"I was going to tell you how Het tuck it," Wrinkle ran on, and there was nothing for the girl to do but remain. "Dick told me to go on up to the big house an' hand in his report in as fair shape as I could, an' I sent his mammy, who was havin' ten fits a minute, to him, and went up to Het's room, whar she lies down at that time o' the day. She's as tough as rawhide, you know, an' I wasn't afraid she'd keel over, so while she was frownin' at me like she thought I ought not to have butted in on her privacy that way, I up an' told her the news. Well, sir, it plumb floored her. You kin well imagine it would take a big thing to down Het, but that did. She set up on the edge o' the bed, makin' wild stabs with 'er feet at 'er slippers, and lookin' wall-eyed an' scared.
"'Pa,' says she, 'this is one o' yore jokes.'
"'Joke a dog's hind-foot!' says I. 'If you think it's a joke you jest step to that thar window an' look down at the peach-packin' shed.'
"Well, sir, you don't have to tell a woman twice how to verify an important report. She riz like she was on springs, an' thumped across the room in her stockin'-feet, an' looked out o' the window, with me right in her wake. An' thar, as plain as a sheep in the middle of a stream, stood Dick a-pealin' an' eatin' the peaches his mammy was fetchin' him. An' now comes the part that may not suit you, Alf, one bit; but I've come to fetch the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth. In consideration of what Het has fell heir to, an' one thing an' another, it may not be good news to you to hear that, instead o' lookin' sorry, Het actually chuckled an' reddened up like a gal in her teens.
"'It's him!' she said. 'Thank God, it's Dick—it's Dick!'
"I couldn't pull 'er away from the window. She jest leaned agin the sash an' stared, an' rubbed 'er hands together, an' went on like she was gettin' religion. Then I set in, as well as I knowed how, to tell 'er about Dick's mishap, but she waved her hand backward-like, an' stopped me. 'Leave all that out,' she said, sorter impatient, as if she couldn't think of but one thing at a time. 'You needn't tell about that—he's alive, that's enough—Dick's alive!' And, would you believe it, folks? She flopped herself down in a chair an' cried and tuck on at a great rate. It upset me so that I give up the whole dang business. I went down an' told Dick he'd better go attend to 'er. He axed me how the crazy spell went down, an' I told 'im I didn't think she'd even heard it, or ever would, for that matter. Women seem to scent a thing from far off that they don't want to believe, an' close every pore of their bodies an' eyes an' ears so it can't get in."
"Well, what was the final upshot of it all?" Henley was quite calm, though a great new light was flaring in his eyes as they rested on Dixie, who was looking off in the direction of the mountain, her little hands grasping the palings of the fence, her tense body thrown slightly backward.
"Dick's my own son," Wrinkle made answer, "but I got out o' all patience with him. He ought to 'a' let well enough alone, bein' as Het was willin' to let bygones be bygones. But not him. As me 'n him walked up to the house, an' he looked over them broad acres on all sides, an' as we went in at that fine door, he seemed to get back to his old self—an' that is one thing that sorter makes me believe a little in the crazy spell, for he looked like a man that had just waked up from a long nap, shore enough. He was the maddest chap I ever laid eyes on as he went up them steps to her private quarters. I followed. I wasn't wanted, I reckon, but I had to see the thing through. She come up to him, Het did, all wet from head to foot with tears, and tried to throw 'er arms around his neck, but he shoved 'er off, he did, an' begun the awfulest rip-rantin' jowerin' you ever heard, about the scan'lous way she'd carried on with you while he was off. He didn't say nothin' about his spell—he had no apologies to make. Accordin' to his way o' lookin' at it, she'd blackened the white purity of his home while his back was turned, an' nothing but blood, an' whole gurglin' streams of it, would suit him. Well, they had it nip and tuck for fully an hour, an' then they come to an agreement. They was to drive over to Carlton the next day and ax Judge Fisk if Het had disgraced 'erself past recall; and so we hit the road bright an' early. The judge was mighty nice. He said a big mistake had evidently been made, but it was one that the law could rectify if Het 'u'd just grease its wheels properly. He said he'd quit settin' on the bench hisse'f—bein' beat by the Prohibitionists in the last election—an' had gone back to practise at the bar, an' would gladly take the case in hand. He saw plainly, he said, that it was Het's duty, havin' come into sech a big estate as that, to clear her record all she could, even if it did cost her considerable outlay, first an' last. He summed the whole thing up as calm, an' bent over with his pencil in his hand, an' peepin' above his specs, just like he was deliverin' a charge to a jury in a murder case. It was for Het to weigh the evidence pro and con, an' consider, an' deliberate, an' make her final choice betwixt the two claimants she had got tangled up with. He didn't know, he went on to say—an', of course, he must have suspicioned that she'd already made up her mind, bein' as she had fetched Dick along an' left you out in the wet—he didn't know, he said, but what jestice sorter leaned to the prior claimant, possession bein' nine parts of the law, an' Dick bein' incapacitated an' rendered null an' void fer the time involved. As to the crazy spell Dick had, he gave it as his opinion that such things had been heard of often. He'd 'a' made a good doctor, that judge would; he said the brain was the finest constructed part of the human an—an—anatomy—that's it,—anatomy. He said it was made up of a bunch of fibres an' strings as thin as spider-webs, an' that an expert with the saw an' knife could open a man's skull an' tickle the ends of 'em an' make the patient cut a different caper for every nerve he touched. He said that's why human nature was so varied. He said, with all fees paid, that Het could suit her own tastes an' inclination. He said that she could claim that Dick's quar condition an' his disinclination to furnish a support equal to her reasonable demands justified her in callin' the fust deal off; or, on t'other hand, that she could regyard it as the only obligation to which she was bound by law or religion, an' that he would set about—after the fee was paid in cash, or by check on any good, reliable bank, or even by a solid, negotiable note—he would set about to have the second weddin' set aside, and an-an—"
"Annulled," Henley threw into the gap.
"Yes, that's it—annulled," Wrinkle echoed. "An' he advised her to have it docketed for next week's special term o' court, and that he'd promise to rush it through without hitch or bobble. Dick seemed better satisfied after they left the judge, an' they driv' back home without any more wranglin'. Dick has bought him some new fishin'-tackle, an' is off to the river to-day. He has a natural pride in the big plantation, and rid all over it this mornin'. He says he has some new ideas that he picked up in the West—before he had his spell, I reckon—which he intends to apply there."