Says she, “I believe the poor, deah man mistrusted it all out and run away from trouble and disgrace brought upon him by that female, his wife.”
“How dare you speak the word disgrace in connection with Mary Morton?” says Maggie Snow.
“How dare I?” says Betsey. “Ask Thomas Jefferson Allen, as it happened, I got it from his own mouth, it did not come through two or three.”
“Got what?” says I, and I continued in pretty cold tones, “If you can speak the English language, Betsey Bobbet, and have got sense enough to tell a straight story, tell it and be done with it,” says I. “Thomas Jefferson has been to Jonesville ever sense mornin’.”
THE QUILTIN’ PARTY
“Yes,” says she, “and he was coming home, jest as I started for heah, and he stopped by our gate, and says he, ‘Betsey, I have got something to tell you. I want to tell it to somebody that can keep it, it ought to be kept,’ says he; and then he went on and told; says he,—‘The minister’s wife has got home, and she didn’t come alone neither.’
“Says I, what do you mean? He looked as mysterious as a white ghost, and says he, ‘I mean what I say.’ Says he, ‘I was in the men’s room at the depot this morning, and I heard the minister’s wife in the next room talking to some body she called Hugh, you know her husband’s name is Charles. I heard her tell this Hugh that she loved him, loved him better than the whole world;’ and then he made me promise not to tell, but he said he heerd not only one kiss, but fourteen or fifteen.