“I know, Si,” his wife replied, “but she could come here if she wanted to. It’s her fool notions. John was th’ greatest hand t’ go you ever saw till he married her, an’ now he don’t go nowhere, an’ when I asked him about it, he said she wasn’t well! She’s as well as any woman that’s nursin’, an’ she’s got his mother t’ help ’er too.”
“Well, I don’t pretend t’ know th’ why’s an’ th’ wherefores of it, but I do know there ain’t a stuck-up bone in ’er body—I don’t care what nobody says,” loyal Silas Chamberlain replied.
The new mood stayed with Elizabeth Hunter and called for much perplexed introspection. It had been a perplexing day. There was no reason that she could assign for her contradictory actions. She found herself even softened toward John and able to enter into his attempt to be sociable after Silas’s departure. He seemed to be anxious to set himself before her in a kindlier light and she was able to meet the attempt as he wished. Elizabeth lost faith in herself as she saw her apparent whimsicalness and began to lash herself into line as John and his mother wished. She asked no more to be taken places.
In May, Luther came to help John with his team, and for the first time in months Elizabeth saw a neighbour woman. Luther lifted Sadie down from the high seat with as much care as if she had been a child.
“Sadie’s lonesome at the house alone all day, an’ it was good of you, Lizzie, t’ ask ’er,” he said as he climbed back into the wagon.
Elizabeth wanted a visit with Luther, himself, but was less fearful of a day with Sadie than she had been. She took her guest into the house and at the sitting-room door paused to point to Master Jack, who sat on an old quilt with a pillow at his back, digging his little heels into the floor and holding out dimpled hands imploringly.
“You darling child!” Sadie cried, going down on her knees at his side and hugging him till he sent up an indignant howl. “Isn’t he cunnin’? Isn’t he?” she cried, releasing him and subsiding into a doubled figure by his side. “Honestly, Lizzie, why don’t you bring him over?”
She looked so insistent, that she had to be answered.
“I don’t go any place, Sadie,” Elizabeth answered truthfully.
“Is it so, that Mr. Hunter won’t take you?” Sadie asked, and then at sight of the anger in Elizabeth’s face rose to her knees and laid her hand on her arm hastily. “I didn’t say that to hurt; honestly, Lizzie, I didn’t. I’m trying not to do that this time.”