almost played out,"
observed Abner from a corner of the hearth, where he sat smoking with
his head hanging on his chest.
Though she might harrow her son's soul, Sarah was incapable of denying
him food, so rising from her knees, she unpinned her skirt, and brought
him coffee and broiled herring from the stove where they had been
keeping hot.
"Where's Archie?" asked Abel, while she plied him with corn muffins.
"Courtin', I reckon, though he'd best be down yonder in the swamp
settin' old hare traps. I never saw sech courtin' as you all's anyhow,"
she concluded. "It don't seem to lead nowhar, nor to end in nothin'
except itself. That's what this here ever-lastin' education has done for
you, Abel--if you hadn't had those books to give you something to think
about, you'd have been married an' settled a long time befo' now. Yo'
grandpa over thar was steddyin' about raisin' a family before he was
twenty."
On either side of the stove, grandfather and grandmother nodded like
an ancient Punch and Judy who were at peace only when they slept.
Grandfather's pipe had gone out in his hand, and from grandmother's lap
a ball of crimson yarn had rolled on the rag carpet before the fire.
Twenty years ago she had begun knitting an enormous coverlet in bright
coloured squares, and it was still unfinished, though the strips, packed
away in camphor, filled a chest in Sarah's store closet.
"You wouldn't like any girl I'd marry," he retorted with a feeble
attempt at mirth. "If I tried to put your advice into practice there'd
be trouble as sure as shot."
"No, thar wouldn't--not if I picked her out," she returned.
"Great Scott! Won't you let me choose my own wife even?" he exclaimed,
with a laugh in which there was an ironic humour. The soft pressure of
Molly's fingers was still on his hand, and he saw her face looking up at
him, gentle and beseeching, as she had looked when she offered her lips
to his kiss. Above the yearning of his heart there rose now the decision
of his judgment--and this had surrendered her to Mr. Mullen! Some rigid
strain of morality, inherited from Sarah and therefore continually at
war with her, caused him to torture himself into a mental recognition
that her choice was for the best.
"That man never walked that had sense enough to pick out a wife,"
rejoined Sarah. "To think of a great hulkin' fellow like you losin' yo'
sense over a half mad will-o'-the-wisp that don't even come of decent
people. If she ha
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