From the hearth where the woman bent over crane and frying-pan, her face hot and crimson, the red and yellow light spilled out into the primitive room, catching, here, the bright colour of drying pepper-pods strung along the rafters—there the duller glint of the house-holder's rifle leaning not far from his hand. With the flare, the shadows of the corners played a wavering hide-and-seek.
Asa ate in abstracted silence, intent upon his side-meat and "shucky-beans," but the boy, who was ordinarily ravenous, only dallied with his food and his freckled face wore the set of a preternatural solemnity.
"Don't ye love these hyar molasses no more, Booney?" inquired Araminta, to whose mind such an unaccustomed abstinence required explanation, and the boy started with the shock of a broken revery and shook his head.
"I don't crave no more of 'em," he replied shortly. Once again his thoughts enveloped him in a silence which he finally broke with a vehement interrogation.
"Asa, did ye ever heer anybody norrate thet hit's cowardly ter shoot an enemy from ther bresh?"
Asa paused, his laden knife suspended midway twixt platter and mouth. For an instant his clear-chiseled features pictured only surprise for the unexpected question—then they hardened as Athenian faces hardened when Plato "corrupted the youth with the raising up of new gods."
"Who's been a'talkin' blamed nonsense ter ye, Boone?" he demanded in a terse manner tinctured with sharpness.
The boy felt his cheeks grow suddenly hot with a quandary of embarrassment. To McCalloway he stood pledged to keep inviolate the confidence of their conversations, and it was only after an awkward pause that he replied with a halting lameness:
"Hit hain't jist p'intedly what nobody's been a'tellin' me. I ... I seed in a book whar hit said somethin' ter thet amount." Suddenly with an inspirational light of augmented authority, he added, "The Circuit-rider hisself read outen ther Scriptures suthin' 'bout not doin' no murder."
Asa carried the knife up to his lips and emptied its blade. Having done so, he spoke with a deliberate and humourless sincerity.