"They don't need our help, Stanley. It's we who need theirs. They'll get more than the vote. They'll get rid of corsets, smoke if they want to, go into business, live alone in a room like Early Ann Sherman wanted to...."
"I ... I wanted to ask you about her," Stud said. "I wanted you to tell me more than you could that night you put her in my spring wagon."
Halleck hesitated, looked down at the glowing tip of his cigar, then began slowly. "I don't think I know much more about her than you do, Stanley. She came to Brailsford Junction last winter and got a job stemming tobacco in one of the warehouses. She took a room across the track with Mrs. Marsden,—that front room downstairs with the outside door."
"And then ...?"
"Well, nothing really. She didn't tell anyone where she came from, or who her folks were, or why she wanted to live alone like that. She was pretty and proud and full of spunk, so the gossips got their tongues wagging ... Mrs. Marsden, and old Mrs. Crandall, and that blue jay, Temperance...."
"But what was wrong?"
"Nothing so far as I know. The Hubbards who live next door thought they saw a man around her window one night, and on another occasion Mrs. Marsden heard her scream, but when she reached the girl's room Early Ann was alone...."
"The sluts."
"Temperance Crandall and a delegation came to me—they always do—and said they wanted to swear out a warrant. I told them they couldn't swear out a warrant for a girl just because she was living alone and there was gossip...."
"Dirty-minded old women," Stud said.