“Just sometimes,” she admitted.
“You said you didn’t want to go to Prouty again because the children bleated at you the last time you were in.”
“But that was long ago—a year—they wouldn’t do that now—they’re older, and, besides, there are others who have sheep. We’re not the only ones any more. But,” with a quaver in her voice, “don’t you want me to go, Uncle Joe?”
“I don’t want you to put yourself in a position to get hurt.”
“What—what would anybody hurt me for?” she asked, wide-eyed.
His answer to the question was a shrug. Then, as though to himself, “They may be bigger than I give them credit for.”
He had not refused to let her go, but he had chilled her enthusiasm somewhat so they were silent for a time, each occupied with his own thoughts.
As Mormon Joe, with his hands clasped about his knee, his pipe dead in his mouth, sat motionless in the starlight, he ceased to be conscious of the beauty of the night, of the air that touched his face, soft and cool as the caress of a gentle woman, of the moist sweet odors of bursting buds and tender shoots—he was thinking only that the child who had run into his arms for safety had come to be the center of the universe to him. He could not imagine life without her. He had mended her manners, corrected her speech, bought her books of study to which she had diligently applied herself in the long hours while she herded sheep, and nothing else in life had given him so much pleasure as to watch her mind develop and her taste improve.
Anybody that would hurt her! Instinctively his hands clenched. Aloud he said:
“Go to your party, Katie, and I hope with all my heart it will be everything you anticipate.”