W.--don't I know what he is!"
"I'm surprised, Hattie, you should hold so against a man his wild oats."
"Then why ain't oats for the man oats for the woman? It's the men that
sow the wild oats and the women--us women that's got to reap them!"
"S-ay, life is life. Do you want to put your head up against a brick
wall?"
"A wall that men built!"
"It's always hard, Hattie, for good women like you and like poor Lenie
was to understand. It's better you don't. You shouldn't even think
about it."
"But, I.W.--"
"If I didn't know Leon Kessler was no worse than ninety-nine good
husbands in a hundred, you think I would let him lay a finger on the
apple of my eye? I don't understand, Hattie; all of a sudden this
evening, you're so worked up. Instead of happiness, you come like with a
funeral. Is that why you wake me up out of a sleep? To cry about it?
Don't think, Hattie, that just as much as you I haven't got the good of
my child at heart. Out of a sound sleep she wakes me to cry because a
happiness has come to us. Leon Kessler can have any girl in this town he
wants. Maybe he wasn't a Sunday-school boy in his day--but say, show me
one that was."
She drew herself up, grasping him at the shoulders.
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