"Northin' but a cross-cut saw with two axe-handles for legs," he said
to himself, his eyes on the Colonel's back as that individual stamped
wrathfully away. "Teeth and edge are hard as iron! It's no good to
talk mattermony to him. Prob'ly it wouldn't do no good for me to talk
mattermony to Phar--Phar--to t'other one. She couldn't ask him to
go git a minister. 'Tain't right to put that much onto a woman's
shoulders. The trouble with him is that he's too sure of wimmen. Had
his sister under his thumb all them years, and thought less and less
of her for stayin' there. He's too sure of t'other. Thinks nobody
else wants her. Thinks all he's got to do is step round and git her
some day. Ain't got no high idee of wimmen like I have. Thinks they
ought to wait patient as a tree in a wood-lot. Has had things too
much his own way, I say. Hain't never had his lesson. Thinks nobody
else don't want her, hey? And she can wait his motions! He needs his
lesson. Lemme see!"

With his knurly forefinger at his puckered forehead he sat and
pondered.

He was very silent at supper.

The Colonel, still exulting in his apparent victory, said many
sneering and savage things, and clattered his knife truculently on
his plate. Sproul merely looked at him with that wistful
preoccupation that still marked his countenance.

"He's a quitter," pondered the Colonel. "I reckon he ain't playin'
lamb so's to tole me on. He's growed soft--that's what he's done."

Ward went to sleep that night planning retaliation.