“Ay, and no Mike to get you into trouble. Be fine, wouldn’t it?”
“Glorious, Jem.”
“Mean to go, Master Don?”
“What, and be a miserable coward? No.”
“But you was a-thinking something of the kind, sir.”
“Yes, I was, Jem. Everybody is stupid sometimes, and I was stupid then. No. I’ve thought better of it.”
“And you won’t go, sir?”
“Go? No. Why, it would be like saying what Mike accused me of was true.”
“So it would, sir. Now that’s just how I felt. I says to myself, ‘Jem,’ I says, ‘don’t you stand it. What you’ve got to do is to go right away and let Sally shift for herself; then she’d find out your vally,’ I says, ‘and be sorry for what she’s said and done,’ but I knew if I did she’d begin to crow and think she’d beat me, and besides, it would be such a miserable cowardly trick. No, Mas’ Don, I’m going to grin and bear it, and some day she’ll come round and be as nice as she’s nasty now.”
“Yes, that’s the way to look at it, Jem; but it’s a miserable world, isn’t it?”