"I demand the truth," sez she. "And you are a base, trucklin'
coward, if you give it not."

Sez I, tryin' to carry off the subject and the apples into the
buttery; "Poetry ort to have pains took with it."

"Jealousy!" sez Miss Tutt. "Jealousy might well whisper this.
Envy, rank envy might breathe the suspicion that Ardelia haint
been took pains with. But I can see through it," sez she. "I can
see through it."

"Well," sez I, wore out, "if they belonged to me, and if she wuz
my girl, I would throw the verses into the fire, and set her to a
trade."

She stood for a minute and bored me through and through with them
eyes. Why it seemed as if there wuz two holes clear through my
very spirit, and sole; she partly lifted that fearful lookin'
umberell as if to pierce me through and through; it wuz a fearful
seen.

At last she turned, and flung the apple she wuz a holdin' onto the
floor at my feet -- and sez she, "I scorn 'em, and you too." And
she kinder stomped her feet and sez, "I fling off the dust I have
gethered here, at your feet."

Now my floor wuz clean and looked like yeller glass, almost, it
wuz so shinin' and spotless, and I resented the idee of her sayin'
that she collected dust off from it. But I didn't say nothin'
back. She had the bag of poetry on her arm, and I didn't feel