‘n’ Lord knows Mrs. Shores’s troubles ought to be warnin’ enough to no woman in this community not to marry no man, f’r one while, at any rate.  If Mrs. Shores hadn’t married Mr. Shores, she c’d easy ‘a’ married his clerk when she fell in love with him.  No woman that ‘s goin’ to fall in love ever ought to begin by marryin’ another man first.  It mixes everythin’ all up.  But Mrs. Shores was a fool or she never would ‘a’ married him to begin with.  I told him that the first time ’t I see him after she was gone.  I thought ’t if it was any comfort to him to know that there was one person in the c’mmunity ’t looked on his wife as a fool he was welcome to the knowin’.  So I told him, ‘n’ I used those very self-same words too,—­’n’ I cert’nly did ache to tell him that he was jus’ ’s big a fool himself to ‘a’ ever married her, but I didn’t think ’t that would be jus’ polite.

“But all that was right in the first of it—­before she took the baby.  I’m free to confess ’t I think he c’d ‘a’ stood anythin’ ’f she hadn’t took the baby.  It was the baby as used him all up.  ‘N’ that seems kind o’ queer too, for seems to me, ’f my wife run away, I’d be glad to make a clean sweep o’ her ‘n’ hers ‘n’ begin all afresh; I’d never have no injunctions ‘n’ detectives drawin’ wages for chasin’ no wife ‘n’ baby ‘t left o’ their own accord.  But that’s jus’ like a man, ‘n’ I must say ’t I’m dead glad ‘t no man ain’t goin’ to have no right to interfere with my child.  I c’n take it ‘n’ go anywhere ’t I please ‘n’ never be afraid o’ any subpenny comin’ down on me.  ’S far ’s I’m concerned, I only wish ’t she’d send back ‘n’ abduct him too, ‘n’ then the community ’d have some peace on the Shores subjeck.  There ain’t nothin’ left to say, ‘n’ every one keeps sayin’ it over ‘n’ over from dawn to dark.  I must say, Mrs. Lathrop, ’t when I c’nsider how much folks still find to say o’ Mrs. Shores ‘n’ it all, I’m more ’n proud that I ain’t never been one to say nothin’ a tall.”

Mrs. Lathrop did not speak for some time.  Then she took up her parrot again and looked thoughtfully at its feet.

“What made you decide on a b—­” she asked at last.

“I didn’t decide.  I c’u’d n’t decide, ‘n’ so I shook a nickel for heads ‘n’ tails.”

“‘N’ it came a boy.”

“No, it came a girl, ‘n’ the minute ’t I see ’t it was a girl I knew ’t I’d wanted a boy all along, so, ‘s the good o’ me bein’ free to act ’s I please is ’t I do act ’s I please, I decided then ‘n’ there on a boy.”

Mrs. Lathrop turned the parrot over.

’F you was so set on a boy, why did you—­”

“What do folks ever toss up for?  To decide.  Tossin’ up always shows you jus’ how much you didn’t want what you get.  Only, as a general thing, there’s some one else who does want it, an’ they grab it ‘n’ you go empty-handed.  The good o’ me tossin’ is I c’n always take either side o’ the nickel after I’ve tossed.  I ain’t nobody’s fool—­’n’ I never was—­’n’ I never will be.  But I guess I’ve got to ask you to go home now, Mrs. Lathrop.  I’ve had a hard day ‘n’ I’m ’most too tired to pay attention to what you say any longer.  I want to get to bed ‘n’ to sleep, ‘n’ then to-morrow maybe I’ll feel like talkin’ myself.”