"'Say you won't do it,' hissed the voice.
"'I'll git thrashed if I do. Gran'mam said so.'
"'What do you care!' hissed the voice; and jest as the fairy Slap-back was talkin' like this, up comes little Mose to Dinah, an' laughs an' pulls her work away.
"Then somethin' awful happened. Dinah couldn't 'a' done it two weeks back; but it's the way with them that listens to that mis'able, low-lifed Slap-back. Jest as quick as a wink, that big gal, goin' on nine, slapped baby Mose. He was that took back for a minute that he didn't cry; but the hateful voice laughed an' hissed an' laughed again.
"Good, Dinah, good! Now you'll ketch it!'
"Then over went little Mose's lip, an' he wailed out, an' Dinah clasped her naughty hands an' saw a face close to her--a bad one, with red eyes shinin'. She jumped away from it, for it made her cold to think she'd been havin' sech a playfeller all along.
"'Oh, Love, y' ain't done fergit me, is yer? Come back, Love, _Love_!' she called; then she dropped on her knees side o' Mose an' called him her honey an' her lamb, an' she cried with him, an' pulled him into her lap, an' when the ole gran'mam come in from where she'd been feedin' the hens, they was both asleep."
Franz took a long breath, for the way the apple woman told a story always made him listen hard. "I guess that was the last of old Slap-back with Dinah," he remarked.
The apple woman shook her head. "That's the worst of that fairy," she said. "Love'll clar out when you tell 'er to, 'case she's quality, an' she's got manners; but Slap-back ain't never had no raisin'. She hangs around, an' hangs around, an' is allers puttin' in her say jest as she was a few minutes ago with you and Emilie in the road there. There's nothin' in this world tickles her like a chile actin' naughty, 'ceptin' it's two chillen scrappin'. Now pore little Dinah found she had to have all her wits about her to keep Love near, an' make that ornery Slap-back stay away. Love was as willin', as willin' to stay as violets is to open in the springtime; but when Dinah an' Slap-back was both agin her, what could she do? An' Dinah, she'd got so used to Slap-back, an' that bodacious creetur had sech a way o' gittin' around the chile, sometimes, 'fore Dinah knew it, she'd be listenin' to 'er ag'in; but Dinah'd had one good scare an' she didn't mean to give in. Jest now, too, her daddy fell sick. That good man, that lonely man, he'd had a mighty hard time of it, an' no chile to care or love 'im."