Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/74

 back to her sisters, they all reached out their necks and gobbled after her derisively. Jerry and Jabez, starting out to the field where they were cutting tobacco, came and leaned for a few moments on the railing beside Judith.

"Do you know what them young Toms reminds me of?" said Judith, looking at Jerry with an eye not entirely free from the self-consciousness of sex. "They make me think of a pack o' fellers a-standin' raound the street corner in Clayton or Sadieville of a Sunday afternoon dressed in their good clothes, a-swellin' up their chests an' a-cranin' their necks after every gal that goes by, an' then a-blabbin' together about her after she's gone a-past. They'd otta think shame to theirselves for bein' so vain an' idle. There's the turkey hens all out in the field a-eatin' corn so they kin grow up quick an' lay eggs an' make more little turkeys, so Aunt Eppie an' Uncle Ezra kin have more money to put in the bank. That's haow a turkey'd otta act, 'stead of enjoyin' his own vain life."

She laughed and looked quizzically at Jerry.

Jerry had no rejoinder to make. He was not quick at repartee. But he was young, healthy, and handsome; and as he looked from the turkeys back to Judith, the smile on his lips and the answering look in his eyes made words an impertinence. Jabez looked at the turkeys and at the boy and girl and laughed an amused, indulgent laugh. He was fifty-five and had long known the way of a turkey in the sun and the way of a man with a maid.

"The young Toms'll be cut off in the pride o' life," he said in his rich, sonorous voice, "an' jes as well for them that they air. An' the turkey hens'll live to raise up families. An' the families they raise'll repeat the same thing all over agin, an' so on world without end. Amen. Solomon was right when he said there's no new thing under the sun, an' that which has been is that which is a-goin' to be. An' yet each new batch takes as much interest in livin' as if they was the only ones that had ever lived an' was a-goin' to keep on livin' forever. It's the same with folks. Hain't that so, Jerry?"

Jerry had not heard a word of what Jabez had said and