And explain Hilda did, as she and Uncle Hank finally drove away, headed for home. When all was told, and Uncle Hank seemed relieved as she expected he’d be—he said slowly,
“And yet you tell me this young man, of the name of Masters, is coming over here to see me, Pettie?” Hank tried to smile. “No, you needn’t answer that. I said I’d ask no questions. Looks like I might keep my word—for a few minutes, anyhow.”
The buckboard rattled ahead. Hank’s wide gaze took in the Three Sorrows pastures, the glimpse, beyond there, of the low roof. There was the property he had pulled out of debt, saved for Charley Van Brunt’s children. Not so young as he had been—no, not so young. Yet to Hilda’s eyes, which had always seen him with the silver in his hair, he shouldn’t have appeared noticeably older than when on that first occasion, in the office room, she, frightened that he was going away and leaving her, had wanted to say to him, in the words of her fairy tale, “If you will never forsake me, then I will never forsake you.” He stirred uneasily and began to speak.
“You got my last letter?”
Instantly there flashed into her mind the details of that letter: a sort of summing up of the Three Sorrows business affairs—in which he’d reminded her that she was said to be his partner in them, but in fact, though he was their guardian, she and Burch owned everything in full, and would be his employers, and he wanted her to see what this railroad proposition meant to the estate. It had come the day before the dance at Graingers. Other things, to her much more important, had so filled her thoughts that she had not answered it. She came to herself now with the knowledge that Uncle Hank was stealing glance after glance at her, apparently distressed by the look in her face.
“I—oh, of course, you did write me in the letter all about it,” she said confusedly. “I guess I didn’t quite understand. Are we—will it put us out of debt, Uncle Hank?”
“Pays everything.” The old man smiled a little sadly. “With the State & Gulf Line running that spur right through here, gives a-plenty to pay off—and stands to make you and Burch rich young folks. Within a few years, if things is managed right, you’ll be very rich, I doubt not. You can see from that, Pettie, why Lee Marchbanks’s news of you—” He broke off and gave his attention to his team, finishing after a minute, “You will both be rich. I ain’t uneasy about Burch. He’s a boy; and old-headed at that. It’s you—and—and things like this telegraft that scares me.”
No, it wasn’t that he really looked so much older; he seemed somehow stricken, disappointed. Why, he’d had that second telegram—she’d explained how the first one came to be sent—that it was all a mistake; yet he could sit there and tell her that the ranch was paid out of debt and they were going to be rich—and still look that way. Well, it was— Oh, didn’t he know she wasn’t forsaking him—that she never would? You might like another person very much too. That didn’t mean—
“You—you will try to like him, Uncle Hank, when he comes—if he comes?” Hilda spoke with tremulous eagerness. “I—oh, I just feel as though it would break my heart if you and he weren’t friends.”
“All right, Pettie girl.” Again that effort to smile; it made her throat choke up. “You know the Bible says it’s hard for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. I’ve been told that the needle’s eye is really a low gate, so called, and the beast has to kneel down and shuffle through on his knees. Reckon that’s the way any young men you bring around will have to come through with your Uncle Hank.”