Two people were coming along the path. Luke and I sat still—it was so dark nobody could notice us where we were. I heard them talking and then I heard Ma's voice. I knew right off Henny had told her about Keddie, and she was going to try to get Mis' Bingy to come home with us.
" ... On my feet from morning till night," she was saying, "till it seems as though I should drop. I don't know how I stand it."
Pa was with her. "Stand it, stand it!" he says. "Anybody'd think you had the pest in the house. I'm sick of hearin' you whine."
"I know," says Ma, "nobody thinks I'm worth anything now. But after I'm dead and gone—"
"Oh, shut up," says Pa. And they went by us.
I stood up, all of a sudden. Anything would be better than home.
"Luke—" I says.
In a few years maybe him and me would be talking the same as Ma and Pa. Maybe he'd be hanging around the Dew Drop Inn, same as Keddie Bingy. What of it? All women took the chance.
"Luke," I says, "all right."
"Do you mean you will?" says Luke. I liked him the best I'd ever liked him, the way he says that.