“Worry me! Huh! ’Tain’t worry that ails me, it’s bein’ that provoked with her. She’s lived with me since her folks died. She was fifteen then. I couldn’t make her out as a child and a Philadelphy lawyer couldn’t make her out as a woman. She’s been gittin’ worse. Marie’s a good girl, Mr. Ashe—better ’n a lot of these mealy-mouthed, bowin’-and-scrapin’ ones—and Lord knows she’s smarter. Too dum smart, I call her, for her own good. But she’s queer. Kind of knurly. She don’t appear to like folks, somehow.” “Possibly, Mrs. Stickney, the trouble is that she doesn’t like herself.” “She gits on my mind. Sometimes I’m afeard she’s goin’ to mess up what chances of happiness she’s got. She sets and thinks too much, and some of the things she says would fair shock you out of your shoes. If I thought she meant ’em, old as she is I’d take her acrost my knee and see if a slipper wouldn’t change her point of view some.” “Anyhow, I’ll promise not to quarrel with her, Mrs. Stickney,” said Jim, rising. He felt it was not altogether ethical to discuss Miss Ducharme thus freely. The widow seemed to have no such scruples. Indeed, she was willing at all times and seasons to discuss anybody, absent or present, and to put into frank and expressive terms her thoughts concerning them. The widow was no gossip, no backbiter, but a woman of opinions and a nimble tongue undeterred by fear or favor. “A husband’s what she needs,” said she. “One with enough disposition to go so far’s to lay his hand on her if she went past his patience. I mind my first husband shakin’ me once. I was young, then, with notions. Dun’no’s anythin’ ever done me so much good. ’Tain’t considered proper no more—but if there was more shakin’s there’d be fewer divorcin’s.” “Perhaps our men are deteriorating under the influences of modern life,” Jim suggested, with a twinkle in his eye. “The headship of the family is passing to the other sex.” “Then men ought to be up and doin’ somethin’ about it,” said the widow. “I wouldn’t give shucks for a man that let a woman run him. All this here talk about emancipatin’ wimmin makes me sick to my stummick. Wimmin don’t need emancipatin’. What they need is bossin’. I’ve been a woman consid’able of a spell and I calc’late I ought to know.” “I think my grandmother would agree with you if she were living.” “Of course. I’m grandmother to six. My idee is that wimmin don’t git settled and sensible till they turn sixty.” “I’m in favor of giving the vote to all grandmothers.” “It would fetch consid’able sense into elections,” said the widow. “Don’t hurry off. I like to talk—maybe you’ve noticed it.” “And enjoyed it,” said Jim, passing through the door. Miss Ducharme was putting on her hat in the hall. Jim’s first thought was to pass on without pause; his second and better thought was to parley. “I’m waving a flag of truce, Miss Ducharme,” he said. “Can’t we declare an armistice for ten minutes to bury our dead?”