The girl paused a moment before answering, slowly: “I do not know. He is kind, beautiful⸺ It might be—if—if⸺”
“If!” repeated Granny. “If? Then in heaven’s name why ain’t it?”
The girl gave her a queer, beseeching look, and did not answer.
“Eh, well,” sighed the old woman, “’tis your own business, sure! Reckon I’m getting to be a right meddlesome old fool.”
She resumed her knitting, the spinning wheel whirred again, the room grew darker—would have been quite dark except for a flickering light from the pine knot on the hearth. Granny’s voice came presently out of the shadows, with a dreamy quality unusual to its brisk accents:
“That smell of burning pinewood always makes me think of the forest, and of our first little cabin there in the clearing, mine and Dan’l’s. A happy time⸺”
The girl at the spinning wheel lifted her head with a sharp movement, as of pain, which was not lost on the old eyes watching her.
“Tell me, dearie—I’ve often wanted to ask: were they so terribly cruel to you, those ugly savages?” Granny asked quietly.
“They were not all cruel,” the girl said. “Nor ugly.”
“No?” repeated the other, encouraged. “Not the women, perhaps? One of them would have mothered you, I dessay? Surely even red savage women would want to protect a poor little motherless thing like you, just coming into womanhood? And—and save her from the wickedness of the men?”