They were hungry and in high spirits, and they ate and talked a great deal. Nan meant to remember what they talked about. Even the words were so dear to her she would have liked to set them down in a book to keep for her old age that was to be as desolate as Aunt Anne's. But it shouldn't be as conventional. There should be waves on that sea. Then Charlotte had come in to clear the table and afterward, by Raven's invitation, sat ten minutes or so by the fire and talked of neighborhood things, and they were left alone again, and he was suddenly grave. Was the game over, Nan wondered, and then went on into a more unbridled speculation whether he was finding himself reminded of the old scruples, the old withholdings when Aunt Anne, unable to keep up with their galloping horses of fun, restrained them delicately but with what a hand of steel! And suddenly she realized he was not thinking of her. Was the grim house over the rise of the road calling to his anxious heart?
"Nan," he said, as if he had suddenly made up his mind, "I've got something to show you."
He left the room and she heard him running upstairs. Presently he was back, carrying the mottled book. Instantly it had a vivid interest for her, he held it so reverently and, it seemed, so tenderly. She was at the fire and he told her to get up and take the other chair. It would bring the light at her back. With the book still in his hand, he sat down before the fire and began to tell her the story of Old Crow. Nan had known it, in its outer eccentricities; but had Old Crow been unhappy? That was new to her. She had heard of him as queer, the country oddity who, being frenzied over God or love, had madly incarcerated himself in the loneliness of his own eccentricity.
"At odds with life as he found it," Raven concluded, "not actually able to bear it. That's how it looked to the rest of us. Now, this is how it looked to him."
"Is it a journal?" Nan asked.
She had forgotten her game. She was no child now, but a serious woman with an intensely frowning glance.
"Yes. This is his journal. Want to read it, or me read it to you?"
"Oh, you," said Nan.
"I'd better, I guess. His punctuation's queer, and so's his spelling sometimes. But I wish I could write as good a fist."
So he began. Nan sat perfectly still while the reading lasted. Once getting up to tend the fire, she went back to a higher chair and sat tense, her hands clasped about her knees. Old Crow seemed to have entered the room, a singularly vital figure with extraordinary things to say. Whether you believed the things or not, you had to listen, Old Crow believed them so tremendously. He was like a shock, an assault from the atmosphere itself. He affected Nan profoundly. Her perched attitude in the chair was, in an unreasoned way, her own tribute of strained attention. She was not combating him, but she had to tune herself up high not to be overwhelmed. When Raven had finished, he turned and laid the book on the table behind him, but lingeringly as if, Nan thought, he had an affection for it.