over.

"'N' I've decided about my child too," she continued briskly,--"I've
decided to have a boy. I decided goin' in on the train to-day. I'd
been sorter thinkin' that I'd leave it to chance, but ordinary folks
can't do no more 'n' that, 'n' where 's the good o' me bein' so open
'n' above-board 'f I dunno whether it'll be a boy or girl, after all?
I might 's well 's married the minister, 'n' Lord knows Mrs. Shores's
troubles ought to be warnin' enough to no woman in this community not
to marry no man, f'r one while, at any rate. If Mrs. Shores hadn't
married Mr. Shores, she c'd easy 'a' married his clerk when she fell
in love with him. No woman that 's goin' to fall in love ever ought to
begin by marryin' another man first. It mixes everythin' all up. But
Mrs. Shores was a fool or she never would 'a' married him to begin
with. I told him that the first time 't I see him after she was gone.
I thought 't if it was any comfort to him to know that there was one
person in the c'mmunity 't looked on his wife as a fool he was welcome
to the knowin'. So I told him, 'n' I used those very self-same words
too,--'n' I cert'nly did ache to tell him that he was jus' 's big a
fool himself to 'a' ever married her, but I didn't think 't that would
be jus' polite.

"But all that was right in the first of it--before she took the baby.
I'm free to confess 't I think he c'd 'a' stood anythin' 'f she hadn't
took the baby. It was the baby as used him all up. 'N' that seems kind
o' queer too, for seems to me, 'f my wife run away, I'd be glad to
make a clean sweep o' her 'n' hers 'n' begin all afresh; I'd never
have no injunctions 'n' detectives drawin' wages for chasin' no wife
'n' baby 't left o' their own accord. But that's jus' like a man, 'n'
I must say 't I'm dead glad 't no man ain't goin' to have no right to