borrer some saleratus, an' he hollered into the bedroom: 'Lyddy Ann,
you got another headache? If I had such a head as that, I'd cut it
off!' An' all the time 'Mandy did act like the very Old Nick, jest as
any old maid would that hadn't set her mind on menfolks till she was
thirty-five. She bought a red-plaid bow an' pinned it on in front, an'
one day I ketched her at the lookin'-glass pullin' out a gray hair.

"'Land, 'Mandy,' says I (I spoke right up), 'do you pull 'em out as
fast as they come? That's why you ain't no grayer, I s'pose. I was
sayin' the other day, "'Mandy Knowles is gittin' on, but she holds her
own pretty well. I dunno how she manages it, whether she dyes or not,"'
says I.

"An' afore she could stop herself, 'Mandy turned round, red as a beet,
to look at Josh an' see if he heard. He stamped out into the
wood-house, but Lyddy Ann never took her eyes off her work. Them little
spiteful things didn't seem to make no impression on her. I've thought
a good many times sence, she didn't care how handsome other women was,
nor how scrawny she was herself, if she could on'y keep Josh. An' Josh
he got kind o' fretful to her, an' she to him, an' 'Mandy was all honey
an' cream. Nothin' would do but she must learn how to make the
gingerbread he liked, an' iron his shirts; an' when Lyddy Ann found he
seemed to praise things up jest as much as he had when she done 'em,
she give 'em up, an' done the hard things herself, an' let 'Mandy see
to Josh. She looked pretty pindlin' then, mark my words; but I never
see two such eyes in anybody's head. I s'pose 'twas a change for Josh,
anyway, to be with a woman like 'Mandy, that never said her soul's her
own, for Lyddy'd al'ays had a quick way with her; but, land! you can't
tell about men, what changes 'em or what don't. If you're tied to one,
you've jest got to bear with him, an' be thankful if he don't run some