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"What is the story about Mr. Bisket?"

"Mr. Bisket courted me for two days some weeks ago."

"He did?"

"I suppose so, or maybe he thought so. He came to the hay house and sat beside me, and he asked if I would like to hear a song, and I said that I would, and so he sang ’Camptown Races,’ and then he asked if I would like to hear another, and I said I would, and he sang one I didn’t know, and then some men came in and wanted to talk about Jim Lane, and I suppose that it wasn’t very nice talk, because Papa said they should take their talk elsewhere, and so they did, and Mr. Bisket went with them. But he came back the next day and he sang three more songs—one of them was ’Camp town Races’ again. But you know, I didn’t have a thing to say to him. I’ve just known Mr. Bisket for such a long time, since I was ten and he was fourteen, and I thought it very hard that I should come all this way and after all settle for Charles Bisket, when Mama says there must be four men for every woman in K.T. Mr. Bisket wasn’t considered very enterprising back in Massachusetts. Not nearly so respectable as Mr. Newton."

Just then, Thomas and Frank came in for their own tea, and our conversation turned to other topics, namely the Jameses. Susannah had stopped there the day before and discovered that Mrs. James’s cow had disappeared. "And you know," she said, "she couldn’t go after it as she might have, because she is in such a condition, and she would have had to carry the boy, and even though he’s not very large, well, he is four, and she isn’t very large herself I told her she might have left the boy off with us, but of course she feels uncomfortable, and so they lost their little cow. She was utterly dejected, and nothing I could do would cheer her up."

"Cow ken git to Missouri from here," put in Frank, "if it keeps runnin’." This was true. I heard of two or three lost cows being found in Missouri, or so it was said. After Frank and Thomas went out, and Susannah and I were clearing up the cups, she said, "I didn’t want to say this in front of the others, but Mr. James was fit to be tied when he found out the cow was gone. It made me want to leave right there, but I didn’t dare look like I was running away. He has the devil of a temper."

"Did he abuse her in front of you?"

"Why, no, and she’s so pretty that you wonder how he ever could, but when he came in, the boy exclaimed, ’Don’t tell Papa about our little cow, don’t tell him!’ and ran and hid in the bed! And then Mrs. James did tell, and he flew out of the house in a rage and didn’t come back while I was there, but she said to me in a low voice, ’He would never hurt us. He has terrible passions, but he would never hurt us. Don’t think that he would!’ Well, after that I left."

I shook my head, not knowing what to say, then changed the subject. I was torn, for while I didn’t care to be seen as gossiping about my own husband, I knew that Susannah had known him longer than I had, perhaps considerably longer. I hazarded, "Well, if you’ve known Charles Bisket since you were ten, when did you meet Thomas?"

"Oh, well. Mr. Newton." She glanced out the open door, then looked into my face, then settled her hands on her hips. "He’s not an old friend of ours, like Mr. Bisket. Papa and old Mr. Bisket were schoolboys together, you know. But old Mr. Newton has tremendous means. He makes sails for all the ships, and his father did it before him. They are just the sort of people who would consider someone like Mr. Newton a disappointment to them."

"They do?"

"Well, I shouldn’t speak so openly to his own wife, but they are deathly proud, those Newtons. And the brothers are worse than the father, Mama says, but I don’t know about that. The oldest brother is as old as Papa, and the father has run that factory since 1800, if that’s possible." She gave me a look, half sheepish and half impish. "Mrs. Bush said, before we left Massachusetts, ’Thomas Newton is only going with us because he knows his papa will never pass on.