More shufflings. “We do brearly miss ’e.”
“That so?”
Simeon cleared his throat. “My maid asked ’e to supper some three months back . . . well, if you don’t come up soon it’ll be getting cold like.”
There was an uncomfortable pause; then Eli looked up steadily. “I want you to understand, Sim, that things aren’t the same with me as they were now Ortho’s come home. My father died too sudden; he didn’t leave a thing to me. I’m nothing but a beggar now. Ortho . . .”
The gaunt slab of hair and wrinkles that was Simeon’s face split into a smile.
“Here, for gracious sake, don’t speak upon Ortho; he’s pretty nigh talked me deaf and dumb night after night of how he was a king in Barbary and what not and so forth . . . clunk, clunk, clunk! In the Lord’s name do you come up and let’s have a little sociable silence for a change.”
“Do you mean it?” Eli gasped.
“Mean it,” said Simeon, laying a hairy paw on his shoulder. “Did you ever hear me or my maid say a word we didn’t mean—son?”
Eli rushed across the yard and into the house to fetch his best coat.
Teresa was standing in front of the fire, hands outstretched, shivering despite the blaze.