She stamped her foot. “Dad, I don’t want to.”
Amos jerked a forefinger up the stair, head on one side, eyes steady. “Run along and pack, Agnes,” he said. “Won’t be much time in the morning.”
Agnes began to cry. Amos watched her for a moment, watched her bowed head, and a load seemed to settle on the man’s big shoulders. He turned back to the sitting room without a word. After a while, he heard her run up the stairs, every pound of her little feet scolding him, as a bird scolds.
Amos filled his pipe and began to smoke again.
Jack Routt came late. While he waited, Amos had smoked two pipes to the last bubble. When Jack knocked, he got up lumberingly and went to the door to let the young man in. “Come in,” he said curtly. “Hang up your things.”
He went back and sat down before the fire, and Jack Routt joined him there. Amos looked up at him sidewise. “Sit down, Routt,” he said. “Take a chair. Any chair.”
Routt sat down. “Gergue said you wanted to see me,” he reminded Amos.
“Yes,” Amos agreed. “I told him to tell you.”
“Came as soon as I could,” said Routt.
“That’s all right,” said Amos. “I wasn’t in a hurry. I’m hardly ever in any hurry. Things come, give them time.” The colloquialisms had fallen from his speech. Amos talked as well as any one when he chose; when he was with Hardiston folks, he talked as they talked. Routt was a college man.