In the corner farthest from Eli, a delicate-looking man began to tell the butcher about Eli's wife.
“Twelve years ago this fall,” he said, “I taught district-school in the parish where she lived. She was about fourteen then. Her father was a poor farmer, without any faculty. Her mother was dead, and she kept house. I stayed there one week, boarding 'round.”
“Prob'ly did n't git not much of any fresh meat that week,” suggested the butcher.
“She never said much, but it used to divert me to see her order around her big brothers, just as if she was their mother. She and I got to be great friends; but she was a queer piece. One day at school the girls in her row were communicating, and annoying me, while the third class was reciting in 'First Steps in Numbers,' and I was so incensed that I called Lizzie—that's her name—right out, and had her stand up for twenty minutes. She was a shy little thing, and set great store by perfect marks. I saw that she was troubled a good deal, to have all of them looking and laughing at her. But she stood there, with her hands folded behind her, and not a smile or a word.”
“Look out for a sullen cow,” said the butcher.
“I felt afraid I had been too hasty with her, and I was rather sorry I had been so decided—although, to be sure, she did n't pretend to deny that she had been communicating.”
“Of course,” said the butcher: “no use lyin' when you 're caught in the act.”
“Well, after school, she stayed at her desk, fixing her dinner-pail, and putting her books in a strap, and all that, till all the rest had gone, and then she came up to my desk, where I was correcting compositions.”
“Now for music!” said the butcher.
“She had been crying a little. Well, she looked straight in my face, and said she, 'Mr. Pollard, I just wanted to say to you that I was n't doing anything at all when you called me up;' and off she went. Now, that was just like her,—too proud to say a word before the school.”