"I never thought that old wench was as black as she was painted," Sam declared, with as much firmness as he could command in the presence of so much femininity. "If this had been a community of men, instead of three-fourths the other sort, she'd have been reinstated long before this. I'll bet, if the Scriptural injunction for the innocent to cast the first stone was obeyed, there wouldn't be no hail-storm o' rocks in this neighborhood."
"Oh, she would just suit a lot of men!" Jane said, in a tone which indicated the very lowest estimation of her brother-in-law's opinion. "It takes women to size up women. I want to meet the old thing now, just to show her that I'm still alive and kicking."
Jane had this opportunity sooner than she expected. Dr. Putnam had enjoined upon her a certain amount of physical exercise, and so one afternoon, shortly after getting back, she walked slowly down to Wilson's store. It was on her return homeward, while passing a portion of Ann's pasture, where the latter, with pencil and paper in hand, was laying out some ditches for drainage, that she saw her opportunity.
"Now, if she don't turn and run, I'll get a whack at her," she chuckled. "It will literally kill the old thing to see me walking so spry."
Thereupon, in advancing, Jane quickened her step, putting a sort of jaunty swing to her whole gaunt frame. With only the worm fence and its rough clothing of wild vines and briers between them, the women met face to face. There was a strange, unaggressive wavering in Ann's eyes, but her enemy did not heed it.
"Ah ha!" she cried. "I reckon this is some surprise to you, Ann Boyd! I reckon you won't brag about being such a wonderful health prophet now! I was told down in Atlanta—by experts, mind you—that my heart and lungs were as sound as a dollar, and that, counting on the long lives of my folks on both sides, I'm good for fifty years yet."
"Huh! I never gave any opinion on how long you'd live, that I know of," Ann said, sharply.
"You didn't, heigh? You didn't, that day at the wash-place when you stood over me and shook your finger in my face and said you knew what my trouble was, and was waiting to see it get me down? Now, I reckon you remember!"
"I don't remember saying one word about your cancer, if that's what you are talking about," Ann sniffed. "I couldn't 'a' said anything about it, for I didn't know you had it."
"Now, I know that's not so; you are just trying to take backwater, because you are beat. That peddler that examined me and sold me a bottle of medicine went right to your house, and you pumped him dry as to my condition."