His face had flushed. His eyes were full of grave resentment as they met her laughing glance. "I didn't 'low ez ye war so onfeeling ez ye 'pear ter be," he said, reproachfully. "Ever sence that time at the church house whenst all were convicted of sin, or saints, 'ceptin' ye an' me settin' alongside o' one another, I hev been sorter sorry fur ye, an' 'lowed ye war sorter sorry fur me."
She only replied with a laugh, and he evidently deemed futile the bid for sympathy on the score of religious or irreligious fellowship, for he recurred to it no more.
There was a stir along the path; a great high-stepping turkey gobbler was slowly coming down it, pausing now and then, and turning his wattled head askew to bring his eye to bear upon some incident of the high dewy weeds, that might promise a preliminary bit to a morning meal. The rest of his tribe, yet roosting on a bare branch of an otherwise full-leaved tree, looked big and burly against the roseate sky; each long inquisitive neck now and again stretched downward, each clutching claw ever and anon moving uncertainly along the perch with a fluctuating intention to descend, was growing momently more distinct as the gray light more and more encroached upon the moon, all obscured now by one of those cloud strata.
In this interval of eclipse Guthrie asked, suddenly, from out the dusk: "Ye know I warn't 'Tucker' by rights. Whyn't ye wanter dance with me?"
The shadow made her face uncertain. He could only see that she did not move. "Did I say I didn't want ter dance with you-uns? I don't 'pear ter remember it." Her tones, vibrant with mockery, were a trifle louder upon the air—a trifle strained; or was it that the world seemed more silent, muffled in the cloud that hid the moon?
"What's the reason ye wanted ter dance with Rhodes?" he demanded, pursuing the subject.
"Did I say I wanted ter dance with Rhodes?" She asked the counter-question with the sharp note of inquiry.
He detected its spuriousness, but her enigmatical intention embarrassed him. "Ye hed ruther dance with him than with me," he said, forlornly, losing his balance.
"Waal, it looks sorter that-a-way, now don't it?" she replied, in casual, irrelevant accents, as of an unconcerned third person.
The moon came out from under the cloud with a great flare of golden glory. Somewhere a cock's crow sounded—clear, mellow tones, delivered with the precision and aplomb of the blast of a bugle. The wind of dawn was coming over the eastern summits, and suddenly the moonlight was all superfluous above the dark, rugged western mountains, for the gray day was on the land. The little house stood distinct and forlorn, all its windows flaring to show its denuded state within; here, and there a tallow dip still sputtered. And if by moonlight and half distinguished the loom and the warping bars had looked disconsolate in their evicted estate under the trees, by daylight they wore so sorry and so consciously distraught an air that such definite expressiveness seemed oddly incongruous with their inanimate condition. All atilt and unsteady they stood on the uneven ground, and about them were many other objects of the household gear which the night had served to obscure. Pots and pans were scattered about or congregated in heaps. Chests and bedsteads, bags and bundles, quilting-frames and churns and tubs—all bore token how the behests of hospitality had stripped the house to make room for the dancing and the exigent demands of the extensive supper-tables. The dogs seemed to take much note of this unprecedented dislocation of the domestic administration, and they went about with inquisitive, exploring noses, and tails stilled and drooped in suspended judgment, amongst the various objects which they snuffingly recognized. One old fellow, the evening of his days much racked by rheumatism, seemed to discern an adequate reason in all the confusion, as he curled himself to doze on the plumpest of the feather-beds, with a large bone disposed within easy reach, to which he might refer as inclination prompted. The spinning-wheels all teetered unsteadily on the uneven chips about the wood-pile; now and again the wheels revolved with precipitate, erratic action as the wind stirred them. Letitia no longer looked at the moon—a mere pallid simulacrum of itself, worn thin and gauzy against the pale west; one might hardly know if it still hung there when the first red dart of the sun, yet below the horizon, was aimed at the flushing zenith. Her dress was blue again, not white; her face had something of the flush of the sky upon it, half seen though it was. She had bent forward to the little flax wheel, and had drawn out a thread, breaking and tangling it, only affecting to spin, while the whimseys of the wind turned the wheel. The light was distinct enough to show even the pistol ball in Felix Guthrie's hand as he held it up and gazed at it speculatively.