"What is it, boys? Lark, your coffee'll be ready in a jiffy. I've been keepin' the kettle on ever since breakfast. My, my, what a rain! If it don't wash the garden truck all into the river I'll be thankful. My peas are swimmin' for their lives already."
"Maw, come here." Lark crooked one finger, and the queer little old woman pattered forward, her face alive with curiosity.
"For the love of Moses!" Maw clasped her hands with a gesture of amazement. "Bill Larkin, what have you been a doing now? I'll bet you stole that little feller. I can tell by the gloat in your eyes. Who belongs to him? You never took him away from his mother, did you, Lark? If you did you must carry him right straight back."
Lark laid his hand on the biscuit of hair and gave it a gentle twist.
"Maw, you shut up and go get into your teeth. Want to scare 'im to death when he wakes up? What d'you suppose I went and got you fitted out with teeth for? Does he look like he had a mother? By Jonah, if he's got a mother she don't deserve him. Looks like an orphant to me, Maw."
"They'll be hunting him, Lark. You can't drag in boys like you would a calf; did you steal this child? You look me in the eye, young feller, and tell the truth."
Lark did not look her in the eye, but he told the truth without speaking one word. He bent, pulled aside the gingham shirt and pointed. Maw looked and turned away her head, sucking in her breath audibly as one does in pain.
"Shall I carry him back where I got him, Maw?"
"No!" Maw shuddered. "The dirty brutes! You fetch him right back into my room. Buddy, you go get that spring cot out of the lean-to, and bring in the top mattress off the spare bed in the wing. I'll rustle bedding myself." She bent and stared hard at the boy's face.
"This looks to me like the boy old Palmer brought home and said he was Dick's boy. If he is, there'll be a ruckus raised that'll make your old father's fingers itch in the grave to be up and shooting. Palmer hangs onto whatever he gets in his clutches, you want to remember that. And he's got a bad bunch around him."