He emptied the bucket, and brought the other to the bench under the back steps. "Ah been wu'kin'. Ah come back."
"We done got a letter sayin' you wuz dead."
He laughed broadly. "Ah ain't."
Tramping up the steps, he flung his wrinkled coat on its old nail above the lanterns, and sat down in a splint-bottomed chair, testing it carefully before he leaned back in it. "Got any breakfas', ole 'ooman? Ah's plumb starvin'."
She set out cold bacon, cold pone, a glass molasses pitcher with its top broken. "He'p yo'se'f, Tom. Ah's powerful glad you's home."
He spoke through a mouthful of bread and "long sweetening." "Ain't married agin, or nuthin'?"
"Ah ain't huntin' no mo' trouble."
She slid his emptied dishes into the loaded sink, and took up the two empty clothes baskets. "Come he'p me tote de clo'es back. Miss' Mary mebbe got somethin' for you to do."
At supper, the biggest kerosene lamp was lit on the middle of the table, and spread its smelly radiance over the reunited family. Ed and Jim had come in last, their cap-lamps still lit, their shirts clayey from the underground work. "Here's yo' pappy, boys, come back agin," announced Stella proudly.
Diana, her nerves on edge from another meeting with Jim Hewin, got in a side blow. "I suppose you've been with that 'Banjo' Strickland again, and couldn't get home in time for supper?"