o you ever talk more than two words at the one time, ma'am?" said the
stranger.

"I do," said the Thin Woman.

"I'd give a penny to hear you," replied the other angrily, "for a more
bad-natured, cross-grained, cantankerous person than yourself I never
met among womankind. It's what I said to a man only yesterday, that thin
ones are bad ones, and there isn't any one could be thinner than you are
yourself."

"The reason you say that," said the Thin Woman calmly, "is because you
are fat and you have to tell lies to yourself to hide your misfortune,
and let on that you like it. There is no one in the world could like to
be fat, and there I leave you, ma'am. You can poke your finger in
your own eye, but you may keep it out of mine if you please, and, so,
good-bye to you; and if I wasn't a quiet woman I'd pull you by the hair
of the head up a hill and down a hill for two hours, and now there's an
end of it. I've given you more than two words; let you take care or I'll
give you two more that will put blisters on your body for ever. Come
along with me now, children, and if ever you see a woman like that woman
you'll know that she eats until she can't stand, and drinks until she
can't sit, and sleeps until she is stupid; and if that sort of person
ever talks to you remember that two words are all that's due to her, and
let them be short ones, for a woman like that would be a traitor and a
thief, only that she's too lazy to be anything but a sot, God help her I
and, so, good-bye."

Thereupon the Thin Woman and the children arose, and having saluted the
stranger they went down the wide path; but the other woman stayed where
she was sitting, and she did not say a word even to herself.

As she strode along the Thin Woman lapsed again to her anger, and became
so distant in her aspect that the children could get no companionship
from her; so, after a while, they ceased to consider her at all and
addressed themselves to their play. They danced before and behind
and around her. They ran and doubled, shouted and laughed and sang.
Sometimes they pretended they were husband and wife, and then they
plodded quietly side by side, making wise, occasional remarks on the
weather, or the condition of their health, or the state of the fields of
rye. Sometimes one was a horse and the other was a driver, and then
they stamped along the road with loud, fierce snortings and louder and
fiercer commands. At another moment one was a cow being driven