CHAPTER IX.
THE CHARITY OF SILENCE.
WHEN I went down to breakfast the next morning, I found Agnes waiting for me, and the meal ready; and as was the case the night before, she presided at the table without sitting down. I ate alone, and in silence, as it was explained that Mr. Biggs was not yet up, though it was late, and Agnes did not seem to be in a mood for talking. The circumstance that other members of the family kept out of the room made me think that I was regarded in the house as a sort of a machine likely to explode and hurt somebody, and could be approached only by those who knew where the safety valve was which blew me off; for I supposed Mrs. Biggs and Mrs. Deming to be very aristocratic people, who could not tolerate a country-bred boy. Therefore I did not feel in very good humor myself, thinking that Agnes was ashamed to exhibit me to her friends. Going out to the stables in lazy preparation for returning home, I found Big Adam pitching hay, as I had left him the day before.
“Well, young Westlock, how are you now?” he inquired, leaning on his fork.
I returned his greeting, and said I would hitch up when he had time to help me.
“You needn’t be in a hurry about it,” he said, returning to his work. “If I were you I would manage to get home just at dark, for then you’ll have nothing to do during the day. If you get back too early the preacher may find something for you to do.”
There was a good deal of truth in this, and I thanked him for the suggestion.
“I know something about hired help and boys on a farm. I have had a ripe experience in the service of Biggs. I thought he would talk you to death last night; it’s a terrible death to die. What did he say?”
I repeated portions of the conversation, and gave particular stress to what he had said concerning his and Big Adam’s doing the work of half a dozen men.
“He is always saying that,” Big Adam said indignantly, “but I assure you on my honor that he never held a plough or pitched hay a day in his life. Why, he is not here a third of his time. He came home last night after an absence of four weeks; I don’t know where he has been, but to some of the towns a long way off, probably. At ten or eleven o’clock he will breakfast, and then I shall hitch up and drive him over the place, during which time he will point out and suggest enough work to keep a dozen men busy for months; and after assuring me it ought all to be done before night, he will return to the house to lounge about. In a day or two he will go away again, and come back when he gets ready. That’s the kind of a farmer Biggs is, but I must say for him that he is quiet and peaceable. I wish I could say as much for his sister, the old pelican.”
Up to this time Big Adam had been wearing his Λ-shaped hat so far back on his head that I was wondering it did not fall off; but as if there were some people so contemptible that he could not possibly mention them without showing his temper, he jerked the hat over on his low forehead when he said this, and, looking out from under it with his little eyes, viciously said, “Damn.”