He scared me the way he whirled round at me.
"You miserable little creature!" he said. "What are you talking about?"
"Well," I says, "don't you ever think I—"
Then he done a funny thing. He drew a deep breath, and took his hat off and looked up at the sky and off over the fields.
"After all," he said, "thank God this is the way you are beginning to take it! When a country girl can protect herself like that, it is growing safe for her to be born. Listen to me, child," he says.
He had me puzzled for fair by then. I just listened.
"Just now," he says, "I called you a miserable little creature. That was because you quite naturally mistook me for one of the wretched hunters whom women have been trying to evade since the beginning. Well, I was wrong to call you that. Instead, I applaud your magnificent ability to take care of yourself. I applaud even more in the incident—but I won't bother you with that."
I kept trying to see what he meant.