"If women eat out loud before everybody why
can't they pray their thank-you out loud like any man?"
"Answer her, Evelina," laughed Cousin James, as he hurried down the walk
away from us.
"Henrietta," I asked, in a calmly argumentative tone of voice as she and
I walked up the path to the house, "didn't Mr. Haley talk to you just
yesterday and tell you how wicked it is for you to use--use such strong
words as you do?"
Mr. Haley had told me just a few days ago that he and Aunt Augusta had
agreed to open their campaign of reform on Henrietta by a pastoral
lecture from him, to be followed strongly by a neighborly one from her.
"No, he never did any such thing," answered Henrietta, promptly--and
what Henrietta says is always the truth, because she isn't afraid of
anybody or anything enough to tell a lie---"he just telled me over and
over in a whole lot of words how I ought to love and be good to Sallie.
If I was to love Sallie that kind of way, he said, I would be so busy I
couldn't do none of the things Sallie don't like to do herself and makes
me do. 'Stid er saying, 'my precious mother, I love you and want to be
good because you want me to,' about every hour, I had better wipe the
twins' noses, and wash the dirt often them, and light Aunt Dilsie's
phthisic pipe, and get things upstairs for Sallie and Miss Jasmine and
everybody when they are downstairs. I'm too busy, I am, to be so
religious.
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