Old Matthew broke into a sly cackle. "Oh, he'll larn, he'll larn. I ain't contendin'. He's a pleasant-mannered youngster, an' I wish you all the joy of him you desarve. You ain't heerd from Geneva Ellgood sence she went away, have you?"
"Oh, no. She never writes to me."
"I kind of thought she might have. But to come back to Jason, he's got everything you want in a man except the one quality that counts with the land."
"You speak as if Jason lacked character," she said resentfully.
"Wall, if he's got it, you'll know it soon," rejoined the disagreeable old man, "and if he ain't got it, you'll know it sooner. I ain't contendin'. It don't pay to contend when you're upwards of eighty." He rolled the words of ill omen like a delicate morsel on his tongue. "This here is my turnout, honey. Look sharp that you don't git a drenchin'."
They nodded in the curt fashion of country people, and the old man tramped off, spitting tobacco juice in the road, while Dorinda hurried on into the deepening gloom of the woods. She was glad to be free of old Matthew. He was more like an owl than ever, she thought, with his ominous who-who-whoee.
Here alone in the woods, with the perpetually moist clay near the stream underfoot, the thick tent of arching boughs overhead, the aromatic smell of dampness and rotting leaves in her nostrils, she felt refreshed and invigorated. After all, why was she anxious? She was securely happy. She was to be married in a week. She knew beyond question, beyond distrust, that Jason loved her. For three months she had lived in a state of bliss so supreme that, like love, it had created the illusion of its own immortality. Yes, for three months she had been perfectly happy.
Above, the leaves rustled. Through the interlacing boughs she could see the grey sky growing darker. The warm scents of the wood were as heavy as perfumed smoke.
Presently the trees ended as abruptly as they had begun, and she came out into the broomsedge which surrounded the negro settlement of Whistling Spring. A narrow path led between rows of log cabins, each with its patchwork square of garden, and its clump of gaudy prince's feather or cockscomb by the doorstep. Aunt Mehitable's cabin stood withdrawn a little; and when Dorinda reached the door, there was a mutter of thunder in the clouds, though the storm was still distant and a silver light edged the horizon. On the stone step a tortoise-shell cat lay dozing, and a little to one side of the cabin the smouldering embers of a fire blinked like red eyes under an iron pot, which hung suspended from a rustic crane made by crossing three sticks.
In response to the girl's knock on the open door, the cat arched its back in welcome, and the old negress came hurriedly out of the darkness inside, wiping her hands on her blue gingham apron. She took Dorinda in her arms, explaining, while she embraced her, that she had just heated some water to make a brew of herbs from her garden.