It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect. An entire brigade of Crippses would not have daunted me then. I should have enjoyed defying them all.
“Yes,” said I, “she is coming with us, Hephzy. Mr. Cripps, will you be good enough to stand out of the way? Come, Frances.”
It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs. Cripps said. They said a good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits among the rest. Hephzy fired the last guns for our side.
“Yes, yes,” she retorted, impatiently. “I know you're goin' to sue. Go ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you want to. The lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some comfort—though I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even that. And I tell you this: If you don't send Little Frank's—Miss Morley's trunks to Mayberry inside of two days we'll come and get 'em and we'll come with the sheriff and the police.”
Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of intrenchments, the line of piety.
“And to think,” she declared, with upturned eyes, “that this is the 'oly Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to Him not to curse them too hard.”
Hephzy's retort was to the point.
“I wouldn't,” she said. “If I had been doin' what you two have been up to, pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to give her a home, and all the time doin' it just because I thought I could squeeze money out of her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much. I wouldn't take the risk of callin' His attention to me.”