' up, and we stopped
in to keep from gittin' wet. Mary had been to town that day, and she
had on her best dress. She was a woman that looked well in anything
she put on. Plain clothes couldn't make her look plain, and she set
off fine clothes as much as they set her off. Me and Abram took seats
on the porch, and Mary went into the hall to git another chair. I
heard the back hall door open and somebody come in, and then I heard
Harvey's voice. Says he, 'Go up-stairs and take off that dress.' Says
he, 'What's the use of wearin' out your best clothes here at home?'
But before he got the last words out, Mary was on the porch with the
chair in her hand, talkin' to us about her trip to town, and lookin'
as unconcerned as if she hadn't heard or seen Harvey. That night I
says to Abram, says I, 'Abram, did you ever have any cause to think
that Harvey Andrews was a close man?'

"Abram thought a minute, and, says he, 'Why, no; I can't say I ever
did. What put such a notion into your head, Jane? Harvey looks after
his own interests in a trade, but he's as liberal a giver as there is
in Goshen church. Besides,' says Abram, 'who ever heard of a tall,
personable man like Harvey bein' close? Stingy people's always dried
up and shriveled lookin'.'

"But I'd made up my mind what the trouble was between Harvey and Mary,
and nothin' that Abram said could change it. I don't reckon any man
knows how women feel about stinginess and closeness in their husbands.
I believe most women'd rather live with a man that'd killed somebody
than one that was stingy. And then Mary never was used to anything of
that kind, for her father, old man Jerry Crawford, was one o' the
freest-handed men in the county. It was 'Come in and make yourself at
home' with everybody that darkened his door, and for a woman, raised
like Mary was, havin' to live with a man like Harvey was about the
hardest thing that could 'a' happened to her. However, she had the
Crawford pride, and she carried her head high and laughed and smiled
as much as ever; but there's a look that tells plain enough whether a
woman's married to a man or whether she's jest tied to him and stayin'
with him because she can't get free; and when Mary wasn't laughin' or
smilin' I could tell by her face that she wasn't as happy as we all
thought she was goin' to be the day she married Harvey."

Aunt Jane paused a moment to pick up a dropped stitch.

"It's a good thing you had your dinner, honey, before I s