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“‘Land, ‘Mandy,’ says I (I spoke right up), ‘do you pull ’em out as fast as they come? That’s why you ain’t no grayer, I s’pose. I was sayin’ the other day, “‘Mandy Knowles is gittin’ on, but she holds her own pretty well. I dunno how she manages it, whether she dyes or not,”‘ says I.

“An’ afore she could stop herself, ‘Mandy turned round, red as a beet, to look at Josh an’ see if he heard. He stamped out into the wood-house, but Lyddy Ann never took her eyes off her work. Them little spiteful things didn’t seem to make no impression on her. I’ve thought a good many times sence, she didn’t care how handsome other women was, nor how scrawny she was herself, if she could on’y keep Josh. An’ Josh he got kind o’ fretful to her, an’ she to him, an’ ‘Mandy was all honey an’ cream. Nothin’ would do but she must learn how to make the gingerbread he liked, an’ iron his shirts; an’ when Lyddy Ann found he seemed to praise things up jest as much as he had when she done ’em, she give ’em up, an’ done the hard things herself, an’ let ‘Mandy see to Josh. She looked pretty pindlin’ then, mark my words; but I never see two such eyes in anybody’s head. I s’pose ’twas a change for Josh, anyway, to be with a woman like ‘Mandy, that never said her soul’s her own, for Lyddy’d al’ays had a quick way with her; but, land! you can’t tell about men, what changes ’em or what don’t. If you’re tied to one, you’ve jest got to bear with him, an’ be thankful if he don’t run some kind of a rig an’ make you town-talk.”

There was a murmur from gentle Lucy Staples, who had been constant for fifty years to the lover who died in her youth; but no one took any notice of her, and Sally Flint went on:

“It come spring, an’ somehow or nuther ‘Mandy found out the last o’ March was Josh’s birthday, an’ nothin’ would do but she must make him a present. So she walked over to Sudleigh, an’ bought him a great long pocket-book that you could put your bills into without foldin’ ’em, an’ brought it home, tickled to death because she’d been so smart. Some o’ this come out at the time, an’ some wa’n’t known till arterwards; the hired man told some, an’ a good deal the neighbors see themselves. An’ I’ll be whipped if ‘Mandy herself didn’t tell the heft on’t arter ’twas all over. She wa’n’t more’n half baked in a good many things. It got round somehow that the pocket-book was comin’, an’ when, I see ‘Mandy walkin’ home that arternoon, I ketched up my shawl an’ run in behind her, to borrer some yeast. Nobody thought anything o’ birthdays in our neighborhood, an’ mebbe that made it seem a good deal more ‘n ’twas; but when I got in there, I vow I was sorry I come. There set Josh by the kitchen table, sort o’ red an’ pleased, with his old pocket-book open afore him, an’ he was puttin’ all his bills an’ papers into the new one, an’ sayin’, every other word,–

“‘Why, ‘Mandy, I never see your beat! Ain’t this a nice one, Lyddy?’

“An’ ‘Mandy was b’ilin’ over with pride, an’ she stood there takin’ off her cloud; she’d been in such a hurry to give it to him she hadn’t even got her things off fust. Lyddy stood by the cupboard, lookin’ straight at the glass spoon-holder. I thought arterwards I didn’t b’lieve she see it; an’ if she did, I guess she never forgot it.

“‘Yes, it’s a real nice one,’ says I.

“I had to say suthin’, but in a minute, I was most scairt. Lyddy turned round, in a kind of a flash; her face blazed all over red, an’ her eyes kind o’ went through me. She stepped up to the table, an’ took up the old pocket-book.