“Now, I dunno why it is,” said Mrs. Atterson, complacently, after setting her teeth in the first radish and relishing its crispness, “but this seems a whole lot better than the radishes we used to buy in Crawberry. I 'spect what's your very own always seems better than other folks's,” and she sighed and shook her head.
She was thinking of the thing she had to face on Monday. Hiram hated to see them all so downhearted. Sister's eyes were red from weeping; Old Lem Camp sat at the table, muttering and playing with his food again instead of eating.
But Hiram felt as though he could not give up to the disaster that had come to them. The thought that—in some way—Pepper was taking an unfair advantage of Mother Atterson knocked continually at the door of his mind.
He went over, to himself, all that had passed in the kitchen the day before when the real estate man had come to speak with Mrs. Atterson. How had Pepper spoken about the option? Hadn't there been some hesitancy in the fellow's manner—in his speech, indeed? Just what had Pepper said? Hiram concentrated his mind upon this one thing. What had the man said?
“The option had—er—one year to run.”
Those were the fellow's very words. He hesitated before he pronounced the length of time. And he was not a man who, in speaking, had any stammering of tongue.
Why had he hesitated? Why should it trouble him to state the time limit of the option?
Was it because he was speaking a falsehood?
The thought stung Hiram like a thorn in the flesh. He put away the tool with which he was working, slipped on a coat, and started for Henry Pollock's house, which lay not more than half a mile from the Atterson farm, across the fields.