“Huh, you don't say!” the farmer sniffed. “I reckon ef they had 'a' sent out a proclamation through the country that they was goin' to stay thar a lot o' folks would 'a' waded through the storm to be present.”
“I got this out of her hair, I tell you!” the old woman went on, fiercely. “Her head was all messed up, and so was her dress. If you've got any manhood in you, you'll go to town and call Nelson Floyd out and settle this thing.”
“Huh! Me go to his store on his busiest day an' ax 'im about a piece o' fodder no bigger'n a gnat's wing? He'd tell me I was a dern fool, an' I'd deserve it. Oh! see what you are a-drivin' at, an' I tell you it gits me out o' patience. You women are so dad blasted suspicious an' guilty at the bottom yorese'ves that you imagine bad acts is as plentiful as the leaves on the ground in the fall. Now, let me tell you, you hain't obeying the Scriptural injunction to judge not lest ye be judged accordin'ly. I want you to let that little gal an' her sweetheart business alone. You hain't a-runnin' it. You don't have to live with the feller she picks out, an' you hain't no say whatever in the matter. Nur you h'aint got no say, nuther, as to the way she does her particular courtin'. The Lord knows, nobody was kind enough to put in away back thar when you was makin' sech a dead set fer me. Folks talk a little about Floyd, but let me tell you my own character them days wasn't as white as snow. I don't know many men wuth the'r salt that hain't met temptation. I sorter cut a wide swath 'fore I left the turf, an' you know it. Didn't I hear you say once that you reckoned you never would 'a' tuck me ef I'd 'a' been after you day an' night? You knowed thar was other fish in the sea, an' you didn't have any bait to speak of, with them Turner gals an' the'r nigger slaves an' plantations in the'r own right livin' next door to pa's. Yore old daddy said out open that you an' yore sister needn't expect a dollar from him; he'd educated you, an' that was all he could do. I hain't grumblin', mind you. I never cry over spilt milk; it hain't sensible. It don't help a body out of a bad matter into a better one.”
“Oh, I wish you'd hush and listen to me.” Mrs. Porter had not heard half he had said. “I tell you Cynthia and that man stayed all night long in that lonely mill together, an' she came home at sunrise this morning all rumpled up and—”
“Now, you stop right thar! You stop right thar!” Porter said, with as much sternness as he could command. “As to stayin' in that mill all by the'rse'ves, I want you jest to put on yore thinkin'-cap, ef the old thing hain't wore clean to tatters or laid away till it's moth-et. Do you remember when that lonely old widder Pelham pegged out durin' our courtin'-time? You do? Well! We went thar—you an' me did—expectin' to meet the Trabue crowd, an' that passle o' young folks from Hanson's, to set up with the corpse. Well, when me'n' you got thar about eight o'clock the Trabue crowd sent word that as long as the Hanson lay-out was comin', they believed they wouldn't drive so fur; an' right on top o' that come a message from the Hanson folks, sayin' that you an' me an' the Trabues was as many as the little house would hold, so they would stay away; an' thar you an' me was with nobody to make us behave but a dead woman, an' her screwed down tight in a box. I remember as clear as day that you laughed an' said you didn't care, an' you set in to makin' coffee an' cookin' eggs an' one thing another to keep us awake an' make me think you was handy about a house. Well, now, here's the moral to that tale. The neighbors—tough as my record was—was kind enough not to say nasty things about us afterwards, an' it hain't Christian or motherly of you to start a tale about our gal when as big a storm as that driv' her an' her beau in out o' danger. Besides, I tell you, you are standin' in Cynthia's light. She's got as good a right to the best in the land as anybody, an' I believe Nelson Floyd is goin' to git married sooner or later. He's had a chance to look over the field, an' I hope she'll suit 'im. I never made money by marryin', myself, an' I sorter like the idea o' my child gittin' a comfortable berth. That gal hain't no common person nohow. She'll show off a fine house as well as any woman in this state. She's got sense, an' a plenty of it; folks say she's like me.”
“You don't know what you are talking about.” Mrs. Porter was looking at the ground. Her hard face had softened; she was drawn perforce to words at her husband's view of the matter. His rebuke rang harshly in her ears. She turned towards the house and took several steps, then she looked back. “I pray God you are right, Nathan,” she said. “Maybe all the worry I had through the night has made me unable to see the matter fairly.”
“That's it!” said Porter, as he leaned on the fence; “and let me tell you, if you don't quit makin' so many mountains out o' mole-hills, an' worryin' at sech a rate, you'll go like yore sister Martha did. Try worryin' about yorese'f awhile; ef I thought as mean about my own child as you do I'd bother about the condition o' my soul.”
With her head hanging low, Mrs. Porter walked slowly to the house. Her view was more charitable and clearer, though she was so constituted that she could not at once obey her inclination to apologize to her daughter.
“I'm actually afraid I'm losing my mind,” she said. “I am acting exactly as Sister Martha did.”