"It doesn't matter to you what I say, or what I go through with. I've stood more than I rightly ought, more than I'm going to--you must give me one thought in a day. You just act low. Father was self-headed, but he was never real trashy. He never got into fights at those common camp meetings." "I threw the stone that hit Buck, didn't I! I busted his head open, didn't I! Oh, of course, I'm to blame for it all ... put it on me." "Well, how did you get in it? how did you get mixed up with the school-teacher?" "I got Mrs. Caley to thank for this, and I'll thank her." He hotly recited the obvious aspect of his connection at the camp meeting with Meta Beggs. "It sounds all right as far as it goes," she retorted; "but I'll chance there's a good deal more; I'll chance you had it made up to meet her there. You would never have gone for any other reason; I don't believe you have been to a revival for twenty years. You had it made up between you. And that Miss Beggs is too smart for you, she'll fool you all over the mountain. I don't like her either, and I don't want you to give her the satisfaction of making up to you. It's what she'd like--laughing at my back!" "Miss Beggs never spoke any harm of you." She made a gesture, hopeless, impatient, at his innocence. Her resentment burst out again, "Why does she want to speak to you--another woman's husband? Anybody knows it's low down. When did you see her? What did you talk about?" "Of course when I see her coming I ought to go 'round by South Fork," he replied, heavily sarcastic. "Well, you don't have to stand and talk like I warrant you do. There's something deep about her look." "I've taken care of myself for some years, and I guess I can keep on." "You can if you want to go to ruin, like you were when I married you, and you only had one shirt to your name." "Throw it up to me. It's no wonder a man drinks here, he's got more to forget than to think about." He stepped from the porch, preparing to leave. "Wait!" she commanded; "I'll put up with being left, and having you drink all night with the beasts, and fooling my money away, but," her voice rose and her eyes burned over dark shadows, "I won't put up with another woman, I won't put up with that thin thing making over my husband. I won't! I won't! do you understand that.... I--I can't." He went around the corner of the house with her last words ringing in his ears, kicking angrily at the rough sod. His house, between Mrs. Caley's glum silence and Lettice's ceaseless complaining, was becoming uninhabitable. And, as Rutherford Berry had pointed out, the latter would only increase, sharpen, with the years. Lettice was a good wife, she was not like Nickles' old woman, worthless but the pleasantest body you'd meet in a day on a horse. She was not like Meta Beggs. He had never seen any other like the latter. Lettice had said that she would fool him all over the mountain ... but not him, not Gordon Makimmon, he thought complacently.