When they once git in the habit of takin' the bit in their teeth and
runnin', it's too late for you to hold 'em in."
It was only to strangers that he aired his convictions
on the training of "womenfolks," though for that matter
he might safely have done it even at home; for everybody
in Limington knew that it would always have been too late
to begin with the Widder Bixby, since, like all the Stovers
of Scarboro, she had been born with the bit in her teeth.
Jerry had never done anything he wanted to since he had
married her, and he hadn't really wanted to do that.
He had been rather candid with her on this point (as candid
as a tender-hearted and obliging man can be with a woman who is
determined to marry him, and has two good reasons why she should
to every one of his why he shouldn't), and this may have been
the reason for her jealousy. Although by her superior force
she had overborne his visible reluctance, she, being a woman,
or at all events of the female gender, could never quite forget
that she had done the wooing.
Certainly his charms were not of the sort to tempt women from the strict
and narrow path, yet the fact remained that the Widder Bixby was jealous,
and more than one person in Limington was aware of it.
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