"Ay! an' who made her one? Tell me that." Sam laughed. "You may not want to hear it, Jane, but some folks hint that you was at the bottom of it—some think lazy Joe Boyd would have stayed on in that comfortable boat, with a firm hand like hern at the rudder, if you hadn't ding-donged at him and told tales to him till he had to pull out."
"Huh! They say that, do they?" The widow frowned as she turned and looked straight at him. "Well, let 'em. What do I care? I didn't want to see as good-hearted a man as he was hoodwinked."
"I reckon not," Sam said, significantly, and he walked out of the passage down towards the barn. "Huh!" he mused, as he strode along crumbling leaf-tobacco of his own growing and filling his pipe. "I come as nigh as pease tellin' the old woman some'n' else folks say, an' that is that she was purty nigh daft about Joe Boyd, once upon a time, and that dashing Ann cut her out as clean as a whistle. I'll bet that 'ud make my sister-in-law so dern hot she'd blister from head to foot."
[V]
That afternoon Jane Hemingway went out to the barn-yard. For years she had cultivated a habit of going thither, obviously to look after certain hens that nested there, but in reality, though she would not have admitted it even to herself, she went because from that coign of vantage she could look across her enemy's fertile acres right into the lone woman's doorway and sometimes catch a glimpse of Ann at work. There was one unpleasant contingency that she sometimes allowed her mind to dwell upon, and that was that Joe Boyd and his now grown daughter might, inasmuch as Ann's wealth and power were increasing in direct ratio to the diminution of their own, eventually sue for pardon and return. That had become Jane's nightmare, riding her night and day, and she was not going to let any living soul know the malicious things she had done and said to thwart it. Vaguely she regarded the possible coming-back of the father and daughter as her own undoing. She knew the pulse of the community well enough to understand that nothing could happen which would so soon end the war against Ann Boyd as such a reconciliation. Yes, it would amount to her own undoing, for people were like sheep, and the moment one ran to Ann Boyd's side in approval, all would flock around her, and it would only be natural for them to turn against the one woman who had been the primal cause of the separation.
Jane was at the bars looking out on a little, seldom-used road which ran between her land and Ann's, when her attention was caught by a man with a leather hand-bag strapped on his shoulders trudging towards her. He was a stranger, and his dusty boots and trousers showed that he had walked a long distance. As he drew near he took off his straw hat and bowed very humbly, allowing his burden to swing round in front of him till he had eased it down on the turf at his feet.
"Good-evening, madam," he said. "I'd like to show you something if you've got the time to spare. I've made so many mountain folks happy, and at such a small outlay, that I tell you they are glad to have me come around again. This is a new beat to me, but I felt it my duty to widen out some in the cause of human suffering."
"What is it you've got?" Jane asked, smiling at his manner of speaking, as he deftly unlocked his valise and opened it out before her.
"It's a godsend, and that's no joke," said the peddler. "I've got a household liniment here at a quarter for a four-ounce flask that no family can afford to be without. You may think I'm just talking because it's my business, but, madam, do you know that the regular druggists all about over this country are in a combine not to sell stuff that will keep people in good trim? And why? you may ask me. Why? Because, I say, that it would kill the'r business. Go to one, I dare you, or to a doctor in regular practice, and they will mix up chalk and sweetened water and tell you you've got a serious internal complaint, and to keep coming day after day till your pile is exhausted, and then they may tell you the truth and ask you to let 'em alone. I couldn't begin, madam—I don't know your name—I say I couldn't begin to tell you the wonderful cures this liniment has worked all over this part of the state."
"What is it good for?" Jane Hemingway's face had grown suddenly serious. The conversation had caused her thoughts to revert to a certain secret fear she had entertained for several months.