"What's wanted?" I heard him say.
"Quick, quick! Lemme in! Lemme in!" I heard from outside. I knew it was Mis' Bingy. We got down-stairs just as Pa opened the door, and she come in. Everything about her was blowing—her long hair and her outing nightgown and the baby's shawl. She could hardly breathe, and she leaned against the door and tried to lock it. I went and locked it for her. She sat down, and the baby was awake and crying, so she jounced it up and down, without knowing she was doing it, while she told what was the matter. She twisted up her hair, and I didn't think she knew she done that, either. She had on a blue calico waist to a work dress, over her nightgown, and her bare feet were in shoes, with the laces dangling. Ma took one look at her, and went and put on the teakettle. She said afterward she never knew she done that, either.
Mis' Bingy told us what happened. She had been laying awake up-stairs when he come home. He called her, and she didn't answer. Then he brought a flatiron and beat at the door. Then he yelled that he'd bring the ax. When he went for it, she slipped out of her bedroom and locked the door, and hid in the closet under the stairs till she heard him run up 'em. Then she started.
"He'll kill me," she says. "He said he'd kill me. I've never known him like this before."
Pa come back from his room, part dressed.
"I'll go and get the constable," he says.
"Oh," says Mis' Bingy, "don't arrest him! Don't do that!"
"Lookin' for to be killed?" says Pa. "And us, too, for a-harborin' you here?"
She fell to crying then, and the baby cried. Mis' Bingy said things to herself that we couldn't understand. Ma come and brought her a cup of hot water with the tea that was left in the teapot poured in it. Ma had a calico skirt around her shoulders, and she was in her bare feet.