'Ye hearn 'em,' she said softly to Kelsey. Evidently she could not undertake the hazard of discriminating between these co-equal authorities.
'I hearn 'em,' he replied.
She sat down near the door, and resumed her occupation of monotonously peeling June apples for 'sass.' Her brown calico sun-bonnet, which she habitually wore, in doors and out, obscured her visage, except her chin and absorbed mouth, that now and then moved in unconscious sympathy with her work. There was a piggin on one side of her to receive the quartered fruit, and on the other a white oak splint basket, already half full of the spiral parings. On the doorstep her husband sat, a shaggy-headed, full-bearded, unkempt fellow, in brown jeans trousers reaching almost to his collarbone in front, and supported by the single capable suspender so much affected in the mountains. His unbleached cotton shirt was open at the throat, for there was fire enough in the huge chimney-place to make the room unpleasantly warm, despite the change of temperature without. Now and then he stretched out his hand for an apple already pared, which his wife gave him with an adroit back-handed movement, and which he ate in a mouthful or two. He made way for Kelsey to enter, and asked him a question, almost inarticulate because of the apples, but apparently of hospitable intent, for Kelsey said he had had a bite and a sup at Jonas Trice's, and did not want the supper which had been providently saved for him.
Kelsey did not betray which command he had thought best to obey.
'I hed ter put my rifle on the rack in the t'other room, gran'dad,' he observed meekly, addressing one of two very old men who sat on either side of the huge fireplace. There were cushions in their rude arm chairs, and awkward little three-legged footstools were placed in front of them. Their shoes and clothing, although coarse to the last degree, were clean and carefully tended. They had each long ago lived out the allotted threescore years and ten, but they had evidently not worn out their welcome. One had suffered a paralytic attack, and every word and motion was accompanied with a convulsive gasp and jerk. The other old man was saturnine and lymphatic, and seemed a trifle younger than his venerable associate.
'What war ye a-doin' of with yer rifle?' mumbled gran'dad in wild, toothless haste.
'I tuk it along ter see, when I war a-comin' home, ef I mought shoot suthin' tasty for supper.'
'What did ye git?' demanded gran'dad, with retrospective greed; for supper was over, and he had done full justice to his share.
'I never got nuthin',' said Kelsey, a trifle shame-facedly.
'Waal, waal, waal! These hyar latter times gits cur'ouser ez they goes along. The stren'th an' the seasonin' hev all gone out'n the lan'. Whenst I war young, folks ez kerried rifles ter git suthin' fur supper never kem home a-suckin' the bar'l. Folks ez kerried rifles in them days didn't tote 'em fur—fur—a 'ornamint. Folks in them days lef preachin' an' prophecy an' sech ter thar elders, an' hunted the beastis an' the Injun,—though sinners is plentier than the t'other kind o' game on the Big Smoky these times. No man in them days, jes' turned thirty, sot hisself down ter idlin', an' preachin', an' convictin' his elders o' sin.'