Vashti. Give him to drink of it, May.
May. [Looking upwards to the ceiling.] No, Steve. Hark you here. I bain’t a-going to do it. I bain’t going to knock over the spoonful of sweet what you be carrying to your mouth. You take and eat of it in quiet and get you filled with the honey. ’Tain’t my way to snatch from no one so that the emptiness which I has in me shall be fed. There, ’tis finished now, very nigh, and the sharpness done. And, don’t you fear, Steve, as ever I’ll trouble you no more.
Vashti. [Rising.] I be a-going to fetch him down, and that’s what I’m a-going for to do.
May. [Pushing her back into her chair.] Harken you, Steve, he’s never got to know as I’ve been here.
Vashti. I tell you, May, I’ll screech till he do come!
May. [Sitting down by Vashti and laying her hand on her.] I’ll put summat in your mouth as’ll stop you if you start screeching, mother. Why, hark you here. ’Tis enough of this old place as I’ve had this night, and ’tis out upon the roads as I be going. Th’ old woman—there’s naught much changed in she—And Steve—well, Steve be wonderful hard in the soul of him. “Can I get you an old sack,” says he—and never so much as seed ’twas I—Ah—’tis more than enough to turn the stomach in anyone—that it is. [A slight pause.
May. I was never a meek one as could bide at the fireside for long. The four walls of this here room have very near done for me now, so they have. And ’tis the air blowing free upon the road as I craves—Ah, and the wind which hollers, so that the cries of we be less nor they of lambs new born.
Vashti. God bless you, May, and if you goes beyond the door ’tis the mealy-faced jade will get in come morning, for Steve to wed.
May. So ’tis. And if I stopped ’twould be the same, her’d be between us always, the pretty cage bird—For look you here on I, Mother, and here—[pointing to her feet]—and here—and here—See what’s been done to I what’s knocked about in the world along the roads, and then think if I be such a one as might hold the love of Steve.
Vashti. [Beginning to whine desolately.] O, do not you go for to leave your old mammy again what has mourned you as if you was dead all the years. Do not you go for to leave I and the wicked around of I as might be the venomous beasts in the grass. Stop with I, my pretty child—Stop along of your old mother, for the days of I be few and numbered, and the enemies be thick upon the land.