"More noosances?" he growled.
"Thee'd best take her in, Andrew. It costs thee nothing," with a dry, quizzical smile.
Andy's face grew redder than his shirt, as he climbed up on the wagon-wheel.
"H'ist me up her basket here, then. A'n't I kind to her? I drink my coffee every noon at her stall, though 't's the worst in the market. If 'twas a man had sech a bamboozlin' phiz as hers, I'd bat him over th' head, that 's all."
"She's a widow, and thee's afraid of thy weak point," said Jane.
"Take yer joke, Jane." The lad looked down on the woman's bony face kindly. "They don't hurt, yer words. It's different when some folks pokes fun at me, askin' for the lantern, an'"—
"What odds?" said the woman hurriedly, a quick change coming over her face. "They mean well. Haven't I told thee since the night thee comed here first for a meal's victuals, an' all the years since, how as all the world meaned well to thee, Andrew? Not only sun an' air an' growth, an' God behind; but folks, ef thee takes them by the palm of the hand first, an' not raps them with the knuckles, or go about seekin' to make summat off of each."
Andy was in no mood for moralizing.
"Ye'r' hard on old Wart in that last remark, I'm thinkin',"—glancing at the dumpy bunch of a woman seated at their breakfast-table within, her greedy blue eyes and snub-nose close to her plate.
The Quaker turned away, trying to hide a smile, and began tugging at some dock-weeds. Her arms were tougher and stronger than Fawcett's. He used to say Jane was a better worker than he, though she did it by fits and starts, going at it sometimes as if every limb was iron and was moved by a steam-engine, and then for days doing nothing, playing with a neighbor's baby, sitting by the window, humming some old tune to herself, in a way that even Andy thought idle and childish. For the rest, he had thought little about her, except that she was a strangely clean and silent woman, and kind, even to tenderness,—to him; but to the very bats in the barn, or old Wart, or any other vermin, as well.