Grandmother Gregg was one of those worthy if difficult women who never let anything interfere with her duty as she saw it magnified by the lenses of pain or temper. It usually pleased her injured mood to make waffles on wash-day, and the hen-house owed many renovations, with a reckless upsetting of nests and roosts, to one of her “splittin’ headaches.” She would always wash her hair in view of impending company, although she averred that to wet her scalp never failed to bring on the “neuraligy.” And her “neuraligy” in turn meant medicine for the deacon.
It was probably the doctor’s timely advice, augmented, possibly, by the potencies of the frying-pan, with a strong underlying sympathy with the worrying woman within—it was, no doubt, all these powers combined that suddenly surprised the hitherto complying husband into such unprecedented conduct that any one knowing him in his old character, and seeing him now, would have thought that he had lost his mind.
With a swift and brave fling he threw the pill far into the night. Then, in an access of energy born of internal panic, he slid nimbly from his perch and started in a steady jog-trot into the road, wiping away the tears as he went, and stammering between sobs as he stumbled over the ruts:
“No, I won’t—yas, I will, too—doggone shame, and she frettin’ her life out—of co’se I sell ‘im for anything he’ll fetch—an’ I’ll be a better man, yas, yas I will—but I won’t swaller another one o’ them blame—not ef I die for it.”
This report, taken in long-hand by an amused listener by the roadside, is no doubt incomplete in its ejaculatory form, but it has at least the value of accuracy, so far as it goes, which may be had only from a verbatim transcript.
It was perhaps three-quarters of an hour later when Enoch entered the kitchen, wiping his face, nervous, weary, embarrassed. Supper was on the table. The blue-bordered dish, heaped with side-bones and second joints done to a turn, was moved to a side station, while in its accustomed place before Enoch’s plate there sat an ominous bowl of gruel. The old man did not look at the table, but he saw it all. He would have realized it with his eyes shut. Domestic history, as well as that of greater principalities and powers, often repeats itself.
Enoch’s fingers trembled as he came near his wife, and standing with his back to the table, he began to untie a broad flat parcel that he had brought in under his arm. She paused in one of her trips between the table and stove, and regarded him askance.
“Reckon I’ll haf to light the lantern befo’ I set down to eat, wife,” he said, by way of introduction. “Isrul ‘ll be along d’rec’ly to rope that steer. I’ve done sold him.” The good woman laid her dish upon the table and returned to the stove.
“Wish you’d ‘a’ sold ‘im day befo’ yesterday. I’d ‘a’ had a heap less pain in my shoulder-blade.” She sniffed as she said it; and then she added, “That gruel ought to be e’t warm.”
By this time the parcel was open. There was a brief display of colored zephyrs and gleaming cardboard. Then Enoch began rewrapping them.