Her amazed eyes were still fastened upon his face, but her hand no longer trembled on the back of the chair.
He suddenly held out his own hand to her, his sympathy and regret returning as he recalled the picture of the lonely wayfarer in the rain that had touched him so. "Oh, Eveliny!" he cried, "I never war so beset an' sorry an'—"
She struck his hand down; her eyes blazed. Her aspect was all instinct with anger.
"I do declar' I'll never furgive ye—ter spite him so—an' kem an' tell me! An' shame him so ez he can't hold his place—an' kem an' tell me! An' bow him down so ez he can't show his face whar he hev been so respected by all—an' kem an' tell me! An' all fur spite, fur he hev got nuthin' ye want now. An' I gin him up an' lef him lonely, an' all fur you-uns. Ye air mean, Abs'lom Kittredge, an' I'm the mos' fursaken fool on the face o' the yearth!"
He tried to speak, but she held up her hand in expostulation.
"Nare word—fur I won't answer. I do declar' I'll never speak ter ye agin ez long ez I live."
He flung away with a laugh and a jeer. "That's right," he said, encouragingly; "plenty o' men would be powerful glad ef thar wives would take pattern by that."
He caught up his hat and strode out of the room. He busied himself in stabling his horse, and in looking after the stock. He could hear the women's voices from the loft of the barn as they disputed about the best methods of tending the newly hatched chickens, that had chipped the shell so late in the fall as to be embarrassed by the frosts and the coming cold weather. The last bee had ceased to drone about the great crimson prince's-feather by the door-step, worn purplish through long flaunting, and gone to seed. The clouds were creeping up and up the slope, and others were journeying hither from over the mountains. A sense of moisture was in the air, although a great column of dust sprang up from the dry corn-field, with panic-stricken suggestions, and went whirling away, carrying off withered blades in the rush. The first drops of rain were pattering, with a resonant timbre in the midst, when Pete came home with a newly killed deer on his horse, and the women, with fluttering skirts and sun-bonnets, ran swiftly across from the barn to the back door of the shed-room. Then the heavy downpour made the cabin rock.
"Why, Eveliny an' the baby oughtn't ter be out in this hyar rain—they'll be drenched," said the old woman, when they were all safely housed except the two. "Whar be she?"
"A-foolin' in the gyarden spot a-getherin' seed an' sech, like she always be," said the sister-in-law, tartly.