"I don't know what poor Charles would say to such a smeachin' supper, if he was alive. Oh, me! it does seem as though I didn't have no heart for cookery no more since he ain't here ter sample my work. A man's a gre't spur to a woman in her housekeepin'."
"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated the outspoken Mrs. Scattergood. "I count 'em a gre't nuisance. If a body didn't have no men folks to 'tend to she could live on bread an' tea—if she so liked.
"Not but what I 'preciate a good lay-out of vittles like this o' yourn, Miz' Beasely. But thank the good Lord! I ain't been the slave to no man's appetite for goin' on fourteen year. An' that's about all men air, come ter think on it—a pair of muddy boots an' an unquenchable appetite!"
Mrs. Beasely looked horrified, shaking her widow's cap. "Poor Charles wasn't nothin' like that," she declared, softly.
"An' I don't s'pose a worse husband ever lived in Poketown," whispered the pessimistic old lady, when the widow had gone out of the room for something. "He's been dead ten year, ain't he, 'Rill?"
"About that, mother," admitted the school-teacher.
"An' I expect ev'ry year she makes more of a saint of him. I declare for't! sech wimmen oughter be made to marry ag'in. Nothin' but a second one will cure 'em of their fust!"
Mainly Janice and her friend, the little school-teacher, were engaged in their own particular conversation. The girl spent a very pleasant hour after tea, too, and started home just as dusk was dropping over the hillside town.
There was a light in Hopewell Drugg's store. He never seemed to have customers—or so it appeared to Janice. She hesitated a moment to peer into the gloomy place—more a mausoleum than a store!—and saw Hopewell leaning against the counter, while Lottie, in her pink sash and white dress, and the kid boots, sat upon it and leaned against her father while he scraped out some weird minor chords upon the fiddle.
Marty had come down the lane to the corner of High Street to meet Janice. Of course, he wouldn't admit that he had done so; but he happened to be right there when his cousin put in an appearance. There were no street lights on Hillside Avenue, and Janice was glad of his company.