“Then let us hope he’ll never get to ‘The King of Prussia.’ ” Martha shook her head. “You see, Flynt’s offered to bear a hand.”
“Oh, well!” said Jinny. “Then it’s all settled.”
“But he won’t have his father, either. Nearly bullied his head off. So Flynt’s going to keep behind him all the way in case of a breakdown.”
The picture of Caleb slinking furtively along the roads, behind his boy and the box, moved Jinny’s risible muscles, and she burst into a laugh that was not far from tears.
“Don’t, Jinny! I can’t bear it. You can’t love him, or you wouldn’t sit there and laugh. I always knew you weren’t the right girl for him!”
Jinny took this as the babbling of a mind distraught. “You’ll get over it,” she assured the old woman, patting the thin hand with the worn wedding-ring. “And he’s bound to come back.” The necessity of quieting Martha was fortifying: Jinny was like a queasy passenger saved from sea-sickness by having to look after a still worse sailor. She was the soul of the company at tea, staving off the duel of texts and sending Ravens into ecstasies over her quips and flashes. There was one bad moment, however, when Daniel Quarles candidly remarked to Mrs. Flynt: “Ravens should be tellin’ me as your Willie’s gooin’ furrin. Ye’ll be well riddy o’ the rascal.”
“Willie’s an angel!” cried Martha hysterically.
“How could there be angels ef there ain’t no heaven?” he queried, with a crafty cackle. “Noa, noa, Mrs. Flynt, it ain’t no use kiverin’ up as he’s a bad egg. But one bad in a dozen or sow is fair allowance. Ye’re luckier than me, what hadn’t even one good ’un. Now ef Ravens here had been my buo-oy——!”
Jinny saw Martha a bit of the way home. She had now found a new compromise. “Tell Will that Ravens will come with my cart.”
“And what will be the good of that?”