"Her poor husband! How will he get along without her!"
"Why, don't you know?" said he. "'Ain't nobody told ye? She 'ain't got no husband."
"Dead? Bless ye, he's divorced from Nancy, an' married another woman, two year ago come this May!"
I was amazed, and Hiram looked at me with the undisguised triumph of one who has news to sell, be it good or bad.
"But Nancy has written me!" I said. "She told me the neighborhood gossip; why didn't she tell me that?"
"Pride, I s'pose, pride," said Hiram. "You can't be sure how misery'll strike folks. It's like a September gale; the best o' barns'll blow down, an' some rickety shanty'll stan' the strain. But there! Nancy's had more to bear from the way she took her troubles than from the troubles themselves. Ye see, 'twas this way. Cap'n Jim had his own reasons for wantin' to git rid of her, an' I guess there was a time when he treated her pretty bad. I guess he as good's turned her out o' house an' home, an' when he sued for divorce for desertion, she never said a word; an' he got it, an' up an' married, as soon as the law'd allow, Nancy never opened her head, all through it. She jest settled down, with a bed an' a chair or two, in that little house she owned down by Wilier Brook, an' took in tailorin' an' mendin'. One spell, she bound shoes. The whole town was with her till she begun carryin' on like a crazed creatur', as she did arterwards."
My heart sank. Poor Nancy! if she had really incurred the public scorn, it must have been through dire extremity.
"Ye see," Hiram continued, "folks were sort o' tried with her from the beginnin'. You know what a good outfit she had from her mother's side,--bureaus, an' beddin', an' everything complete? Well, she left it all right there in the house, for Jim to use, an' when he brought his new woman home, there the things set jest the same, an' he never said a word. I don't deny he ought to done different, but then, if Nancy wouldn't look out for her own interests, you can't blame him so much, now can ye? But the capsheaf come about a year ago, when Nancy had a smart little sum o' money left her,--nigh onto a hunderd dollars. Jim he'd got into debt, an' his oxen died, an' one thing an' another, he was all wore out, an' had rheumatic fever; an' if you'll b'lieve it, Nancy she went over an' done the work, an' let his wife nuss him. She wouldn't step foot into the bedroom, they said; she never see Jim once, but there she was, slavin' over the wash-tub and ironin'-board,--an' as for that money, I guess it went for doctor's stuff an' what all, for Jim bought a new yoke of oxen in the spring."