"Dont you know?"
It's a crime and a shame; but after all, they'll buy it from somebody.
She stood there, not looking at me.
"You. want something to stop it?" I said.
"Is that it?"
"No," she said.
"That's it.
It's already stopped."
"Well, what—" Her face was lowered a little, still, like they do in all their dealings with a man so he-dont ever know just where the lightning will strike-next.
"You are not married, are you?" I said.
"No."
"Oh," I said.
"And how long has it been since it stopped? about five months maybe?"
"It aint been but two," she said.
"Well, I haven't got anything in my store you want to buy," I said, "unless it's a nipple.
And I'd advise you to buy that and go back home and tell your pa, if you have one, and let him make somebody buy you a wedding license.
Was that all you wanted?"
But she just stood there, not looking at me.
"I got the money to pay you," she said.
"Is it your own, or did he act enough of a man to give you the money?"
"He give it to me.
Ten dollars.
He said that would be enough."
"A thousand dollars wouldn't be enough in my store and ten cents wouldn't be enough," I said.
"You take my advice and go home and tell your pa or your brothers if you have any or the first man you come to in the road."
But she, didn't move.
"Lafe said I could get it at the drugstore.
He said to tell you me and him wouldn't never tell nobody you sold it to us."
"And I just wish your precious Lafe had come for it himself; that's what I wish.
I dont know: I'd have had a little respect for him then.
And you can go back and tell him I said so—if he aint halfway to Texas by now, which I dont doubt.
Me, a respectable druggist, that's kept store and raised a family and been a church-member for fifty-six years in this town.
I'm a good mind to tell your folks myself, if I can just find who they are."
She looked at me now, her eyes and face kind of blank again like when I first saw her through the window.
"I didn't know," she said.
"He told me I could get something at the drugstore.
He said they might not want to sell it to me, but if I had ten dollars and told them I wouldn't never tell nobody . . ."
"He never said this drugstore," I said.
"If he did or mentioned my name, I defy him to prove it.
I defy him to repeat it or I'll prosecute him to the full extent of the law, and you can tell him so."
"But maybe another drugstore would," she said.
"Then I dont want to know it.
Me, that's—" Then I looked at her.
But it's a hard life they have; sometimes a man ... if there can ever be any excuse for sin, which it cant be.
And then, life wasn't made to be easy on folks: they wouldn't ever have any reason to be good and die.
"Look here," I said.
"You get that notion out of your head.
The Lord gave you what you have, even if He did use the devil to do it; you let Him take it away from you if it's His will to do so.
You go on back to Lafe and you and him take that ten dollars and get married with it."
"Lafe said I could get something at the drugstore," she said.