"No, indeed!" responded Reedy, roundly. "No one can estimate the influence of a good woman on a man's life."
"I'm so glad"—the shivery thrill got to her throat—"if I've really helped you—Reedy." It was the first time she had used his given name, although he had often urged it.
"You know," he continued, "in spite of the great opportunities for wealth here, I do not believe that I could have endured this valley if it had not been for you. You can't imagine what it means to a man, after the disagreeable hurly-burly of the day's business, to know there is a pure, sweet, womanly woman waiting for him on the porch."
Mrs. Barnett gulped, filled with emotion. "I do believe," she almost gushed, "men like the shy, womanly woman who keeps her place best after all."
"They certainly do!"
"I don't see," mused Mrs. Barnett, "how a man really could care for a woman who becomes so—so—well, rough and sunburned, and coarsened by sordid work—like that Chandler woman, for instance. I mean, I don't see how any good man could care for that sort."
"Nor I," said Reedy, emphatically. He steered with one hand, and got both of her hands in the other.
"This year is going to be a great one for me. Cotton is already over ten cents. I'll need only $25,000 more, and then I can clean up a fortune for all of us."
Mrs. Barnett, still thrilling to that hand pressure, moved a little uneasily.
"Uncle Jim has been right hard to manage for the last two times. He was real ugly about that last $40,000. I had to remind him how much my poor mother did for him and how little he had done for us before he would listen to me."