“Reckon you can look these over in the mornin’, wife. They’re jest a few new cross-stitch Bible texts, an’ I knowed you liked Scripture motters. Where’ll I lay ‘em, wife, while I go out an’ tend to lightin’ that lantern? I told Isrul I’d set it in the stable door so’s as he could git that steer out o’ the way immejate.”
The proposal to lay the mottoes aside was a master-stroke.
The aggrieved wife had already begun to wipe her hands on her apron. Still, she would not seem too easily appeased.
“I do hope you ain’t gone an’ turned that whole steer into perforated paper, Enoch, even ef ’tis Bible-texted over.”
Thus she guarded her dignity. But even as she spoke she took the parcel from his hands. This was encouragement enough. It presaged a thawing out. And after Enoch had gone out to light the lantern, it would have amused a sympathetic observer to watch her gradual melting as she looked over the mottoes:
“A VIRTUOUS WIFE IS FAR ABOVE RUBIES.”
“A PRUDENT WIFE IS FROM THE LORD.”
“BETTER A DINNER OF HERBS WHERE LOVE IS—”
She read them over and over. Then she laid them aside and looked at Enoch’s plate. Then she looked at the chicken-dish, and then at the bowl of gruel which she had carefully set on the back of the stove to keep warm.
“Don’t know ez it would hurt ‘im any ef I’d thicken that gruel up into mush. He’s took sech a distaste to soft foods sense he’s got that new set.”