“Well, what d’yeh say to _thet?_” finally asked Melissa. After some reflection, Alvira answered, “I sh’d say S’manthy was a lyin’.” “S’elp me die, crisscross, I ain’t!” protested the girl at the stove: “I’ve told it all, jest’s it happened, straight’s a string. Where’s yer apples?” Alvira meditated again for a moment. Then she said to her subordinate: “Go down ’n’ git that sister o’ yourn a Spitzenberg--’n’ bring up some cider, yeh might’s well, too.” When Melissa had gone, Alvira went over to the ‘younger girl, and gripped her sharply by the shoulder: “Look here, you, is what you’ve be’n tellin’ us here honest? Don’t lie to _me!_” “Honest Injun? Alviry! ev’ry word!” Alvira returned to her dough, and slapped it savagely into a huge, unnatural pancake. She maintained silence until Melissa had returned, and not only supplied her sister’s wants, but poured out a cupful of the new cider for herself, as a proof of her appreciation of the Lawton family’s supremacy over the existing crisis. Then Alvira spoke: “I don’t ’tach th’ least ’mportance in th’ world to what S’manthy heerd. Annie’s a school-teacher, ’n’ she’s be’n workin’ pritty hard, ’n’ this thing’s kind o’ opset her--what with tendin’ to her gran’mother, ’n’ then this teachin’, which is narvous, wearin’ kine o’ work. Thet’s th’ trewth o’ th’ matter. _I_ kin un-derstan’ it. She was jest aout of her senses. But other folks won’t understan’ it as I dew. Once a hint gits flyin’ amongst outsiders, who knaows where it’ll stop? Naow, girl ’n’ woman, I’ve be’n in this haouse twenty year ’n’ more. I’m more a Fairchild than I’m anythin’ else. I remember th’ man in there--layin’ dead in th’ parlor--when he was a youngster, comin’ home f’m college; I remember Seth when he was a baby. I ain’t got no folks of my own thet I keer a thaousandth part ‘s much abaout, nur owe a thaousandth part ’s much tew, ez I dew this Fairchile fam’ly. _Well!_ They’ve hed trouble enough, this las’ tew year, ‘thout havin’ any added onto it by th’ tattlin’, gossipin’ tongues of outsiders. I ain’t goin’ to _hev_ it! D’yeh understan’! Ef I heer s’ much’s a whisper of this yere crazy school-teacher’s nonsense reported ‘raound, by th’ Lord above, I’ll skin yeh both alive!” “Who’s _b’en_ a gossipin’?” asked Samantha, reproachfully. “I shouldn’t never said a word, ef you hadn’t insisted, ’n’ called me a fool fur holdin’ my tongue.” “I dunnao where you’ll gao to when you die, S’manthy,” said Alvira, reflectively. “But nao, girls, trewly naow, this mustn’t be mentioned. Yeh kin see with half ’n eye what a raow it’d stir up. Naow prommus me, both o’ yeh, thet not a word of it shell pass yer lips. Yeh can see fer yerself haow foolish it is! Ev’rybody knaows he driv off th’ raoad, ’n’ killed himself ’n’ th’ hosses by th’ fall. It’s ez plain ‘s th’ nose on yer face. Still it’s jest sech cases as this thet people git talkin’ abaout, once they’re sot goin’--so yeh _will_ promise me, won’t yeh?” They promised.