“Did anybody inform Ab of the object of this meeting?” asked Odell.
They all looked at Filmore, and he transferred their glances to his wife. She flushed under their scrutiny and awkwardly twisted her fat arms together.
“Sister Calihan wuz in here this mornin’,” she deposed in an uneven tone. “I ‘lowed somebody amongst ’em ort to know what you-uns wuz up to, so I up an’ told ‘er.”
“What did she have to say?” asked Odell, bending over the scales to spit at a crack in the floor, but not removing his eyes from the witness.
“Law, I hardly know what she didn’t say! I never seed a woman take on so. Ef the last bit o’ kin she had on earth wuz suddenly wiped from the face o’ creation, she couldn’t ‘a’ tuk it more to heart. Sally wuz with ‘er, an’ went on wuss ‘an her mammy.”
“What ailed Sally?”
Mrs. Filmore smiled irrepressibly. “I reckon you ort to know, Brother Odell,” she said, under the hand she had raised to hide her smile. “Do you reckon she hain’t heerd o’ yore declaration that Eph cayn’t marry in no heretic family while yo ‘re above ground? It wuz goin’ the round at singin’-school two weeks ago, and thar hain’t been a thing talked sence.”
“I hain’t got a ioty to retract,” replied Odell, looking down into the upturned faces for approval. “I’d as soon see a son o’ mine in his box. Misfortune an’ plague is boun’ to foller them that winks at infidelity in any disguise ur gyarb.”
“Oh, shucks! don’t fetch the young folks into it, Brother Odell,” gently protested Bart Callaway. “Them two has been a-settin’ up to each other ever sence they wuz knee-high to a duck. They hain’t responsible fer the doin’s o’ the old folks.”
“I hain’t got nothin’ to take back, an’ Eph knows it,” thundered the tall deacon, and his face flushed angrily. “Ef the membership sees fit to excommunicate Ab Calihan, none o’ his stock ’ll ever come into my family. But this is dilly-dallyin’ over nothin’. You fellers ’ll set thar cocked up, an’ chaw an’ spit, an’ look knowin’, an’ let the day pass ‘thout doin’ a single thing. Ab Calihan is either fitten or unfitten, one ur t’other. Brother Filmore, you’ve seed ’im the most, now what’s he let fall that’s undoctrinal?”