The latter was the only boarder who had no adverse criticism for the mistress's new move. Indeed this evening Mr. Camp said nothing whatever; even his usual mumblings to himself were not heard.
He ate slowly, and but little. He was still sitting at the table when all the others had departed.
Mrs. Atterson started into the dining-room with her own supper between two plates when she saw the old man sitting there despondent in looks and attitude, his head resting on one clawlike hand, his elbow on the soiled table cloth.
He did not look up, nor move. The mistress glanced back over her shoulder, and there was Sister, sniffling and occasionally rubbing her wrist into her red eyes as she scraped the tower of plates from the dinner table.
“My soul and body!” gasped Mother Atterson, almost dropping her supper on the floor. “There's Sister—and there's Old Lem Camp! Whatever will I do with 'em?”
Meanwhile Hiram Strong had already left for the farm on the Wednesday previous. The other boarders knew nothing about his agreement with Mother Atterson; he had agreed to go to the place and begin work, and take care of the stock and all, “choring for himself”, as the good lady called it, until she could complete her city affairs and move herself and her personal chattels to the farm.
Hiram bore a note to the woman who had promised to care for the Atterson place, and money to pay her what the boarding-house mistress had agreed.
“You can 'bach' it in the house as well as poor old Uncle Jeptha did, I reckon,” this woman told the youth.
She showed him where certain provisions were—the pork barrel, ham and bacon of the old man's curing, and the few vegetables remaining from the winter's store.
“The cow was about gone dry, anyway,” said the woman, Mrs. Larriper, who was a widow and lived with her married daughter some half-mile down the road toward Scoville, “so I didn't bother to milk her.