"Yes, they are still hammering at the poor creature’s back," said Sam, "and that’s one thing I can’t understand, nuther. She’s got dead loads of money—in fact, she’s independent of the whole capoodle of you women. Now, why don’t she kick the dust o’ this spot off of her heels an’ go away whar she can be respected, an’, by gosh! be let alone _one_ minute ’fore she dies. They say she’s the smartest woman in the state, but that don’t show it—living on here whar you women kin throw a rock at her every time she raises her head above low ground." "I’ve wondered why she don’t go off, too," the widow said, as she peered down at the floating lumps of yellow butter in the snowy depths of her vessel, and deftly twirled her dasher in her fingers to make them "gather"; "but, Sam, haven’t you heard that persons always want to be on the spot where they went wrong? I think she’s that way. And when the facts leaked out on her, and her husband repudiated her and took the child away, she determined to stay here and live it down. But instead of calling humility and submission to her aid, she turned in to stinting and starving to make money, and now she flaunts her prosperity in our faces, as if _that_ is going to make folks believe any more in her. Money’s too easily made in evil ways for Christian people to bow before it, and possessions ain’t going to keep such men as Brother Bazemore from calling her down whenever she puts on her gaudy finery and struts out to meeting. It was a bold thing for her to do, anyway, after berating him as she did when he went to her to get the use of her grove for the picnic." "They say she didn’t know Bazemore was to preach that day," said Sam. "She’d heard that the presiding elder was due here, and I’m of the opinion that she took that opportunity to show you all she wasn’t afraid to appear in public." Virginia Hemingway threw a handful of berry-stems out into the sunshine in the yard. "She’s a queer woman," she said, innocently, "like a character in a novel, and, somehow, I don’t believe she is as bad as people make her out. I never told either of you, but I met her yesterday down on the road." "_You_ met her!" cried Mrs. Hemingway, aghast. "Yes, she was going home from her sugar-mill with her apron full of fresh eggs that she’d found down at her hay-stacks, and just as she got close to me her dress got caught on a snag and she couldn’t get it loose. I stopped and unfastened it, and she actually thanked me, though, since I was born, I’ve never seen such a queer expression on a human face. She was white and red and dark as a thunder-cloud all at once. It looked like she hated me, but was trying to be polite for what I’d done." "You had no business touching her dirty skirt," the widow flared up. "The next thing you know it will go out that you and her are thick. It would literally ruin a young girl to be associated with a woman of that stamp. What on earth could have possessed you to—"