"Makin' easy money ain't bein' a fool, Ophelia! Like I was fixin' to tell you, after we get the whiskey 'cross the Louisiana line, Hicks can sell it retail—you know, in fifths. And sometimes by the drink. We'll get a sight more for it that way. He's gonna get regular customers lined up and see to it that I'll have plenty of sugar—two or three hundred pounds at a time. He can arrange with a fellow so there won't be no suspicion round here. You know yourself if I was to go to Drake Eye Springs and start buyin' a heap of sugar at Mister Jodie's store, that'd be a dead giveaway. Say, he might be the very one to loan me some money! Providin' I don't let on to him what it's for." "Ward, you ain't talking sense! You're just—" "Dammit, woman, shut your mouth! This is the first sensible thing I ever—Good God A' mighty! Ophelia, look down yonder at the spring! Who in hell's that? Heerd ever' damn word I said! Why didn't you tell me somebody was around? Looks like some young'un!" "I didn't know nobody was here. I sent the young'uns to fetch the cow, and I left the house just a minute ago to come look for berries." "Ophelia, that's that damn little gal of Mister Jodie's and Miss Nannie's! I swear to God, if she tells her pa, I'll kill her! I'll kill her! So help me!" It was me, all right! I snatched up the water gourd and started streaking back up the trail! "Good God, Ward! You're drunk, or crazy! Don't say such a thing! Anyhow, she's so little she wouldn't know what's going on! See how little she is? Just look at her spindly legs!" I didn't have time to look at my spindly legs. I just tried to go faster! "Ain't no little gal gonna stop me! Dammit! I'm gonna set up my still come the devil to my doorstep! And if the Law comes bustin' it up, I'll know exactly who turned me in! Woman, you get on to the house and see who all else's up there. I swear to God! Don't nothin' ever go right for me! Get!" "I'm going, Ward. I'm going. Miss Nannie must've come to set with poor Aunt Dink." "Poor Aunt Dink! Poor Aunt Dink! That's all I hear! When's that old blind bitch ever gonna die?" "Ward, she's my aunt! She raised me from a baby!" "Yeah, yeah! From a bastard baby. You've told me ten times how your ma died a-birthin' you and didn't nobody want you, so Miss Dink and her old man taken you and raised you. Then, fool me, I come along and married you! My pa told me I'd rue the day. He said I ought to marry me a big rawboned gal—one that could plow a mule and do a day's work in the field. Pa was a blame fool about lots of things, but he sure know'd women. He said these little stringy ones like you ain't good for a confounded thing but birthin' young'uns, and he was sure right. Here I am thirty-nine years old, goin' on forty, and ain't got a damn thing but two old mules, some wore-out plows, and a houseful of young'uns—and you expectin' another one."