“Now look ’ee here,” said Simon, and his usually merry eyes flashed angrily; “this here bit o’ business bain’t to my likin’ no ways. What do I care for the wold stockin’? I can earn enough to keep myself—ah, that I can—an’ I could keep a wife, too, if I wanted one; an’ what’s farty pound? The wold ’ooman had best keep it to be buried with.”
“For shame!” cried Rosy. “’Tis pure ongrateful of ye to speak so, and Aunt Becky so took up wi’ ye.”
“Well, I can’t help it,” returned the young man bluntly. “The job bain’t to my likin’. I did come out for a hollerday, and here I be ordered to set ’taters—an’ what’s more, I get nothin’ but cross looks and sharp words what I don’t deserve.”
“I’m sure your aunt speaks civil enough,” said Rosy in a somewhat mollified tone.
“An’ so she mid,” responded he promptly. “She mid very well be civil when she do expect so much. But there’s others what’s uncivil, and ’tis that what I can’t abide. I’ve a good mind,” he added gloomily, “to cut an’ run—yes, I have,” he cried resolutely. “I’d sooner be cleanin’ out pigstyes nor be treated so unkind as you do treat I. But for that matter, my mother ’ull be glad enough to see I. I’ll step home-along—that’s the very thing I’ll do; I’ll step home-along.”
“Oh, but what will Aunt Becky say?” cried Rosy in alarm.
“Aunt Becky be blowed!” exclaimed Simon with decision. “Let her say what she pleases. I’ll leave her an’ you to make it up together. ’Tis more nor flesh an’ blood can stand to be treated as you’ve a-treated I since I did come to this house.”
“Oh, please—please don’t go!” gasped the girl. “There, I really didn’t mean—I—I—I only thought my aunt a bit unjust.”
“Well, and very like she was,” said Simon magnanimously. “I think the money what was saved out o’ the man’s wage did ought to go to the man’s folk. You’ve the best right to that there stockin’, Miss Rosy, and I’ll not bide here to stand in your light.”
This was heaping coals of fire on Rosy’s pretty head with a vengeance. She looked up in Simon’s face with a smile, though there were tears in her eyes, and she impulsively dropped the carpet and held out two little sunburnt hands.