before this but I 'lowed you was too young
to heer the like. It's about me 'n' yore pa--some'n' you never dreamt
could 'a' happened. Mebby it 'll give you courage, fer if a old woman
like me kin put up with sech humiliation, shorely a young one kin.
Sally, do you remember, when you was a leetle, tiny girl, that thar was
a Mis' Talley, a tall, slim, yaller-headed woman, who come out from
town to board one summer over at Hill's? Well, she never had nothin'
much to occupy 'er mind with durin' the day, an' she used to take 'er
fancy-work an' set in the shady holler at the gum spring, whar yore pa
went to water his hoss. Of course, she never keerd a cent fer him, but
I reckon to pass the time away she got to makin' eyes at him. Anyway,
it driv' 'im plumb crazy. I never knowed about it till the summer was
mighty nigh over, an' I wouldn't 'a' diskivered it then if I hadn't 'a'
noticed that he had made powerful little headway ploughin' in the field
whar he claimed to be at work. She wasn't a bad woman. I give 'er
credit fer that, an' I reckon she never talked to 'im many times, an'
never thought of him except to laugh at him after she went back home,
but he never quit thinkin' about her. She had 'er picture printed in a
paper along with some other church-women in town, an' somehow he got
a-hold of it an' cut it out. He used to keep it hid in a ol'
Testament, in a holler tree behind the cow-lot, an' used to slip out
an' look at it when he 'lowed he wasn't watched. Sally, I never once
mentioned it to him. I seed what had been done couldn't be undone, but
the Lord on High knows well enough how I suffered. Sally, maybe it's
the Lord's will fer you to lose this feller now when you are young an'
able to fight agin it, so you won't suffer the awful humiliation at a
time o' life when a body ort to be easy. Sally, are you a-listenin' to
me?"

"Yes, mother. I heard every word you said about pa an' the woman. I
heard that, and I heard them frogs down there croaking, too, and the
chickens fluttering on their roosts. I heard his horse still
a-trotting. Mother, he was whistling when he drove up just
now--_whistling_!"

The two stared into each other's eyes for a moment, then the old woman
went on:

"It'll go powerful hard with you now, but you'd better have it over
with when you're young 'an to suffer when you're a weak old woman like
me. Ol' age cayn't stand such things so well. No, I never once
mentioned the woman t