He bent and kissed her on the forehead, then springing up crossed the room. At the door he halted.
“Yes, ma,” he said gayly, in response to her call.
“Did you meet the teacher?”
One moment he vacillated between love and truth. Once he had lied, uselessly, to save her. But he hated a liar. He went back to the bed slowly.
“Yes, I met him, and I told him that he best be leavin’ these parts.”
Her eyes rested upon him in mingled love and wonder.
“I don’t like—I don’t trust that man,” said the mother earnestly. “Now go, Boy, and God bless you.”
When Boy sought the table again the tea and meat were stone cold. He smiled at the girl, who was standing beside the fireplace, and she said teasingly:
“I told you you better not go.”
The man with the fiddle across his knees straightened up at her words, and he looked over at Boy with a puzzled expression on his face.