“‘Here,’ she says, ‘is her baby three weeks old, an’ her barely settin’ up. Your Sary was at work afore her baby was that old, an’ I know it; an’ if Mis’ Rhody can’t wait on herself now, she can go ’thout waitin’ on for all of me,’ she says.
“‘Mis’ Curtis,’ says I, ‘my Sary’s a different woman from Rhody.’
“‘I guess she is,’ says Mis’ Curtis, mad as fire.
“‘An,’ says I, ‘Jim ought to get somebody to help wait on Rhody and take care of the baby,’ says I, ‘or else it’s my ’pinion he won’t have ’em long; fur,’ says I, ‘Rhody’s gettin’ weaker instead of stronger, and she ain’t got milk fur that pore baby.’
“Then Mis’ Curtis she jes’ let loose, an’ I ketched it. She said it was all my doin’s that Jim married that pore no-’count, stuck-up school-mistress, an’ brought her there to be waited on, an’ she knowed it all along, and now I needn’t come a-tryin’ to make out as Rhody wasn’t treated well, fur she had wore herself out trottin’ up and down 231 stairs, an’ she didn’t mean to do it any longer.
“Just then the kitchen door was opened, and old Mr. Curtis came in.
“‘Why, howdy, Aunt Nancy?’ says he as cheerful, though I knowed he must have seen somethin’ was up.”
“Yes,” interrupted Mrs. Johnson angrily, “that’s the way people do, and call it keepin’ peace. I despise sich ways. Why didn’t he make her behave herself? Suppose there was a fuss; ef she’d found he was goin’ to be boss, she’d soon give up.”
“I guess not, Mis’ Johnson,” said the other; “she had sich a temper.”