“I hope Sadie got her kindling in before the storm began. It’ll be awful cold in th’ mornin’, and—I do wish I could ’a’ got home. Sadie’s fires always go out.”
“Your cobs are closer to the house than mine; Sadie ’ll get along all right.”
“How do you know where our cobhouse is now, Lizzie? You ain’t seen it for over a year,” Luther observed quietly. And when Elizabeth did not reply, said with his eyes fastened on Jack’s half-asleep face: “I wonder how Janie is?”
Glad to talk of anything but herself and her own affairs, Elizabeth answered with feverish readiness the last half of Luther’s observation.
“You never told me what the baby’s name was before. Isn’t it sweet?”
“Do you know, Lizzie, that Sadie ’d most made ’er mind up t’ call it after you, if it was a girl, if you’d ’a’ come t’ be with ’er when it was born, as you said you would?” Luther looked at her almost tenderly, and with a yearning beyond words.
“After me? She didn’t send for me when she was sick, Luther.”
“No, but she would ’a’, if you’d ’a’ come as you ought t’ ’a’ done them months when she wasn’t goin’ out.” He looked at her penetratingly.
“I haven’t been anywhere since Aunt Susan’s death,” Elizabeth evaded, determined not to recognize his trend.
“You could ’a’ come before her death, there was plenty of time. Now look here, I ain’t goin’ t’ beat about th’ bush. I’m talkin’ square. You can’t git away from me. You’ve had th’ best chance a woman ever had t’ help another woman, an’ you didn’t take it. Sadie was that took by what you said about bein’ glad for th’ chance t’ have your baby, an’ th’ idea of helpin’ him t’ have th’ best disposition you could give ’im, that she didn’t talk of nothin’ else for weeks, an’ she looked for you till she was sick, an’ you never come. I want t’ know why?”