Bebee did not reason, because she was too little a thing and too
trustful; but she felt, in a vague, sorrowful fashion, that they were all
of them trying to make some benefit out of her poor little heritage, with
small regard for herself at the root of their speculations.
Bebee was a child, wholly a child; body and soul were both as fresh in
her as a golden crocus just born out of the snows. But she was not a
little fool, though people sometimes called her so because she would sit
in the moments of her leisure with her blue eyes on the far-away clouds
like a thing in a dream.
She heard them patiently till the cackle of shrill voices had exhausted
itself, and the six women stood on the sunny mud floor of the hut eyeing
each other with venomous glances; for though they were good neighbors at
all times, each, in this matter, was hungry for the advantages to be got
out of old Antoine's plot of ground. They were very poor; they toiled in
the scorched or frozen fields all weathers, or spent from dawn to
nightfall poring over their cobweb lace; and to save a son or gain a
cabbage was of moment to them only second to the keeping of their souls
secure of heaven by Lenten mass and Easter psalm.
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