Anyhow, he turned up
in the field yesterday mornin', ready for work, but lookin'
as if he 'd hed his heart cut out 'n' a piece o' lead put
in the place of it."
"I don't seem as if she 'd 'a' ben brazen enough to come back
so near him," said Steve.
"Wall, I don't s'pose she hed any idea o' Dixie's bein'
at a circus over Wareham jest then; an' ten to one she
didn't care if the whole town seen her. She wanted
to get rid of him, 'n' she didn't mind how she did it.
Dixie ain't one of the shootin' kinds, an' anyhow, Fiddy Maddox
wa'n't one to look ahead; whatever she wanted to do,
that she done, from the time she was knee high to a grasshopper.
I've seen her set down by a peck basket of apples, 'n' take
a couple o' bites out o' one, 'n' then heave it fur 's she
could heave it 'n' start in on another, 'n' then another;
'n' 't wa'n't a good apple year, neither. She'd everlastin'ly
spile 'bout a dozen of 'em 'n' smaller 'bout two mouthfuls.
Doxy Morton, now, would eat an apple clean down to the core,
'n' then count the seeds 'n' put 'em on the window-sill to dry,
'n' get up 'n' put the core in the stove, 'n' wipe her hands
on the roller towel, 'n' take up her sewin' agin; 'n' if you
've got to be cuttin' 'nitials in tree bark an' writin'
of 'em in the grass with a stick like you 've ben doin'
for the last half-hour, you 're blamed lucky to be doin'
_D_'s not _F_'s, like Dixie there!"
* * *
It was three o'clock in the afternoon.
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