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 He's done everything a man kin do fer that woman. An' that's the thanks he gits fer it. Trouble with Judy, she dunno what she does want."

"I reckon not. If she had to put up with the things some wimmin has, she might have sumpin to complain about."

"Yaas, if he spent every cent on whiskey an' come home drunk an' blacked her eyes, like Teenie Pooler's man."

"Or run after every petticoat he saw, like Lambert Patton."

"Or went flighty, like Melvin Brewer, so's you couldn't know what he might be a-goin' to do with the butcher knife."

Aunt Maggie could have bitten off her tongue before the last speech was out of her mouth. It slipped out before she remembered to whom she was talking. She had not meant to encroach upon the sanctity of her listener's family skeleton.

Aunt Sally Whitmarsh's placid features did not alter in the least. But Aunt Maggie knew by a subtle change of atmosphere that her breach of the rules of conversation had not slipped by unnoticed.

"It's purty weather naow; but it'll likely rain agin to-night," said Aunt Sally, looking out of the window.

Later in the afternoon, Jabez Moorhouse pushed open the kitchen door. Nobody was there but the baby taking a nap in her crib. After a moment the door into the bedroom opened and Aunt Sally stood holding the knob in her hand.

"Howdy, Aunt Sally. I bin over to Gibbses' place grindin' up some tools, an' they told me Judy was took sick. Could I step in an' see her a minute?"

Aunt Sally hesitated and looked at him coldly. It was not the custom in Scott County for men who were no relation to be admitted to the bedsides of sick women.

"He'd better be off about his work, the idle loafer," she said to herself. But aloud she said, "She's a-feelin' pretty poorly," and held the door gingerly open for him to pass through.

He had come into the house from the midst of a blue October afternoon, still, sweet, and sunny, and with just enough freshness of chill in the air to make one take deep breaths and step lightly along and whistle the end of a tune. He