" This done,
he put on the brake and headed his horses toward the fence.
He was none too soon, for the Widder Bixby, broom in hand, darted out
from the alders and approached the stage with objurgations which,
had she rated them at their proper value, needed no supplement
in the way of blows. Jerry gave one terror-stricken look,
wound his reins round the whipstock, and, leaping from his seat,
disappeared behind a convenient tree.
At this moment of blind rage Mrs. Todd would have preferred to
chastise both her victims at once; but, being robbed of one by Jerry's
cowardly flight, her weapon descended upon the other with double force.
There was no lack of courage here at least. Whether the lady in green
was borne up by the consciousness of virtue, whether she was too
proud to retreat, or whatever may have been her animating reason,
the blow fell, yet she stood her ground and gave no answering shriek.
Enraged as much by her rival's cool resistance as by her own sense
of injury, the Widder Bixby aimed full at the bonnet beneath
which were the charms that had befuddled Jerry Todd's brain.
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