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“I’ll make a cuppa tea.”

She made the tea, slovening languidly about the dirty kitchen, her slippers clap-clapping under her bare heels. Then the two drew up to the washboard of the sink drinking the tea from the saucers, wiping their lips slowly from time to time with the side of their hands. Each was waiting for the other to speak. Suddenly Missis Ryer
broke out:

“It’s best not to fight him, or try to git away—hump your back and it’s soonest over.”

“You couldn’t do that with Mac,” answered Trina, shaking her head with decision; “if I didunt dodge, if I let um have his own way he’d sure kill me. Mac’s that strong, he could break me in two.”

Oh, Ryer’s strong all-right-all-right,” returned Missis Ryer “an’ then he’s sober when he fights an’ knows what he’s about, an’ that makes it worse. Look there what he did last night.” She rolled up her sleeve and Trina glanced at the am with the critical glance of a connoisseur.

“Hoh,” she said scornfully, “that ain’t a circumstance. I had a row with Mac last night meself, and this is what he did with his fist. Just his fist, mind you, and it only grazed me as it was.” She slipped a discolored shoulder out of her calico gown. The two critically compared bruises. Missis Ryer was forced to admit that Trina’s bruise was the worse. She was vexed and disappointed but rallied with:

“Yes, that’s pirty bad, but I’ll show you somethin’ that’ll open your eyes,” and she thrust the blue wrapper down from the nape of the neck.”See that scar there,” she said, “that’s the kind of work Ryer can do when he puts his mind to it; got that nearly four months ago and it’s sore yet.”

“Ah, yes,” said Trina loftily, “little scars, little flesh wounds like that! You never had any bones brokun. Just look at that thumb,” she went on proudly “Mac did that with just a singul grip of his fist. I can’t nevur bend it again.”

Then the interminable discussion began.

“Look at that, just look at that, will you?”

“Ah, that ain’t nothun. How about that? there’s a lick for you.”

“Why, Mac’s the strongest man you ever saw.”

“Ah-h, you make me tired, it ain’t a strong man, always, that can hurt the most. It’s the fellah that knows how and where to hit. It’s a whip that hurts the most.”

“But it’s a club that does the most damage.”

“Huh! wait till you git hit with a rubber hose filled with gravel.”

“Why, Mac can knock me the length of the house with his left fist. He’s done it plenty a’ times.” Then they came to reminiscences.

“Why, one time when Mac came home from a picnic at Schuetzen Park, he picked me right up offun the ground with one hand and held me right up in the air like that, and let me have it with a kitchun chain. Huh! talk to me about Ryer’s little whips, Ryer ain’t a patch on my man. You don’t know what a good thrashun is.”

“I don’t, hey? you can just listen to what I tell you, Trina McTeague, when I say that Ryer can lay all over your man. You jest ought a been here one night when I sassed Ryer back, I tell you I’ll never do that again. Why the worst lickin’ Mister McTeague ever gave you was just little love taps to what I got. Besides I don’ believe your man ever held you up with one hand and banged you like that with a chair, you wouldn’t a’ lived if he had.”

“Oh, I ain’t lyun to you,” cried Trina, with shrill defiance getting to her feet. Missis Ryer rose likewise and clapped her arms akimbo.