The farmer also had gone to bed early, but at ten o'clock he decided that,
as the rain continued to fall and as it was growing somewhat cold, he had
better get up and let his cows into the barn. He did not dress, but threw a
blanket about his shoulders and went out without a light. He let down the
bars separating the field from the barnyard and then saw and heard Smoky
Pete in the field. The blacksmith walked back and forth in the darkness,
and as the farmer stood by the fence, began to talk in a loud voice. "Well,
Tom Butterworth, you're fooling around with Fanny Twist," he cried into the
silence and emptiness of the night. "You're sneaking into her shop late at
night, eh? Steve Hunter has set Louise Trucker up in business in a house in
Cleveland. Are you and Fanny Twist going to open a house here? Is that the
next industrial enterprise we're to have here in this town?"
The amazed farmer stood in the rain in the darkness, listening to the words
of his neighbor. The cows came through the gate and went into the barn. His
bare legs were cold and he drew them alternately up under the blanket. For
ten minutes Peter Fry tramped up and down in the field. Once he came quite
near the farmer, who drew himself down beside the fence and listened,
filled with amazement and fright. He could dimly see the tall, old man
striding along and waving his arms about. When he had said many bitter,
hateful things regarding the two most prominent men of Bidwell, he began
to abuse Tom Butterworth's daughter, calling her a bitch and the daughter
of a dog.
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