For a moment there was silence. Mrs. Ewebanks knew she had blundered hopelessly. Mary Ann, who never said anything, and who seldom moved when anyone was looking at her, now turned appealingly to her mother, and, unfolding her gingham sunbonnet, she bent down and swung it like a switchman’s flag between her knees. Mrs. Ewebanks paid no heed to it. She dreaded her husband’s finding out what had passed, especially as he had intrusted her with a message to Mrs. Thompson quite out of key with her argument.
“Jim told me to tell you he’d drive you over in his wagon in the mornin’ ef you are bent on makin’ the trip,” she said almost apologetically.
Joe Thompson whirled round fiercely. His back was against the door, and in his checked shirt and rolled-up sleeves he looked like a pugilist ready for fight.
“We don’t need any help from you-uns,” he snorted. “I’m goin’ to take mother.”
Mrs. Ewebanks now felt sure that her husband would blame her for the rejection of his invitation. In her vexation she slapped Mary Ann’s red hand loose from its urgent clutch on her skirt and turned to Joe.
“I’m afeard I’ve been meddlin’ with what don’t concern me,” she began, but the young man interrupted her.
“It’s our bed-time,” he said fiercely. “The Lord knows mother’s had enough o’ yore clatter fur one dose.”
“Joe!” exclaimed Mrs. Thompson sternly, “I ’lowed you had more manners.”
Mary Ann had drawn her mother’s skirt sharply to one side and grasped her arm tenaciously. Mrs. Ewebanks allowed herself thus to be unseated, and she rose meekly enough. There was nothing in her manner resembling a threat that she would never be ordered out of that house again, and in this Mary Ann witnessed her mother’s first swerving from habit.
There was a look on the widow’s face which showed that she was almost sorry for her visitor’s chagrin.