"No; for speaking to me," she answered, as she turned quickly to the house, and he went on to the city, as fast now as his horses could spurn the miles, and he had gone some distance before his face lost the expression caused by her last speech; but long ere he reached the town, the old gloom again settled upon his countenance.
From the high window Mrs. Deans had watched Myron and Homer as they drove from the foot of the garden; as they passed the corner of the house she sped to a more advantageous window, arriving in time to see Myron unclasp her hands from his arm and descend from the wagon. Mrs. Deans could hardly restrain herself from calling aloud to them, and proclaiming her discovery of their "brazenness," if not from the house-top, at least from the attic window; but with much strength of will she denied herself and kept silent until Homer's wagon vanished, and she heard a vigorous rap-rap down stairs. Then she collapsed upon a heap of winter quilts that were piled in the attic, and communed with herself.
"She was doin' some rare begging, but the Wilsons is strong set when they've made up their minds. But such cheek! To drive her up to my door as bold as brass, and in no hurry out of sight, either; at least," bethinking herself, "he did drive off mighty quick, when once she got out; wonder if she wanted me to see him! Well, if that's her idea, 'twon't do her no good! She should have told me when I asked her; I won't take no notice, now; she can't get me to back down from what I've said; it's a terrible disgrace on Marian Wilson—well, they did talk about Marian and that stonecutter one time, but he went away, and it was all smothered up, but I had my own thoughts. Well, this is a judgment on her now; she was too set up when Homer came back to the farm; like's not, he was druv to it! Fine goin's on, I warrant, he had in the city! Thank the Lord, Maley's not sich as Homer Wilson; but then he's been brought up different, and it's all in the bringin' up. And there was something very queer about that stonecutter business; that would account for Homer's being so bad."
Mrs. Deans went about her work dreamily, struggling with the problem of Homer's depravity; her philosophy—like some other philosophies—first created a result, and then strove to invent circumstances to justify and explain it.
Mrs. Deans was sorely tried to decide what course was best to pursue: she would have liked to go at once to Mrs. Wilson, and proclaim her son's iniquity to her and see "how she took it"; she longed to go to Mrs. Holder's and announce that she had discovered the secret which had so puzzled the village; she would have dearly loved to shower upon Myron Holder the new and expressive epithets that were trembling upon the tip of her tongue, but the peculiar view she had adopted of the situation suggested to her that Myron Holder wanted the secret she had kept so long and so well discovered; and greater than her desire to see her lifelong friend disgraced by the proof of her son's fault—greater than her desire to vindicate her own superior cunning—greater even than her desire to berate Myron Holder, was her determination to make Myron Holder suffer; so she decided to take no active step in the affair, no matter how hard the repression of her righteous wrath might prove.
She felt, however, there could be no harm in giving Mrs. White a hint of how things stood, for the Sunday before this Homer Wilson had tied up young Ann White's buggy shafts when he found her at a standstill on the way home from church. Here Mrs. Deans wandered a little from the main track, and dwelt a while on the enormity of Homer Wilson tearing along the roads, or through the woods, or along the lake shore, the whole Sabbath day, instead of going to church; here she recalled, with a shock, that Myron Holder never went to church either, and Mrs. Deans, putting two and two together, decided that not only of sin, but of sacrilege, were these two guilty.
Mrs. Deans felt fired with a great zeal for young Ann White's soul: if she should be led into marrying Homer Wilson, what a dreadful thing it would be! Not but what the Whites needed something to take them down a peg; still the pleasure of balking Homer, if he had any thoughts in Ann White's direction, would be something. Besides, although Mrs. Deans did not formulate this to herself, it would relieve the pressure of restraint to tell Mrs. White the circumstances, and Mrs. Deans concluded to herself: "It can't do no harm to let Ann White know. I miss my guess if she has her sorrows to seek; that Bing isn't ten removes off an idiot."
So Mrs. Deans contented herself all the forenoon by staring at Myron Holder with a concentrated glare of contempt and triumph, varied only by sudden calls to Liz to "come back from there" whenever she approached Myron, and when Liz "came back," which she did in a hasty and indefinite way, not knowing very well why Myron had suddenly become so dangerous, Mrs. Deans would say:
"Haven't you got enough evil in you, but what you must learn more bad off of her?" or, "There ain't no use my striving to bring you up decent, when your natural bent is to be bad," or some other remark to the same effect.
In the afternoon, the rain heralded by so many infallible signs made its appearance, and Mrs. Deans perforce remained at home. She took her sewing to the kitchen, and set Myron and the bound girl to work to mend the grain bags; and as the storm outside whipped the maples, and struggled with the oaks, and stripped the horse-chestnut trees of their brittle blossoms, so the storm of Mrs. Deans' vituperation raged over the heads of the two girls sitting on the floor surrounded by the dusty grain bags. Liz was in such a state of nervousness that she was sticking her needle into her fingers at every second stitch, when Myron Holder began to feel the floor rising with her—the bags whirled round and round in a circle of which she was the centre; the floor ceased to rise evenly and tilted up—up—on one edge—tilted until it was perpendicular, and flung Myron Holder off—a long distance off—into an abyss of darkness, through which whirled great wheels of light that rushed toward her as if they would utterly destroy her, but always passed by a hair's breadth; the last one passed, its light vanished, the whirring of its rapid flight died away, even the darkness disappeared—Myron Holder had fainted. She still sat, needle in one hand, bag in the other. Liz reached across for another bag and chanced to knock against her slightly; Myron fell over like a log.