Mrs. Plankson gave involuntary assent and then glanced with oblique apprehension at her husband, whose will was made in her favor.
“But Sue Emma wasn’t of Yankee stock like the Ellison girls. She felt pestered to get along by herself.”
“Seem-me-like a man always is needed on a farm,” put in Mr. Plankson.
“Sue Emma thought that-a-way. But I talked reel plain to her when she took up with Jaw-awn. I hadn’t nothing against Jaw-awn, except he was a man. He was without property, but he was mighty good to Sue Emma and the children. Seem-like he thought as much of the children as he did of her. And when they had been married a couple of years and the new baby come, Jaw-awn would have been tickled to death if it hadn’t been for losin’ it and Sue Emma. Now that woman might have been livin’ to-day if she had let men alone. But Jaw-awn was a great hand for his folks. I thought he would go crazy. Seem-like he could neither lay nor set when he come home from buryin’ Sue Emma and the baby; but just wandered around, Lolly Loo and the little boy holdin’ one onto each of his hands.”
“Lolly Loo?” challenged Mrs. Plankson. “What-for name is that?”
“Laura Louise; but they called her Lolly Loo. Jaw-awn nacherly had to have folks to do for. I believe he would have got along reel well with the children, if he had been let alone; for he was a good manager.
“But Sue Emma’s father and mother moved right onto the place after the funeral, and the first thing they done was to turn Jaw-awn out. I suppose he had rights in law, but he didn’t make no stand for rights; what he seemed to want was folks. He’d been an orphan-like, without father or mother, and knocked around the world and got kind of homesick clean through. Gettin’ Sue Emma and her children was the same to him as comin’ into a fortune, and when he was throwed out of them he give up.
“The children, they felt terrible, for they thought so much of Jaw-awn; and cried and begged.
“‘Jaw-awn won’t be no trouble, grammaw,’ says Lolly Loo. ‘I can cook enough for Jaw-awn to eat, if you let him stay.’
“But the old couple, they up and throwed him out. And when he stopped here on his way to Springfield I could see the man was clean broke down.