“I tell ye, Benjie,”--Editha once more turned to walk slowly backward, swinging her bonnet by the string,--“it’s a big thing ter be rich.”
“Oh,” suddenly cried the anguished Benjie, with a poignant wail, his fortitude collapsing at last, “I wish you war rich! That be what ye keer fer; I know it now. I wish ye could hev hed riches--yer heart’s desire! I wish I hed never seen you-’uns, an’ ye hed never seen me!”
Editha stood stock-still in the road as though petrified. Old Whitey, her progress barred, paused not unwillingly, and the rattle of the wagon ceased for the nonce. Benjie, doubly disconsolate in the consciousness of his self-betrayal, leaned heavily against the motionless wheel and gazed shrinkingly at the visible wrath gathering in his helpmate’s eyes.
“Man,” she cried, and Benjie felt as though the mountain had fallen on him, “hev ye plumb turned fool? Now,” she went on with a stern intonation, “ye tell me what ye mean by that sayin’, else I’ll fling ye over the bluff or die tryin’.”
“Oh, nuthin’, nuthin’, ’Ditha,” said the miserable Benjie, all the cherished values of his life falling about him in undiscriminated wreck.
“Then I’ll make my own understandin’ outen yer words, an’ I’ll hold the gredge ag’in’ ye ez long ez I live,” she protested.
“Waal, then,” snarled Benjie, “ye take heed ye make the words jes like I said ’em. I’ll stand ter ’em. _I_ never f’und out how ter tell lies in Shaftesvul. I’ll stand ter my words.”
“Ye wished I could hev hed riches,” Editha ponderingly recapitulated his phrases. Then she looked up, her blue eyes severe and her flushed face set. “An’ will ye tell me what’s the reason I couldn’t hev hed riches--old Tom fool!”
“You-’uns, ’Ditha?” Benjie faltered, bewildered by the incongruity of the idea. “You, _riches_?”
“I could hev hed long ago sech riches ez ’Roy Tresmon’ hev got, sartain sure,” she declared. “An’ considerin’ ye hev kem in yer old age ter wish ye hed never seen me, ’pears like it mought hev been better ef I hed thought twice afore I turned him off forty-six year’ ago.”
“Turned off ’Roy Tresmon’! Forty-six year’ ago! What did ye do that fer, ’Ditha?” Benjie bungled, aghast. He had a confused, flustered sentiment of rebuke: what had possessed Editha in her youth to have discarded this brilliant opportunity!
