- Jim: You ain't ordering me off, Davey. I'm leaving of my own accord but not without Rachel. I offered to buy you out fair and square.
- Big Davey: [to Davey] A man goes bad if he can't have bread with his meals and a stitched garment on his back.
- Davey: I wonder what she'll be like.
- Big Davey: Who?
- Davey: Your new wife. Could be most anybody, I reckon. Big and fat like Mrs. Rictor. Or a scrawny old bag of bones like some.
- Big Davey: Yeah.
- Davey: I sure hope she don't whistle when she breathes or she's fat like Mrs. Rictor.
- Big Davey: Davey, you chatter like a chipmunk.
- Davey: We gotta take whoever we can get to take ya, Pa.
- [Big Davey looks bewildered]
- Davey: [after Rachel tells Davey to go sleep by his pa] Pa...
- Big Davey: Get, you ungrateful whelp.
- Davey: She ain't so bad, Pa.
- Big Davey: Just like a hound dog, take up with the first one to feed you.
- Davey: She told me to come back. She allowed you'd be lonely.
- Big Davey: Well, what's she doin' to make a man less lonely? I reckon we'll get somebody else to do our chores.
- [Rachel hears this, and rolls her eyes]
- Rachel: [after Big Davey and Jim had been fighting] Men. Two full-grown men fightin' like a couple of wild Indians. Why?
- [No one answers]
- Rachel: All right, Davey, why was they fightin'?
- Big Davey: You shut, Dave.
- Rachel: You speak, Dave.
- Davey: Well, Jim wanted to buy you with a profit from Pa, and Pa told him to...
- Big Davey: You shut Dave!
- Rachel: He'll speak if he wants and all he wants. And so will I.
- Jim: Maybe that's best. Now you tell Big Davey you're goin' along with me.
- Big Davey: [Big Davey gets his ire up] Why, you...
- Rachel: Now hold on, hold on!
- [restrains Big Davey]
- Rachel: [to Jim] Me goin' along with you?
- Jim: Now, this may, may come as a surprise to you Rachel, it is to me, but I...
- Rachel: So's I can be bought and sold as you two please? Now, you wanna buy me so's you can have a wife and a slave at the same time just like he has. And then when you want to change you can sell me to somebody else like he's doin'.
- Big Davey: Now Rachel, I...
- Rachel: You shut! I'm beginning to believe that's just the way you think about a wife. Both of you. Someone to be bought or sold. Someone to cook for you and do your chores and flatter your manhood every now and then.
- [Disgustedly]
- Rachel: Manhood. Just look at you. I'm going back to the stockade.
- Big Davey: It's like giving the boy readin' and writin' and arithmetic, saying grace before meals. It's, well, keeping up appearances, no matter how deep you get in the wilderness.
- Rachel: I understand. Is that all?
- Big Davey: [as Rachel holds a heavy bucket] I reckon you'll have trouble with your hands at first. And it ain't fittin' that you're so frail, you oughta fill out a little.
- Rachel: I'll see to it, Mr. Harvey.
- Big Davey: Sure got a mess o' hair.
- Jim: Rachel, I'm askin' that you marry me. Just as simple as that except for separatin' you and Big Davey. He never appreciated you. I ain't the catch of the river but I ain't got so much mule-headed vanity I can't admit I'm in love and come right out and do somethin' about it.