict es big b’fore sun-down.”
He chuckled deep within his capacious chest as he smoothed the little boy’s ruffled curls with his big, horny hand.
“You an’ me’ll hev to write out a little vallable inf’mation on the subjec’ o’ females,” he said slowly. “The’s all kinds an’ varieties of wimmin-folks; ’n’ t’ git ’em all sorted an’ labelled, so ’t ye won’t git teetotally fooled ’ll take the better part of a lifetime.”
XXI
Barbara was shut into her chamber looking over her wardrobe with a view to approaching winter. In the autumn the call would come, Jarvis had told her. Already the ripening apples glowed like live coals along the laden orchard boughs, and the brisk September winds scattered drifts of yellowing leaves about the feet of the early dying locusts below her windows. Martha Cottle was gone, after a stormy scene in which she had exacted redress and largesse of the most lavish description. Barbara had drawn a long breath of relief when the last echo of the spinster’s strident voice and the last militant thump of her flat-heeled shoes had died away.
Peg and Jimmy had openly exulted in the final retreat of the enemy; and Peg took occasion to exhort his dearly beloved mistress anew concerning the inscrutable yet invariably benevolent workings of Providence, as signally evidenced in the hasty departure of Martha Cottle.
“Ef it hadn’t be’n fer them onions,” he declared, “she’d never have took a fancy t’ me. ’N’ ef I hadn’t ’a’ heard o’ John Closner of Hidalgo, Texas, ’s like’s not I’d ’a’ never took t’ raisin’ ’em. Them onions kinder drored Marthy’s ’tention t’ me—she thinkin’ ’at mebbe I’d git a heap o’ money fer ’em, ’n’ then be accommodatin’ ’nough t’ die an’ go t’ heaven immediate. Yes, ma’am, she’d got it all worked out in her own mind, even t’ widow’s thirds. Then, y’ see, the Cap’n’s red ink fitted right in t’ the scheme o’ salvation; an’ here we be. I figger it this way: the Lord hes be’n ’quainted with Marthy Cottle fer a spell longer’n we hev, an’ He knew she wa’n’t fit t’ b’ left in charge o’ the Cap’n, t’ say nothin’ o’ things in general.”