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The case of Loop vs. Loop was docketed for the September term in the Bramble County Circuit Court at Boggs City. When it became officially known in Tinkletown, through the columns of the Banner, that Eliphalet Loop had brought suit for divorce against his wife Anna, the town experienced a convulsion that bore symptoms of continuing without abatement until snow fell, and perhaps–depending on the evidence introduced–throughout the entire winter. For Eliphalet, in accusing his wife, was obliged to state in his bill that the identity and whereabouts of “said co-respondent” were at present unknown to complainant. As Mrs. Loop emphatically–some said spitefully–declined to satisfy the curiosity of Mr. Loop, and the whole of Tinkletown as well, speculation took such an impatient attitude toward her that Eliphalet, had he been minded to do so, could have made use of any one of three hundred names in a village boasting an adult male population of three hundred and seventeen. Husbands who had been in the habit of loafing around the village stores for a couple of hours after supper, winter and summer, now felt constrained to remain later than usual for fear that evil-minded persons outstaying them might question the statement that they were going home; and many a wife who was seldom awake after nine stayed up until the man of the house was safely inside, where she could look at him with an intentness so strange that he began to develop a ferocious hatred for Mrs. Loop.

The town marshal, Anderson Crow, encountering the lugubrious Eliphalet in front of Dr. Brown’s office early one morning several weeks after the filing of the complaint, put this question to him:

“See here, Liff, why in thunder don’t you make that wife o’ yourn tell who ’tis she’s been carryin’ on with?”

Mr. Loop was not offended. He was not even embarrassed.

“‘Cause I ain’t speakin’ to her nowadays, that’s why.”

“But you got a right to speak to her, ain’t you? She’s livin’ in the same house with you, ain’t she? An’ it’s your house, ain’t it? Stand up to her. Show her you got a little spunk.”

“I been livin’ out in the barn, Anderson, on the advice of my lawyer. He says as long as she won’t git out, I’ve got to. Been sleepin’ out there for the last three weeks.”

“I’d like to see any woman drive me out of a comfortable bed!”

“I don’t a bit mind sleepin’ in the barn,” said Eliphalet in apology. “It’s kind of a relief to get away from them women. Hosses can’t talk. I don’t know as I’ve ever slept as well as I have–“

“The point is,” broke in Anderson firmly, “this wife of yourn is causin’ a great deal of misery in town, Liff. Somethin’s got to be done about it.”

“I ain’t askin’ anybody to share my misery with me,” said Mr. Loop with some asperity.

“I bet I’ve heard fifty men’s names mentioned in the last twenty-four hours,” said Anderson, compressing his lips. “‘Tain’t fair, Liff, an’ you know it.”

“‘Tain’t my fault,” said Mr. Loop stubbornly. “I won’t ask her ag’in. You wouldn’t either, if you’d got a wallop over the head with a stove-lid like I did when I asked her the first time.” He removed his weather-worn straw hat. “See that? Doc Brown had to take seven stitches in it, an’ he says if old Hawkins the undertaker had seen it first, I wouldn’t have had to send for a doctor at all. You ask her yourself, if you’re so blamed anxious to know. I seen her out in the back yard just ‘fore I left. She was lookin’ kinder sad and down in the mouth; so I sez to her as gentle as I knowed how–an’ as legally as possible, on the advice of my lawyer: ‘Good mornin’, Mrs. Loop.’ An’ then when I seen her lookin’ around for somethin’ to throw at me, I knowed it wasn’t any use tryin’ to be polite, so I sez: ‘Git out o’ my sight, you old cow!’ And ‘fore you could say scat, she was out o’ my sight. I didn’t know it was possible for me to be so spry at my age. Just as she was gettin’ out o’ my sight by me gettin’ around the corner of the barn, I heard somethin’ go ker-slam ag’inst the side of the barn, but I don’t know what it was. Sounded like a milk-crock.”