wives' property and defraudin' 'em, and cheatin' 'em out
o' their just dues, you'll have to stand before a Judge that cares
mighty little for Kentucky law; and all the law and all the Scripture
you can bring up won't save you from goin' where the rich man went.'

"I can see Sally Ann right now," and Aunt Jane pushed her glasses up
on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through
the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering
softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old
black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh
up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest _had to_.
I heard Dave Crawford shufflin' his feet and clearin' his throat while
Sally Ann was talkin' to Job. Dave's farm j'ined Sally Ann's, and they
had a lawsuit once about the way a fence ought to run, and Sally Ann
beat him. He always despised Sally Ann after that, and used to call
her a 'he-woman.' Sally Ann heard the shufflin', and as soon as she
got through with Job, she turned around to Dave, and says she: 'Do you
think your hemmin' and scrapin' is goin' to stop me, Dave Crawford?
You're one o' the men that makes me think that it's better to be a
Kentucky horse than a Kentucky woman. Many's the time,' says she,
'I've seen pore July with her head tied up, crawlin' around tryin' to
cook for sixteen harvest hands, and you out in the stable cossetin' up
a sick mare, and rubbin' down your three-year-olds to get 'em in trim
for the fair. Of all the things that's hard to understand,' says she,
'the hardest is a man that has more mercy on his horse than he has on
his wife. July's found rest at last,' says she, 'out in the graveyard;
and every time I pass your house I thank the Lord that you've got to
pay a good price for your cookin' now, as there ain't a woman in the
country fool enough to step into July's shoes.'

"But, la!" said Aunt Jane, breaking off with her happy laugh,--the
laugh of one who revels in rich memories,--"what's the use of me
tellin' all this stuff? The long and the short of it is, that Sally
Ann had her say about nearly every man in the church. She told how
Mary Embry had to cut up her weddin' skirts to make clothes for her
first baby; and how John Martin stopped Hannah one day when she was
carryin' her mother a pound of butter, and made her go back and put
the butter down in the cellar; and how Lije Davison used to make Ann
pay him for