'He's jead at last. At the turn of the night. They came after the coffin but now. I'll be able to get them there new section crates I wanted. He's doing more for me, wanting a coffin, and him stiff and cold, than what he did in the heat of life.'
'Many folks be like that,' said Hazel out of her new wisdom. Neither of them reflected that Abel had always been like that towards Hazel, that she was becoming more like it to him every year.
Abel made no remark at all about Hazel's adventures, and she preserved a discreet silence.
'That little vixen's took a chicken,' said Abel, after a time; 'that's the second.'
'She only does it when I'm away, being clemmed,' said Hazel pleadingly.
'Well, if she does it again,' Abel announced, 'it's the water and a stone round her neck. So now you know.'
'You durstn't.'
'We'll see if I durst.'
Hazel fled in tears to the unrepentant and dignified Foxy. Some of us find it hard enough to be dignified when we have done right; but Foxy could be dignified when she had done wrong, and the more wrong, the more dignity.
She was very bland, and there was a look of deep content—digestive content, a state bordering on the mystic's trance—in her affectionate topaz eyes.