Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/109

 "You look jes like a Tom turkey with its head a-swellin' up with blood," she teased. "Why does a man allus like to feel hisself big an' important an' better'n every other man? You 'member Uncle Tom Pooler at the party. 'I'm a baar in the woods, I am. Yaas, sir, I'm a baar in the woods! She imitated his whiskey-fuddled mutterings.

"An' you men hain't the on'y ones," she went on. "All male critters is the same. Look haow proud a Tom turkey struts, an' haow a big rooster cranes his neck an' crows an' chases the smaller roosters out o' the yard. An' look haow two big, bellerin' bulls'll fight jes fer the love o' fightin'. Wimmin hain't like that, allus makin' the most o' theirselves. They tend their own business and let other wimmin tend theirs."

"The hell they do so," countered Jerry. "Aunt Sally Whitmarsh was into our place las' night, an' I jes wish you cud a heard her. I was in the little room off the kitchen a-shavin' an' the door was open atween. An' if Aunt Sally wa'n't a-spittin' out pizen about the neighbors acrost the kitchen stove to mammy, then I don't know a dirty tongue when I hear it. The ugly thing about wimmin is they never say a thing right out an' have done with it, like a man does. They jes set with their hands in their laps an' say a little bit an' leave the rest to the other woman's dirty 'magination. An' my own mammy herse'f hain't much better'n the rest. I don't like wimmin, Judy. There's sumpin' small an' mean an' underhand an' foul about most all of 'em. Uncle Jabez was purty nigh right when he told me they was all harlots. You're the on'y woman I know that's got a man's ways, Judy. You hain't spiled."

The year passed quickly for them both in their delirium of early love. Accident was kind to them and did not thrust upon them with untimely speed the physical results of the sweet intimacy that they enjoyed. So they did not have to hasten their marriage, and the neighbors were deprived of a juicy bit of scandal. In February Jerry procured a license; and one day late in the month they drove over to Clayton