At this moment Aunt Sadie Johnson bustled into the shop, and having none of Julie’s delicate hesitancy, exploded the hidden situation with a startled exclamation.
“Julie,” she began, “I just ran in to see if that white ruchin’ I got you to order for me—Well, for the mercy sake!” she broke off, suddenly catching sight of Elizabeth. “Well, my lands!” she continued, staring frankly, and unafraid of drawing upon herself the full fire of the cigarette.
It was some such violent attention as this that Elizabeth had hoped for.
“What’s the matter?” she inquired in her most superior manner. “Oh,” feigning surprise, “my cigarette? Why surely, Mrs. Johnson, I’m not the first woman you’ve seen smoke.”
“That you ain’t!” Aunt Sadie retorted promptly. “I’ve seen a plenty of ’em do it.”
Elizabeth was somewhat dashed, but she rallied as best she could. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad Hart’s Run ain’t such a back number as not to know that all the smart women smoke nowadays.”
“Smart?” Aunt Sadie cried, and went off into billows of large mirth. “Well, you may call ’em smart, but I dunno’s they look so stylish to me. There’s old Betty Willets from off Rocky Ridge. She drives her old wagon an’ broken-down horse into town, to collect the swill from folks’ backyards to take up to her hog. She’s one of our smart smokers. An’ they all smoke up Spitzer’s Holler—an’ chew too—they’re ’bout the lowest-down lot of folks we have ’round here. Oh, no, you ain’t the first I’ve seen smoke, not by a long sight. But it does look like a pity for a right young woman like you to be smoking and chewin’—it’ll just ruin your teeth.”
“Chew?” cried Elizabeth wildly. “You don’t think I chew tobacco, do you?”
“Oh, don’t tell me!” Aunt Sadie returned. “I never saw a woman yet who smoked, that she didn’t chew on the sly an’ dip snuff, too. Oh, I’d be the last person in the world to say there was any real harm in it,” she went on tolerantly, “with so many of our old folks still doin’ it; it’s only that I always did think chewin’ an’ spittin’—”
“I don’t chew!” Elizabeth cried furiously. “Of course I don’t! Who ever heard of such a thing? Well, I’m going,” she announced, flouncing to the door. “An’ I’ll say this, Miss Rose,” she added, “I don’t think you’re any too polite either to strangers. In all the time I’ve been here, you’ve hardly said two words, and you haven’t so much as asked me to take a chair.” Angry tears leaped in her eyes, and she flung herself away out of the shop and up her own stairs.