She was somewhat surprised at the question, but knowing from experience how inquisitive the average settler is, she answered readily enough.
“No, I haven’t seen him for a long time. Was he burnt out? I didn’t know the fire had gone so far.”
“I calkerlate he warn’t tetched by the fire,” said Mr. Owen, very slowly. He made long pauses between his remarks, during which he continued unremittingly the steady occupation of his life, namely, chewing tobacco. Olive began to feel impatient. She did not like to ask him into the house for fear of disturbing Ezra, so she sat down again in her chair, and pointing to a log of wood which lay near and seated on which he could still hold his horse, she asked him to take a seat also. Mr. Owen sat down with a grunt.
“Never seed ony pusson so sot on posies as you ’uns be,” he observed conversationally.
“Yes, I am very fond of flowers. They make the house more home-like, I think. The prairie is very bare looking,” replied Olive politely.
“Yer ole man oughter rared his house t’other side the Gully, an’ further down yon’er. This hyar ’ull be powerful col’ when we git col’ snaps in Jan’ary. Yer dunno nothin’ ’bout things in this hyar all-fired ’Fection City,” said Mr. Owen, looking around him in criticism.
“Perhaps not,” said Olive, rather nettled, “but we know how to mind our own business.”
Mr. Owen did not feel one whit abashed. He was far too near akin to the pachyderms for Olive’s delicate little shafts to have any effect on him. Another long silence followed, and Olive began to wonder if Owen was like that man from Jacksonville, who came to see them once and stayed four hours, during which time he made only two remarks and they possessed no particular interest. The man and his stony silence had driven her nearly wild, until she reflected how much more awful it would have been had she been obliged to entertain him with conversation. A recollection of this visitation and a dread born of that recollection began to invade her mind. Mr. Owen, however, was not going to stay for four hours, and he was going to make a remark of very particular interest, a remark that would quickly scatter all Olive’s other ideas. He delivered it slowly and with the monotonous enunciation which proclaimed him a Missouri man.
“The boys is hout huntin’ down ole man Cotterell.”
“What!” exclaimed Olive turning very white. Then, steadying her voice as well as she could she said, “Why are they hunting him?”