Gordon was momentarily disconcerted. He had not intended to tell Lettice how much the General had cost. And yet, he reflected, since the village knew, with Sim Caley’s wife in the house, it had been folly to hope to keep it from her.
“It’s his pedigree,” he explained lamely; “champion stock, imported.” His temper again slowly got the better of his wisdom. “What if I did pay two hundred dollars for him?” he demanded; “it’s harmless, ain’t it? I’d a sight better do that than some other things I might mention.”
“I only said,” she repeated impersonally, “that I would not throw stones at a dog that had cost so much money.”
“You’re getting on the money now, are you? Going to start that song? That’ll come natural to you. When I first married you I couldn’t see how you were old Pompey’s daughter, but I might have known it would come out. I might have known you weren’t the daughter of the meanest man in Greenstream for nothing.... I suppose I’ll hear about that money all the rest of my life.”
“Perhaps I will die, and then you will have no bother.”
“That’s a nice way to talk; that makes me out a fine figure of a man ... with Mrs. Caley in the kitchen there, laying right over every word; the old vinegar bottle.”
“Don’t you say another word about Mrs. Caley,” Lattice declared passionately; “she nursed my mother in her last sickness; and she took care of me for years, when there wasn’t anybody else hardly knew if I was alive or not. If it wasn’t for Mrs. Caley right now I guess I’d be in an early grave.”
Gordon Makimmon stood silenced by the last outburst. The tall, meager figure of Mrs. Caley appeared upon the porch. She was clad in black calico, and wore grey felt slippers. Her head was lowered, her closed lips quivered, her bony fingers twitched. She never addressed a word to Gordon directly; and, he decided, when she did, it would be monumental, dumbfounding. The present moment was more than usually unpropitious; and, discovering General Jackson at his heels, he picked the dog up and departed for the stable, where he saw Sim Caley putting the horse into the buggy.
“I thought I’d go over to the farm beyond the priest’s,” he answered Gordon’s query; “Tol’able’s an awful slack hand with cattle.”
“Your wife ought to run that place; she’d walk those steers around on a snake fence.”