“Ye wished I could hev hed riches,” Editha ponderingly recapitulated his phrases. Then she looked up, her blue eyes severe and her flushed face set. “An’ will ye tell me what’s the reason I couldn’t hev hed riches—old Tom fool!”
Thus the lovers!
“You-’uns, ’Ditha?” Benjie faltered, bewildered by the incongruity of the idea. “You, riches?”
“I could hev hed long ago sech riches ez ’Roy Tresmon’ hev got, sartain sure,” she declared. “An’ considerin’ ye hev kem in yer old age ter wish ye hed never seen me, ’pears like it mought hev been better ef I hed thought twice afore I turned him off forty-six year’ ago.”
“Turned off ’Roy Tresmon’! Forty-six year’ ago! What did ye do that fer, ’Ditha?” Benjie bungled, aghast. He had a confused, flustered sentiment of rebuke: what had possessed Editha in her youth to have discarded this brilliant opportunity!
“To marry you-’uns, of course,” retorted Editha, amazed in her turn.
“An’ now, oh, ’Ditha, that we hev kem so nigh the eend of life’s journey ye air sorry fer it,” wailed Benjie. “But I never knowed ez ye hed the chance.”
Editha tossed her head. “The chance! I hed the chance three times whenst he war young an’ personable an’ mighty nigh ez rich ez he be now.” She began to check off the occasions on her fingers. “Fust, at the big barn dance, when the Dimmycrats hed a speakin’ an’ a percession. Then one night whenst we-’uns war kemin’ home together from prayer-meetin’ he tol’ ag’in ‘his tale of love,’ ez he called it,” she burst forth in a shrill cackle of derision. “Then that Christmus I spent in Shaftesvul the year I stayed with Aunt Dor’thy he begged me ter kem out ter the gate jes at sun-up ter receive my present, which war his heart; an’ I tol’ him ez I war much obleeged, but I wouldn’t deprive him of it. Ha! ha! ha! Lawsy! we-’uns war talkin’ ’bout them old times all ’twixt the plays at the pictur’-show, an’ he declared he hed stayed a bachelor all these years fer my sake. I tol’ him that ef I war forty-five years younger I’d hev more manners than ter listen ter sech talk ez that, ha! ha! ha! ’T war all mighty funny an’ gamesome, an’ I laffed an’ laffed.”
“’Ditha,” said the contrite Benjie, taking heart of grace from her relaxing seriousness, “I love ye so well that it hurts me to think I cut ye out of any good thing.”