If Betsy was aware that she was looked upon as being in league with the Evil One, she gave no sign: it bothered her none whatever. She stayed within the dark confines of her hut, smoked Canada-Green tobacco in a clay pipe, and blasphemed to her heart’s content.
To Daft Davie she paid not the slightest attention. But often when the child lay sleeping she would bend over him, holding the feeble rush-light close to his face to scan it with knotted brows working, as she poured maledictions upon the cause of the ushering into this world of a crippled soul that had never quite learned rest. If she thought the power the child exercised over the birds and animals of the wood strange, she gave no evidence of it. She had become inured to having the squirrels and birds frisk and flutter about in the open spot before her door, playing fantastic games with the wee yellow-haired child, who rolled about upon the greensward and gibbered to them.
Once in the dusk, along the path to the grave, old Betsy found a ruffed grouse lying drunk and helpless. He had eaten too freely of the purple poke-berry. She picked the bird up and carried him to her hut, and there held him until he slept off his intoxication. He fought frantically to get away until Davie came in and, taking the grouse from her, talked to it in his own way, and it settled on his shoulder and hid its head beneath his long curls. From that time the old woman realised that the daft child was also one of the wild things of the wood.
The powdery white-frost lay like a blanket upon the unprotected glades of the wood and the yellow-drab leaves were being shaken and wafted earthward in the first swaying gust of morning wind, when Boy McTavish emerged from the timber and stood gazing toward the lone hut against the tangle of brown sumach. The setter shook himself and looked up into his master’s face.
“Joe,” said the boy in a whisper, “you stay here. I’m goin’ up, witch or no witch. It’s got to be done.”
The dog squatted down among the frost-blackened ferns, and Boy slowly crossed the open and knocked at the door. It opened quickly, and there stood the gaunt, bent woman, her gray hair falling down about her shoulders, her black eyes blazing with a fury.
“Betsy,” said Boy chokingly, “ma’s awful sick. We think she won’t live till noon. I just thought I’d tell you.”
He turned away as the door slammed with a bang, and with a sigh plunged into the hard timber. He walked quickly across two ridges, then, turning, followed a third down to the edge of the creek. There he halted.
“I can’t just make up my mind to do anythin’, Joe,” he said, bending and patting the dog. “I ought to build a turkey-trap or two, ’cause it’s the beech-nut season now, and the turkeys’ll be here in a day or so. But it does seem as though I ought to be home with her.”
He shouldered his rifle and moved slowly along. Where the ridge met the margin of the creek Boy paused again and glanced about him with narrowed eyes.