CHAPTER IV
WHAT WAS IN AN OLD TRUNK
"Where you been?" demanded Mrs. Shannon, crossly, from the doorway of the shack. "Hurry up and put Sammy and Annie to bed and don't wake Patsy. Your pa wants you to say your lessons, Jeanne. I gotta go up town after yeast. Come along, Mollie, we can go now. Here's Barney with the boat."
Her family tucked into bed, Jeanne slipped into her father's room.
"Here I am," said she. "I'm not a bit sleepy, so you can teach me a lot."
Jeanne seated herself on her father's little old leather trunk—the trunk that was always locked—and patted it with her hands.
"There's my spelling book on the table, Daddy. There's a nice pink clover marking the place."
Her father looked at her for a moment, before reaching for the book. He liked to look at her; it was one of his few pleasures.
A soft clear red glowed in her dark cheeks and her eyes were very bright and very black. She was small and of slender build, but she seemed sufficiently healthy.
"Father, why do I have to speak a different language from Mollie's?" (She had never called her stepmother by any other name, since her fastidious father had objected to "Maw.") "What difference does it make anyway, if I say I did it or I done it?"