“Nothing, I think,” said his wife.
“Well, keep an eye on these here Westerners. I guess they’ll need watchin’, when all’s said an’ done.”
And with great, mannish strides he left the tent.
Mrs. Mundy asked many questions about Joshua’s father and mother and his home life, and continued to ask long after they had finished eating. Joshua told her of a day when there had been ten negro servants in the house. The family had lived on Park Avenue then, which was in the heart of the most exclusive residential section of Hathaway. He told what little he knew of his mother’s aristocratic family, and of how he had heard servants’ gossip about their having ostracized her after her marriage to one of the insignificant Coles. But mostly he dwelt upon his father’s seeming delight in holding him with his head submerged in water in the bathtub until he fell on the floor, sometimes unconscious.
What effect his disclosures had on Madge’s mother he had no means of knowing, for she appeared to be a woman of few words, and now she made no comments. But her dark eyes were thoughtful as she rose from the table, and the boy knew that he had made a deep impression, although he was unable to interpret her mood.
She had risen at the sound of wheels before the door of the dining tent. Bloodmop had been delayed, it seemed, and was only then starting on his trip to Hathaway. His wife hurried out to him, leaving Madge and Joshua at the table, and the two heard them engaged in low-voiced conversation.
“They’re talking about you, I think,” Madge whispered. “Listen!”
But they were unable to distinguish words.
Then the conversation ceased, and they heard the buckboard drive away.
Mrs. Mundy reëntered the tent.