“Yep,” Silas admitted in return, “an’ I don’t understand it. Anyhow, I never knew Liza Ann come s’ near forgettin’ ’erself. It was worth a day’s travel t’ see.”
They talked of other things, the baby dropped asleep in its mother’s arms, and Silas took his departure.
“How unlike him,” Elizabeth said to herself as she watched him go to his wagon.
Silas rode away in an ill-humour with himself.
“Now there I’ve been an’ talked like a lunatic asylum,” he meditated. “I allus was that crazy about babies! Here I’ve gone an’ talked spiteful about th’ neighbours, an’ told things that hadn’t ought t’ be told. If I’d a talked about that baby, I’d ’a’ let ’er see I was plum foolish about it—an’ I couldn’t think of a blessed thing but th’ Hansens.”
He rode for a while with a dissatisfied air which gave way to a look of yearning.
“My! How proud a man ought t’ be! How little folks knows what they’ve got t’ be thankful for! Now I’ll bet ’e just takes it as a matter of course, an’ never stops t’ think whether other folks is as lucky or not. She don’t. She’s in such a heaven of delight, she don’t care if she has lost ’er purty colour, or jumped into a life that’ll make an ol’ woman of ’er ’fore she’s hardly begun t’ be a girl, nor nothin’. She’s just livin’ in that little un, an’ don’t even know that can’t last long.”
There was a long pause, and then he broke out again.
“Think of a man havin’ all that, an’ not knowin’ th’ worth of it! Lord! If I’d ’a’ had—but there now, Liza Ann wouldn’t want me t’ mourn over it—not bein’ ’er fault exactly. Guess I ought t’ be patient; but I would ’a’ liked a little feller.”