"You are a great something," she said. "'Economist' would
scarcely be my name for it. Really, George, can't you do better
than that?"
"Better than what?" he demanded.
"Better than telling such palpable lies," she said. "Better than
crawling out windows instead of using your doors like a man;
better than being the most shiftless farmer of your neighbourhood
in the daytime, because you have spend most of your nights, God
and probably all Walden know how. The flask and ready money I
never could understand give me an inkling."
"Anything else?" he asked, sneeringly.
"Nothing at present," said Kate placidly. "I probably could find
plenty, if I spent even one night in Walden when you thought I was
asleep."
"Go if you like," he said. "If you think I'm going to stay here,
working like a dog all day, year in and year out, to support a
daughter of the richest man in the county and her kids, you fool
yourself. If you want more than you got, call on your rich folks
for it. If you want to go to town, either night or day, go for
all I care. Do what you damn please; that's what I am going to do
in the future and I'm glad you know it. I'm tired climbing
through windows and slinking like a dog. I'll come and go like
other men after this."
"I don't know what other men you are referring to," said Kate.
"You have a monopoly of your kind in this neighbourhood; there is
none other like you. You crawl and slink as 'to the manner
born.'"
"Don't you go too far," he menaced with an ugly leer.
"Keep that for your mother," laughed Kate. "You need never try a
threat with me. I am stronger than you are, and you may depend
upon it I shall see that my strength never fails me again. I know
now that you are all Nancy Ellen said you were."
"Well, if you married me knowing it, what are you going to do
about it?" he sneered.
"I didn't know it then. I thought I knew you. I thought she had
been misinformed," said Kate, in self-defence.
"Well," he said insultingly, "if you hadn't been in such a big
hurry, you could soon have found out all you wanted to know. I
took advantage of it, but I never did understand your rush."
"You never will," said Kate.
Then she arose and went to see if the children had wakened. All
day she was thinking so deeply she would stumble over the chairs
in her preoccupation. George noticed it, and it frightened him.
After supper he came and sat on the porch beside her.
"Kate," he said, "as usual you are 'making mountains out of mole
hills.' It doesn't damn a fellow forever to ride or walk, I
almost always walk, into town in the evening, to see the papers
and have a little visit with the boys. Work all day in a field is
mighty lonesome; a man has got the have a little change. I don't
deny a glass of beer once in awhile, or a game of cards with the
boys occasionally; but if you have lived with me over five years
here, and never suspected it before, it can't be so desperately
bad, can it? Come now, be fair!"