“Jim told me he’d been over,” she began, with a sneer, as she seated herself squarely in her chair and brushed a brindled cat from under her blue homespun skirt. “Scat! I don’t want yore flees! An’ he told me, after I’d pumped ’im about dry, what he was fool enough to advise you. Men hain’t a bit o’ gumption. What’s he want to tell you all that foolishness fer? I hain’t never had a bit o’ use fer them high-falutin’ Hansards. Why, they hain’t had respect enough fer yore feelin’s to even let you know yore sister was at death’s door. Sally Wynn jest drapped onto it by accident.”
Mrs. Thompson was standing in the chimney-corner, her hand on the little mantelpiece, but she sat down.
“I reckon a body ort not to have ill-will at sech a time,” she faltered. “Ef Melissa’s a-dyin’ I reckon it ’ud be nothin’ more’n human fer me to want to be thar. She mought be sorry you see, in ’er last hour, an’ wish she’d sent fer me. I’d hate to think that, after she was laid away fer good an’ all.”
“Pshaw!” Mrs. Ewebanks drew her damp, steaming shoes back from the fire. She had something else to say.
“I never told you, Martha Thompson, but I give it to that woman straight from the shoulder not long back. I was visitin’ my brother over thar. Mrs. Hansard used to drive out fer fresh air when the weather was good, an’ she stopped at the spring on brother’s place one day while I was thar gittin’ me a drink—no, I remember now, I was pickin’ a place to set a bucket o’ fresh butter to harden it up fer camp-meetin’. She didn’t take no more notice o’ me’n ef I’d been some cornfield nigger, but you bet I started the conversation. I up an’ axed ’er ef she wasn’t a Hansard an’ when she ’lowed she was, I told ’er I thought so from her favor to ’er sister over here. She got as red as a pickled beet, an’ stammered an’ looked ashamed, then she sot into axin’ how you was a-comin’ on, an’ the like.”
“That was a good deal fer Melissa to do,” observed the widow. “Thar was a time that she never mentioned my name. She’s awful proud.”
“Oh, I’ll be bound you’ll make excuses fer ’er,” snapped Mrs. Ewebanks. “When folks liter’ly knock the breath out’n you, you jump up an’ rub the hurt place an’ ax the’r pardon. As fer me, I give that woman a setback that I’ll bet she didn’t git over in a long time. I told ’er as I looked straight in ’er eyes, that ef she wanted to know how ’er own sister was makin’ of it, she’d better have ’er nigger drive ’er over to the log shack Martha Thompson lives in, an’ pay a call.”
“Oh, you said that!”
“Yes, an’ she jest set on the carriage-seat an’ squirmed like an eel an’ looked downcast an’ said nothin’.”
“That must ’a’ been at the beginnin’ o’ ’er sickness,” said Mrs. Thompson thoughtfully. She had missed the point of her visitor’s story and kept her eyes on her son, who sat in the chimney-corner, his feet on a pile of logs and kindling pine.