“I’ll be dinged if them wimmen has any better manners nor a hog! I swan it will be a month o’ Sundays before I set foot in that house again! Seems as if ole gran’ther must be afeared to say his soul’s his own before that sassy pack, as why did he sit there glum as a dog, and let ’em lay down the law for him, by gosh?”
Doctor Binks was out, so he left his message on the slate and hurried to the nearest tavern to refresh himself and the mare before returning to Goody with the news of his rebuff at Stony Ledge—a rebuff that made them enemies to the Groves family forever after.
And it did not occur to either of the good old souls that gran’ther, instead of being under the dominion of his womenkind, and afraid to speak, had struggled with might and main to have his say, and been totally unable to make himself understood.
“So she will have to go,” Goody said, looking pitifully at poor demented Eva, yet not feeling that her duty required her to keep her when her own folks cast her out.
So she had the commission on lunacy report the case to the proper authorities, and a few days later a ward attendant from Weston was sent to take charge of Eva and convey her to the asylum.
Poor little soul, she knew no one or nothing. She went meekly with the woman on the short journey of a few hours, and the heartless women at Stony Ledge breathed freer when they saw in the country newspaper that she had gone.
As for Granfather Groves, he remained ill in bed for a week—so ill they would not let him talk, though they understood but too well the mute pain in the fading blue eyes.
At last he could sit up, feeble and tottery, in his old armchair in the warm corner, with the big dog’s head between his knees; and then they all three agreed that it was time to let him ask questions and have it out with him once for all.
“I mind what Neighbor Brown had to say about little Eva being at his house, and crazy, and all that. And did they send her to Weston?” he asked, with painful slowness, so that Cousin Tab ejaculated spitefully:
“Massy, how slow an’ poky you talk, gran’ther! Slow as cold merlasses! Yes, Eva was violent crazy, an’ they sent her to Weston. She was sick, too, they say, and will die soon. And now me an’ the other girls is plum down resolved that we don’t want to hear even her name spoken under this roof ag’in, seeing it’s insulting to decent wimmin to be named in the same breath!”