"That's true. I know it, ma'am," assented Mr. Kettledrum, who liked to talk of the road, as a man likes to talk of an affliction. "Don't I travel that road between ten and two o'clock on hot August days?" Then his face saddened to the look of stoical resignation with which men survey the misfortunes of others. "When I come along thar this mornin' they was bringin' Jason Greylock away from his house in the woods, and I stopped for a word with him. He was too weak to speak out loud, but he made a sign to say that he knew me. If thar ever was a wasted life, I reckon it was Jason's, though he started out with such promise. Bad blood, bad blood, and nothin' to counteract the taint of it."
"Where were they taking him?" Dorinda inquired indifferently; and turning, she glanced over the autumn fields to the red chimneys of Five Oaks. The house was occupied now by Martin Flower, the manager, and smoke was rising in a slender column from the roof. Mr. Kettledrum cleared his throat. "I thought perhaps they'd sent word to you. Mr. Wigfall told me they was comin' over to ask if you could make a place for Jason at Five Oaks. They seemed to think you owed him a lodgin' on the farm considerin' you bought it so cheap and made so much money out of it."
A flush of anger stained Dorinda's forehead and her eyes burned. "I owe him nothing," she answered. "The place was sold at public auction after he had let it run to seed, and my husband bought it fairly for what he bid. If I did well, it is because I toiled like a field-hand to restore what the Greylocks had ruined." She broke off with a gasp, as if she had been running away from herself. The old "mail rider," she saw after a moment, stared at her in surprise.
"Yas'm, I'm sorry I spoke, ma'am," he replied mildly. "You've earned the right to whatever you have, that thar ain't no disputin'. I was just thinkin' as I come along what a pleasant surprise it would be to your Pa if he could come back an' see all those barns and dairy-houses, to say nothin' of that fine windmill an' electric plant."
Dorinda sighed. "Poor Pa. My only regret is that he couldn't share in the prosperity. He worked harder than I did, but he never saw any results. It has taken me thirty years." Yes, she was fifty now, and it had taken her thirty years.
"You've kept the old house just as it was in his day. Wall, I favour a shingled roof, myself, even if it does burn quicker when it ketches fire. But thar's something unfeeling to me about one of these here slate roofs. They ain't friendly to swallows, an' I like to see swallows flyin' over my head at sunset."
"Yes, a slate roof is almost as ugly as a tin one." She regarded him steadily for a minute while she bent over to stroke Snowbird's neck. The light struck her face obliquely through the fiery branch of a black-gum tree, and if Mr. Kettledrum had been gifted with imagination, he would have seen the look of something winged yet caged flutter into her blue eyes.
"What is the matter with Doctor Greylock?" she asked.
In Mr. Kettledrum, who was wafted off on waves of agreeable retrospection, the sudden question produced mental confusion. He was past the sportive period when one can think without effort of two things at the same time. "Eh, ma'am?" he rejoined, cupping one gnarled hand over his ear.
"I asked you what was the matter with Doctor Greylock?"