"There be more ways nor one o' speakin' your mind," he said at last. "But
I stood up to un. Did you hear, Batts, as Great End Farm is let?"
The old man turned an animated look on his companion.
"Well, for sure!" said Batts, astonished. "An' who's the man?"
"It's not a man. It's a woman."
"A woman!" repeated Batts, wondering. "Well, these be funny times to live in, when the women go ridin' astride an' hay-balin', an' steam-ploughin', an' the Lord knows what. And now they must be takin' the farms, and turnin' out the men. Well, for sure."
A mild and puzzled laughter crossed the speaker's face.
Halsey nodded.
"An' now they've got the vote. That's the top on't! My old missis, she talks poltiks now to me of a night. I don't mind her, now the childer be all gone. But I'd ha' bid her mind her own business when they was yoong an' wanted seein' to."
"Now, what can a woman knoa about poltiks?" said Batts, still in the same tone of pleasant rumination. "It isn't in natur. We warn't given the producin' o' the babies—we'd ha' cried out if we 'ad been!"
A chuckle passed from one old man to the other.