"But we could not board you!" protested John Chester. "I cannot have extra labor imposed upon my wife."
Pa Babcock rose, stretching all his mighty limbs as if he would convince these strangers that he could, indeed, accomplish the work of two ordinary men per day; then, waving the trivial matter of board aside with an airy lightness which his recent exhibition of appetite scarcely warranted, announced:
"We will consider the affair closed. I will work every other day, Sundays excluded, at two dollars and a half per day and find myself. I will enter upon my duties to-morrow morning, and I now wish you good-night. I go to establish the rule of equality in this unenlightened neighborhood."
So saying he slipped out of the house, a fearsome-looking but wholly harmless "crank," who seemed rather to have left his shadow behind him than to have taken it with him. As he departed the roar of thunder, the brilliant flash of lightning, filled the room; and, forestalling a remonstrance she feared might be forthcoming, mother Martha exclaimed:
"The storm is coming at last. I must go see to all the windows."
"I'll limp around and help you; and, wife dear, I can't help feeling we should think twice before we take up with that miller's offer. He's too sweet to be wholesome and I know that Mrs. Calvert——"
"The matter is settled, John. You reminded me that Skyrie was my property. I claim the right to use my own judgment in the case. I will send Dorothy to see that kind old Quaker early to-morrow."
She did. But as her husband went about with her that evening, making all secure against the tempest, the shadow that Pa Babcock had left behind him—the shadow of almost their first disagreement—followed her light footsteps and the tap-tap of his crutches from room to room.
Till at last they came to the little upper chamber which they had both vied in making attractive for Dorothy's homecoming and saw her sleeping there; her lovely innocent face flushed in slumber and dearer to them both than anything else in life.
"It was for her, else I'd have let John have his way and ask Mrs. Cecil. But I cannot have her drawn away from me—and she's being drawn, she's being drawn," thought mother Martha, stopping to straighten a moist curl and kiss the pretty cheek.