“I don’t keer. I——”
Around the corner of the cabin drifted Nicodemus, the wooden-legged rooster, stumping gravely with his dot-and-carry-one gait.
“Lord, Nancy, thar comes the one patient ye ever cured!” chuckled old Jephthah. “I don’t wonder yo’re proud enough of him to roof him and affectionate him for the balance of his life.”
“I reckon you’d do the same, ef so be ye should ever cure one,” snapped Nancy, rising instantly to the bait, and turning her back on the others. “As ’t is, ef they hilt the buryin’ from the house of the feller that killed the patient I reckon Jude wouldn’t have nothin’ to do but git up funeral dinners.”
Little Buck, despairing of granny’s interference, began to cry. At the sound Judith came suddenly out of a revery to spring up and catch him away from the hateful restraining hands.
“I don’t know what the Lord’s a-thinkin’ about to let sech men as you live, Blatch Turrentine!” she said almost mechanically. “Ef I was a-tendin’ to matters I’d ’a’ had you dead long ago. Ef you’re good for anything on this earth I don’t know what it is.”
“Oh, yes you do,” Blatchley returned as the old man started down the steps. “I’d make the best husband for you of any feller in the two Turkey Tracks—and you’ll find it out one of these days.”
The girl answered only with a contemptuous glance.
“Come again—when you ain’t got so long to stay,” Nancy sped them sourly. “Jude, you’d better set awhile and get your skirts dry.” She looked after Blatch as he moved up the road, then at little Buck, so ashamed of his trembling lip. Her face darkened angrily. She turned slowly to Judith.
“What you gwine to do with that feller, Jude?” she queried significantly.