I stood up in front of them, and I dunno but I felt like a fairy godmother that had something to give them—something priceless.
"When two folks," I says, "speak cross to each other and can't give in, it's just as sure a disease as—as quinsy. And it'll be fatal, same as a fever can be. You can hate the sight of me if you want to, but that's why I spoke out like I done."
I didn't dare look at them. I began just there to see what an awful thing I had done, and how they were perfectly bound to take it. But I thought I'd get in as much as I could before they ordered me off the porch.
"I've loved seeing you over here," I says. "It's made me young again. I've loved watching you say good-by in the mornings, and meet again evenings. I've loved looking out over here to the light when you sat reading, and I could see your shadows go acrost the curtains sometimes, when I sat rocking in my house by myself. It's all been something I've liked to know was happening. It seemed as if a beautiful, new thing was beginning in the world—and you were it."
All at once I got kind of mad at the two of them.
"And here for a little tinkering matter about screens for the parlor, you go and spoil all my fun by not speaking to each other!" I scolded, sharp.
It was that, I think, that turned the tide and made them laugh. They both did laugh, hearty—and they looked at each other and laughed—I noticed that. For two folks can not look at each other and laugh and stay mad same time. They can not do it.
I went right on: "So," I says, "I told you each the truth, that the other one was sick. So you were, both of you. Sick at heart. And you know it."