Something in his face attracted a grizzled old farmer, who was moving along beside him, and he turned with a beaming look.
"How's that for a speech, eh? Did y' ever hear the like of it?"
"No, I never did."
"Ain't she a wonder, now? D' you s'pose there's another woman like her in the world?"
Bradley shook his head. He was sure of that!
A gaunt old woman, who wore a dark green-check sunbonnet hanging at the back of her head, put in a word.
"Shows what a woman can do if you give 'er a chance."
"Hello, Sister Slocum, you're always on hand."
"Like a sore thumb, Brother Tobey, an' I don't know of any one got a bigger interest in downin' the plutes than the farmers' wives—do you?"
It was pathetic, it was unforgettable, to see these people as they stood beside the rounded, supple, splendid figure of the speaker and took her strong, smooth hand in their work-scarred, leathery palms—these women of many children and never-ending work, bent by toil above the wash-tub and the churn, shut out from all things that humanize and make living something more than a brute struggle against hunger and cold.