"Matilda was cal'latin' to go down and set with her a spell this afternoon, if she didn't have anything else to do--if Matilda didn't, I mean." Matilda was his wife.

In her husband's company she was as dumb as a broken phonograph; when he was not with her she talked continuously, as if to get even.

A call from Matilda Dean was one of the additional trials which made Mother's invalid state harder to bear.
"Course she may not come," Jedediah hastened to say.

"She's pretty busy these days.

But if she don't have anything else to do she will.