Her sobs—­the vehement, heart-breaking sobs of a man rather than of a woman—­gradually ceased.  She continued in a softer voice:  “It began ’way back, when I was a little girl.  Mother set me on a pedestal; p’r’aps I’d ought to say I set myself there.  It’s like me to be blaming mother.  Anyways, I just thought myself a little mite cleverer and handsomer and better than the rest o’ the family.  I aimed to beat Sarah and Samanthy at whatever they undertook, and Satan let me do it.  Well, I did one good thing.  I married a poor man because I loved him.  I said to myself, ’He has brains, and so have I. The dollars will come.’  But they didn’t come.  The children came.

“Then Sarah and Samanthy married.  They married men o’ means, and the gall and wormwood entered into my soul, and ate it away.  Laban was awful good.  He laughed and worked, but we couldn’t make it.  Times was too hard.  I’d see Samanthy trailin’ silks and satins in the dust, and —­and my underskirts was made o’ flour sacks.  Yes—­flour sacks!  And me a Skenk!”

She paused.  Neither Ajax nor I spoke.  Comedy lies lightly upon all things, like foam upon the dark waters.  Beneath are tragedy and the tears of time.

“Then you gentlemen came and bought land.  They said you was lords, with money to burn.  I told Laban to help you in the buyin’ o’ horses, and cattle, and barb-wire, and groceries.  He got big commissions, but he kept off the other blood-suckers.  We paid some of our debts, and Laban bought me a black silk gown.  I couldn’t rest till Samanthy had felt of it.  She’d none better.  If we’d only been satisfied with that!

“Well, that black silk made everything else look dreadful mean.  ’Twas then you spoke to Laban about choosin’ a brand.  Satan put it into my head to say—­S.  It scart Laban.  He was butcherin’ then, and he surmised what I was after; I persuaded him ’twas for the children’s sake.  The first steer paid for Emanuel’s baby clothes and cradle.  They was finer than what Sarah bought for her child.  Then we killed the others—­one by one.  Laban let ’em through the fence and then clapped our brand a-top o’ yours.  They paid for the tank and windmill.  After that we robbed you when and where we could.  We put up that bacon scheme meanin’ to ship the stuff to the city and to tell you that it had spoiled on us.  We robbed none else, only you.  And we actually justified ourselves.  We surmised ‘twas fittin’ that Britishers should pay for the support o’ good Americans.”

“I’ve read some of your histories,” said Ajax drily, “and can understand that point of view.”

“Satan fools them as fool themselves, Mr. Ajax.  But the truth struck me and Laban when we watched by mother.  She was not scared o’ death.  And she praised me to Laban, and said that I’d chosen the better part in marryin’ a poor man for love, and that money hadn’t made Christian women of Sarah and Samanthy.  She blamed herself, dear soul, for settin’ store overly much on