“Never you mind whether Seth is or whether he isn’t,” answered Alvira. “A young tadpole of a girl like you’s got no business pryin’ ’raoun’ older folks’ affairs. You better go home! M’tildy may need yeh. Yer sister’s got her work to dew, ’n’ so ’ve I.”
This plain intimation produced no effect upon Samantha. She continued to warm her hands, which were already the hue of a red apple with the heat, and remarked: “No, she don’ want me. Annie said I might stay ’s long ’s I wanted to. She said she wanted to be left alone. She’s abaout the wuss broke up girl I ever sot eyes on. You ought to see the way she takes on, though. I bet the widder ain’t a succumstance to her. Ef you’d seen what I saw, ’n’ heern what I heerd this afternoon, I guess you’d think so tew.”
The girl spoke calmly, with a satisfied conviction that nobody would tell her to go home again in a hurry.
“What was it?” came simultaneously from the kneading-board and the churn.
“Oh, I dunnao,—I ain’t much of a han’ to blab everythin’. A young tadpole of a girl like me, yeh knaow, ain’t got no business——”
“Come naow! Don’t be a fool, S’manthy! Ef you’ve got anythin’ to say, spit it aout!”
Thus adjured by the commanding tones of Alvira, the girl trifled no more, but related what she had seen, while hidden behind the thorns. She had a talent for description, and made so much of Annie’s stony face and strange behavior, that she succeeded in producing an effect of mystification upon her listeners scarcely second to that under which she, as an involuntary spectator, had labored. The success of her recital was not lost upon Samantha, as she went on:
“Et was after th’ undertaker’s waggin ’n’ th’ men—some gallus lookin’ young fellers, f’m Tecumsey I guess, was amongst ’em—et was after these’d all gone by, thet I heerd her talk. She kind o’ hid herself in th’ bushes while they was a goin’ by, ’n’ stared at ’em like mad, ez fur’s she c’d folly ’em. Then she bust aout—not a-cryin’ mind yeh, fur she never shed a tear—but wringin’ her han’s ’n’ groanin’ ’n’ actin’ ’s ef she was goin’ to faint. I c’d see her jest ez plain ’s I kin see you stan’in’ there naow, ’n’ heer her, tew. All to onc’t she up ’n’ said——”
The young girl stopped here in the narrative abruptly, with a fine disregard for the consuming interest with which her companions were regarding her; she lifted her nose, and drew two or three leisured sniffs. Then she bent down at the side of the stove and repeated them.
“Ther’s somethin’ burnin’ in thet oven,” she said at last, confidently.