He stepped into the wagon, took up the reins and drove away. Tira watched him out of the yard, and at last she had no suspicion of his coming back, as he had done so often, to surprise her. He was somehow—different. He was really gone. She went in, got her breakfast and ate it, this with more appetite than she had had for many weeks, and smiled at herself, thinking she was not sleepy yet, but when sleep came on her it would come like a cloud and smother her. She moved fast about the kitchen to get her work done before it came, and in perhaps an hour she remembered Tenney's telling her to have an eye to the calf. She smiled a little, grateful for even the tiniest impulse to smile, and told herself she wouldn't go out to look after any calf until she had looked at somebody else who ought to be awake. She went into the bedroom, and stopped a choked instant at the strangeness of the bed. The little coppery head was what she should have seen, but there was only the straight expanse of quilt, and a pillow, disarranged, lying crookedly near the top. She snatched up the pillow. There was the little coppery head. The baby was lying on his back, and over his face, carefully folded into a square, was her apron, the one Eugene Martin had torn away from her. The baby was dead.
XLIII
Tenney did not come home until two o'clock. When he drove into the yard he found Tira there, standing on the step. This was a day of clear sunlight, like that of yesterday, and the breeze moved her light rings of hair. Tenney glanced at her once, but, saying nothing, got out and began to unharness. Tira stood waiting. He led the horse into the barn, and when he came out and walked toward the house she was still waiting, a woman without breath even, one might have thought. When he was perhaps three feet from her she spoke, but in a quiet voice:
"Stop! You stan' right there an' I'll tell you. The doctor's been. I 'phoned him. I told him I overlaid the baby."
"Overlaid?" muttered Tenney, in a puzzled way.
Now a little feeling did manifest itself in her voice, as if he must be a fool not to have known these tragedies that come to mothers.
"Overlaid," she repeated, with the slightest tinge of scorn. "That's what women do sometimes, big heavy women! Roll over on the little creatur's an' lay on 'em so 't they can't breathe. I s'pose they can't help it, though. They're tired. I told him I done that. He was sorry for me. I asked him if the crowner'd come, an' I'd have to swear to't, an' he said no. I was glad o' that, though mebbe it's no worse to swear to anything than 'tis to say it. He was terrible good to me. I told him baby'd got to lay over to Mountain Brook, side o' mother, an' he said he was goin' there an' he'd git one of 'em to dig the little grave. I told him you're all run down, your foot behavin' so, an' you wouldn't be able to do nothin', an' I was 'most afraid o' your givin' out, when I told you. So he's goin' to send the man with the little coffin."
There was no faintest tremor of bitterness or gibing in this. It was the simplest statement of facts. Tenney had stood perfectly still, but now he lifted one hand and looked at it casually, as he had that other time. He made an uncertain step, as if to pass her and enter the house, but Tira stretched out her arms. They barred the way.
"No," she said, "you ain't comin' in."