Lizzie Graham nodded. “But there’s people would pay money for one of them machines—if it worked.”
“That’s what he said; he said he’d make a pile of money. But he didn’t care about that, except then he could pay board to Dyer, if Dyer’d let him stay.”
“An’ won’t he?”
“No; and I don’t see as he has any call to, any more ’an you or me.”
Lizzie Graham plucked at the dry grass at her side. “That’s so. ’Tain’t one person’s chore more ’an another’s. But—there! If this wa’n’t Jonesville, I believe I’d let him stay with me till he finishes up his machine.”
“Why, Lizzie Graham!” cried Mrs. Butterfield, “what you talkin’ about? You couldn’t do it—you. You ain’t got to spare, in the first place. And anyway, him an unmarried man, and you a widow woman! Besides, he’ll never finish it.”
Lizzie’s face reddened angrily. “Guess I could have a visitor as well as anybody.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean you wouldn’t be a good provider,” Mrs. Butterfield said, turning red herself. “I meant folks would talk.”
“Folks could find something better to talk about,” Lizzie said; “Jonesville is just nothin’ but a nest o’ real mean, lyin’ gossip!”
“Well, that’s so,” Mrs. Butterfield agreed, placidly.