shell dried beans or pick over prunes? When had he ever been known to
hold wool for Angy's winding? Not once since wooing-time, I warrant you.
What could this continual hobnobbing and going off into corners mean,
except--flirtation?

Ruby Lee whispered it first into Aunt Nancy's good ear. Aunt Nancy
indulged in four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, sneezed an
amazing number of times, and then acridly informed Ruby Lee that she was
a "jealous cat" and always had been one.

However, Aunt Nancy could not refrain from carrying the gossip to Miss
Ellie, adding that she herself had been suspicious of Abe's behavior
from the start.

"Oh, no, no!" cried the shocked and shrinking spinster. "And Angy so
cheerful all the time? I don't believe it."

But whisper, whisper, buzz, buzz, went the gossip, until finally it
reached the pink little ears at the side of Miss Abigail's generously
proportioned head. The pink ears turned crimson, likewise the adjoining
cheeks, and Miss Abigail panted with righteous indignation.

"It all comes of this plagued old winter-time," she declared, sharply
biting her thread, for she was mending a table-cloth. "Shet the winders
on summer, an' yew ketch the tail of slander in the latch every time.
Naow, ef I hear one word about this 'tarnal foolishness comin' to
Angy's ears, or Brother Abe's, or Blossy's either, fer that matter,
we'll all have to eat off'n oil-cloth Sundays, the same as weekdays,
until I see a more Christian sperit in the house."