But how should he influence Martha to give up Bud?
Martha did not value the hay-stacks half so highly as she did her lover.

Martha did not think the new red barn, with the great Mormon press inside and the galloping Indian on the vane, worth half so much as a moral principle or a kind-hearted action.

Martha, bless her! would have sacrificed anything rather than forsake the poor.

But Squire Hawkins's lips shut tight over his false teeth in a way that suggested astringent purse-strings, and Squire Hawkins could not sleep at night if the new red barn, with the galloping Indian on the vane, were in danger.
Martha must be reached somehow.
So, with many adjustings of that most adjustable wig?
with many turnings of that reversible glass eye?
the Squire managed to frighten Martha by the intimation that he had been threatened, and to make her understand, what it cost her much to understand, that she must turn the cold shoulder to chivalrous, awkward Bud, whom she loved most tenderly, partly, perhaps, because he did not remind her of anybody she had ever known at the East.
Tuesday evening was the fatal time.

Spelling-school was the fatal occasion.