“Huh! Me go to his store on his busiest day an' ax 'im about a piece o' fodder no bigger'n a gnat's wing? He'd tell me I was a dern fool, an' I'd deserve it. Oh! see what you are a-drivin' at, an' I tell you it gits me out o' patience. You women are so dad blasted suspicious an' guilty at the bottom yorese'ves that you imagine bad acts is as plentiful as the leaves on the ground in the fall. Now, let me tell you, you hain't obeying the Scriptural injunction to judge not lest ye be judged accordin'ly. I want you to let that little gal an' her sweetheart business alone. You hain't a-runnin' it. You don't have to live with the feller she picks out, an' you hain't no say whatever in the matter. Nur you h'aint got no say, nuther, as to the way she does her particular courtin'. The Lord knows, nobody was kind enough to put in away back thar when you was makin' sech a dead set fer me. Folks talk a little about Floyd, but let me tell you my _own_ character them days wasn't as white as snow. I don't know many men wuth the'r salt that hain't met temptation. I sorter cut a wide swath 'fore I left the turf, an' you know it. Didn't I hear you say once that you reckoned you never would 'a' tuck me ef I'd 'a' been after you day an' night? You knowed thar was other fish in the sea, an' you didn't have any bait to speak of, with them Turner gals an' the'r nigger slaves an' plantations in the'r own right livin' next door to pa's. Yore old daddy said out open that you an' yore sister needn't expect a dollar from him; he'd educated you, an' that was all he could do. I hain't grumblin', mind you. I never cry over spilt milk; it hain't sensible. It don't help a body out of a bad matter into a better one.” “Oh, I wish you'd hush and listen to me.” Mrs. Porter had not heard half he had said. “I tell you Cynthia and that man stayed all night long in that lonely mill together, an' she came home at sunrise this morning all rumpled up and--”