Deep thinking was too much for Mrs. Buck. She stopped peeling potatoes and fell into a brown study. The side porch was a pleasant place to sit and dream. Judith had sorted out her wares and stored them in the back of her 52 blue car. She had caught two chickens and dressed them and set a sponge for the hot rolls. She had promised herself the pleasure of serving the motorman and conductor a trial supper whose excellence she was sure would bring in dozens of orders.
A whirr from the barn and in a moment Judith was off and away, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.
“No hurry about the potatoes!” she called as she passed the house, and then her voice trailed off with, “I’ll be back by and by.”
“Just like the old woman on a broomstick in Mother Goose,” Mrs. Buck informed the hen and then since there was no hurry about the potatoes she fell to dreaming again. It was very peaceful on the shady porch with that whirlwind of a Judy gone for several hours on one of her crazy peddling jaunts. What a girl she was for plunging! Again the mother wondered where she came from and for the ten thousandth time agreed with herself that it must be the blood of the Norse sailor cropping out in her energetic daughter.
“It might have been the Bucks way back yonder somewhere. Certainly she didn’t get any up-and-doing from old Dick Buck or my poor husband.” Mrs. Buck always thought and 53 spoke of her husband as her poor husband. That was because he had died in the first year of their marriage. Perhaps a merciful Providence had taken him off before he had time to develop to any great extent the traits that made his father, old Dick Buck, a by-word in the county as being the laziest and most altogether no-account white man in Kentucky.
Her thoughts drifted back to her childhood in New England. She could barely remember the old white farmhouse with its faded green shutters that rattled so dismally in the piercing winds that seemed to single out the Knight house as it swept down between the hills. She recalled vividly the discussion carried on between her parents in regard to their mode of moving West—whether by wagon or rail—and the final decision to go by wagon because in that way they might save not only railroad fare but the bony team. Furniture was packed ready for shipment and stored in a neighbor’s barn until they were sure in just what part of the West they would settle. California had been their goal, but Kentucky seemed far enough. They had stopped for a while in Ryeville with an old neighbor from New England and, hearing of a farm owned by one Dick Buck that was to be sold for taxes, they 54 determined to abandon the journey to California and put what savings they had on this farm.
The mortgage went with the farm. That Ezra Knight bargained for, but what he had not bargained for was that old Dick Buck and his son, young Dick, also were included in the purchase. They lived in a two-room log house, a little behind the site Ezra had selected for his own domicile. This was the natural place to build, since the land sloped gently from it, giving a proper drainage, and then the well was already there and a wonderfully good well it was.
The new house was built, the plan following the old house they had left in Connecticut as closely as possible, but still old Dick Buck stayed on in his log cabin. Every day he told Ezra Knight he was planning to move, but always some unforeseen event would arise to make it necessary for him to postpone his departure. The houses were not fifty feet apart, the back yard of the New England cottage serving as a front yard to the cabin. The days stretched into weeks, the weeks into months. Ezra grew impatient and the old Dick took to his bed with a mysterious malady that defied the skill of the country doctor. Mrs. Knight, a kindly soul, ministered to his wants, saying she couldn’t let 55 a dog suffer if he was a neighbor. The months stretched into years. Every time Ezra approached the one time owner of the farm on the subject of his finding some other place of abode, old Dick had an attack of his mysterious malady and Ezra would have to give up for the time being.
In the meantime young Dick was growing into a likely lad and little Prudence Knight had let down her skirts and put up her hair. Dick was employed on the Knight farm, and what was more natural than he should take his meals with them? Old Dick found it equally natural that he should also make one at the frugal board. When Ezra died, which he did ten years after he moved to Kentucky, old Dick and young Dick kindly offered to sit up with the corpse. The bereaved wife made the bed in the low-ceilinged attic room for them and what more natural than they should stay on? Stay on they did until young Dick and Prudence were married; until young Dick died. Then old Dick stayed on and Mrs. Knight died and his daughter-in-law and the little flame-haired Judith were left to fend for themselves.
After the death of Mrs. Knight of course leaving was impossible. Old Dick even spoke of himself as the sole support of his daughter-in-law 56 and her little Judith. He began to look upon hunting and fishing as a duty and seemed to feel that they would have been destitute without his occasional donation of a small string of perch or a rabbit. Mrs. Knight tolerated him because she was used to him. Judith had a real affection for the old man and, when he died, mourned for him sincerely. To be sure he had been a very untidy old person who had never done a day’s work in all his life but at least he had a nimble wit which had appealed to the child.