“Oh, I know what would happen all right. She’d be over here in two jerks of a lamb’s tail, and read the riot act, and scare me out of a year’s growth. 146 Hepsey’s not a little thing to be playin’ with.”
“Well, you just make a start. Anything to make a start, and the rest will come easy.”
“My, how the neighbors’d talk!”
“Talk is cheap; and besides, in a quiet place like this it’s a positive duty to afford your neighbors some diversion; you ought to be thankful. You’ll become a public benefactor. Now will you go ahead?”
“Mrs. Betty, worry’s bad for the nerves, and’s apt to produce insomny and neurastheny. But I’ll think it over—yes, I will—I’ll think it over.”
Whereupon he suddenly began to whet his scythe with such vim as positively startled Betty.
