"Sim Burns, what you ben doin' to that woman?" she burst out, as she waddled up to where the two men were sitting under a cottonwood tree, talking and whittling after the manner of farmers.
"Nawthin' 's fur 's I know," answered Burns, not quite honestly, and looking uneasy.
"You needn't try t' git out of it like that, Sim Burns," replied his sister. "That woman never got into that fit f'r nawthin'."
"Wal, if you know more about it than I do, whadgy ask me fur?" he replied, angrily.
"Tut, tut!" put in Councill, "hold y'r horses! Don't git on y'r ear, children! Keep cool, and don't spile y'r shirts. Most likely you're all t' blame. Keep cool an' swear less."
"Wal, I'll bet Sim's more to blame than she is. Why, they ain't a harder-workin' woman in the hull State of Ioway than she is—"
"Except Marm Councill."
"Except nobody. Look at her, jest skin and bones."
Councill chuckled in his vast way. "That's so, mother; measured in that way, she leads over you. You git fat on it."
She smiled a little, her indignation oozing away. She never "could stay mad," her children were accustomed to tell her. Burns refused to talk any more about the matter, and the visitors gave it up, and got out their team and started for home, Mrs. Councill firing this parting shot:—