Granny Williams looked through the window after her departing guest. “Ho hum!” said she. “Thar goes the last of the Joslins—of the real Joslins. She was the fightin’est one of ‘em all, but she allus was a good Christian womern.”
“Why hain’t Davy come down here no more lately, Ma’am?” she asked suddenly of her silent guest.
“I don’t know in the least,” replied Marcia Haddon. “Does it matter?” Then, relenting: “I wish he would come! I ought to see him before he goes away, or before I go.”
“Why?” asked Granny Williams directly.
“I’ve got to be going. I’m a widow, you see, now, Granny—I’m alone! I’ve been thinking a good deal.”
“What ye been thinkin’, child?”
Marcia Haddon, with a strange humility, laid one of her soft white hands upon the wrinkled one reposing in the old dame’s lap. “I’ll tell you—I’ve been thinking about that little child we met up there in the cave.”
The old woman nodded.
“What will that child and all the others do if the school stops?”
“Oh, Davy’ll come back,” said Granny Williams—“he’s got to come back.”