“’Tain’t so!” he said, with old-fashioned passion against a lie. “You think you kin shut me up that-a-way and I’ll go to bed easy! You git right out!”
“If you don’t take keer I will!” cried the exasperated housekeeper. “Let’s see what the Lord says!”
She closed her eyes and put a finger on a text of the Bible which lay open there, meaning, if it were favorable, to take him at his word and leave the consequences to heaven.
But what she read was:
“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
II
EMMY AND HE WERE NEVER APART
When seven o’clock came, old Liebereich, unrebuked, still reviled her and her housekeeping. For the Scriptures had spoken and the woman knew her duty. She did it. And not a word delayed or hastened by an instant old Liebereich’s relentless progress to bed.
Even when he was there he said:
“You can’t keep no house! My Emmy kin beat you all! Look at that!”
It was an andiron which had become dull.