"One of the snippy kind, back-talkin' an' peevish," said Miranda. "I can't bear 'em."
"That's the legal meaning," said Sandy. "I reckon this is it—submissive."
"Halter-broke. That's more likely. That's the kind that Keith party w'ud pick. I ain't ever seen her nor don't hope nor expect to, but that's the kind she'd pick. No backbone. Molly'll twist her round her little finger. Wonder how old she is?"
"The word you meant was anemic, Miss Mirandy," said Sandy, turning a leaf in the dictionary. "They sound about the same."
"There's too many words anyway," she replied. "Folks don't use mo'n a hundredth part of 'em an' git along first-rate. I don't see why they print 'em." Miranda did not show to the best advantage during the rest of her visit. She snubbed Mormon severely when he offered to get water for her car. "I've fetched an' carried for myself long enough not to want to be waited on," she said. "An' I don't need water anyway." She drove off and had to bail from an irrigating ditch before she was half-way to her destination. Whereupon she took herself to task.
"Miranda Bailey, there's no fool like an old fool," she said aloud, with sage-brush and timid prairie dogs for audience. "What you want to do is to keep sweet. Now git on." The final adjuration was to her car, to which she always spoke exactly as if it was a horse.
"What do you suppose made her so cantankerous?" Mormon inquired after she had driven round the corral. "Reckon you got her sore bawlin' her out about usin' the wrong word, Sandy. A woman's sensitive about them things."
Sam smote Mormon between the shoulders before Sandy could make answer.
"Fo' a man who's had yore experience, you're deef, blind, dumb an' lost to all sense of touch or motion," he shouted. "Remember what I said about the stenographer? Mirandy's jealous of the Nicholson woman. Plumb jealous! You better wear blinders while she's here, Mormon. If she's a good-looker, Gawd help you! Mirandy won't."