It was four o’clock then. Supper was a good two hours off. Say! how them two hours drug!
But all good things come to a’ end–as the feller said when he was strung up on a rope. And the hands of my watch loped into they places when they couldn’t hole back no longer. Then, outen the door on the track side of the eatin’-house, here she come!
My little gal! I was hungry t’ talk to her, and git holt of one of her hands. But whilst I watched her walk toward me, I couldn’t move, it seemed like; and they was a lump as big as a baseball right where my Adam’s apple oughta be.
“Macie!”
She stopped and looked straight at me, and I seen she’d been cryin’. “Alec,” she says, “I didn’t mean t’ give in and see you ’fore I went. But they tole me you and Hank ’d had words. And–and I couldn’t stay mad no longer.”
“Aw, honey, thank y’!”
“I ain’t a-goin’ away t’ stay,” she says. “Leastways, I don’t think so. But I want a try at singin’, Alec,–a chanst. Paw’s down on me account of that. And he don’t even come in town no more. Wal, I’m sorry. But–you understand, Alec, don’t y’?”
“Yas, little gal. Go ahaid. I wouldn’t hole you back. I want you should have a chanst.”
“And if I win out, I want you t’ come to Noo York and hear me sing. Will y’, Alec?”
“Ev’ry night, I’ll go out under the cottonwoods, by the ditch, and I’ll say, ‘Gawd, bless my little gal.’”