“Yes,” interrupted Mrs. Johnson, appreciatively, “that was a question. What did you let ’em go there to live for? That’s what I want to know, Nancy Riley.”
“Well,” sighed Aunt Nancy, “I did try to prevent it. I talked to Rhody, but she thought she could surely git along with Jim’s mother—said she loved her already, pore thing! Then I tuk Jim to task, an’ he said the ole folks weren’t willin’ fur him to leave ’em; his father was gittin’ old, an’ ther’ were lots ’o rooms in the house, an’ his mother was glad he was goin’ to marry an’ bring his wife there, she was so lonesome now all her girls was gone, an’ a heap more sich stuff.”
“Lonesome, indeed!” snapped Mrs. Johnson. “She was glad to git rid of her girls, so she was! Laws! don’t I mind what times them poor girls had to git decent clothes? She jist grudged ’em everything, an’ kep’ ’em workin’ like—I was goin’ to say darkys, but no darky ever worked like old Mis’ Curtis made her girls. No wonder they up an’ tuk the first feller ’at came along an’ asked ’em. But I stopped you, Aunt Nancy—excuse me—for I knowed Mis’ Curtis so well. The idea of her a-bein’ lonesome! She wanted somebody to help with the work, she did. Her own girls got 227 away soon’s they could. That Jim must ’a’ been a fool!”
“Oh, no, he wasn’t,” went on the soft voice. “It’s mighty little a young feller like him knows about housework, an’ his mother’s work never bothered him. So as soon as Rhody’s school was out in the spring they was married. You see, her uncle thought for a pore girl she was doin’ purty well, an’ I ’low she was ef she had been jes’ marryin’ Jim Curtis, but she warn’t—she was a tyin’ of herself to his mother.”
“More fool Jim!” snarled Mrs. Johnson.
“Now, Mis’ Johnson,” said Aunt Nancy, “Jim meant well, an’ he worshipped the very ground Rhody walked on; but, you see, old Mis’ Curtis she didn’t believe in young folks makin’ simpletons of theirselves, and when she see Jim slip his arm ’roun’ Rhody, or her run her hand through his curly hair, she’d snap out something sort o’ hateful; so Rhody she got afraid of her, an’ there’s where the trouble begun, in my ’pinion, fur if my pore child had let Jim see how she was imposed on, he certingly’d have made a change, but to keep peace she jist made believe she was happy ’nough. I use’ ter go over sometimes, though I knowed Mis’ Curtis set no store by my comin’, but Rhody was allus that glad, and I tell you it riled me to see how she was treated. It was: ‘Rhody, bring the milk out of the suller’; ‘Rhody, fetch some wood’; ‘Rhody, set the table,’ till I wondered she didn’t drop.
“One awful hot day I was there, an’ 228 Rhody she was ironin’ in the back porch, an’ Mis’ Curtis she was makin’ pies; she was a master-hand at cookin’; you’ll ’low that, Mis’ Johnson.”
“Oh, yes,” snapped Mrs. Johnson, “Mary Ann Curtis was a master at anything she put her hand to.”