“I don’t know,” replied Caleb testily. “I don’t know her at all. Nobody does. She don’t go around where folks are.”
“Didn’t she ever attend church?”
“Not her! She’s got a system of her own. Her and the New Captain got it up together. The Old Captain and his wife was regular members, but down to the public library Mis’ Katy says the New Captain used to ask for books that a Christian would ’a’ been ashamed to be seen carrying up the street under his arm.”
“Occultism, probably.”
“The judge can tell you. He understands them things.”
“Is he a spiritualist?”
“Not precisely, but leanin’. Goes to the First Baptist on Sunday mornings, and all over the cape week-days, to parlor meetings. It was the New Captain started him off, too. The judge, he thinks if he keeps after it, he’ll get a message from him, and he’s real worried, waitin’. But Mattie—she goes around in the yard, even, talking out loud to the cap’n, as if he was right there, diggin’ in the garden.”
“Lots of people talk to themselves.”
“To themselves, yes! I know they do. But Turtle’s boy—he takes the groceries, and he is the only one that will go in there now—he says sometimes it’s more than he can stand. He jest puts the stuff down on the step and runs away. She gets that cross-eyed girl next door to go on errands for her. All that family is—” he tapped his head significantly, “and don’t know the difference.”
“You mean that Mattie is crazy?” I asked indignantly. “She’s no more crazy than you or me.”