“No. I’m alone.”
“Maybe you’ve got no folks. Some hasn’t. Ephraim, yonder, is one. He’d be in a fix if ’twasn’t for Jessie and me. I come about once in so often and straighten out all the crooks. Took them pills, Ephy?”
Mr. Hale tried to repress a smile and failed, but “Forty-niner” burst into a loud laugh, and replied:
“No, Aunt Sally, and what’s more I’m not going to. Why should I? Who never have an ache or pain–that medicine will cure,” he added, looking tenderly upon Lady Jess and remembering his grief of the past night.
“Well, you ought to have. ’Tisn’t human nature to live to eighty and not have. I’m twenty years younger’n you are and I ache from head to foot, some days.”
“Asking questions sort of wears you out, I reckon.”
“Now, Ephy, don’t get playful. Not at your age. It’s not a good sign. Besides, my hen chicken’s been crowing more’n once this trip. That’s a sign of death–somewhere.”
“Giddap, Stiffleg!”
Ephraim urged his horse forward, meaning to forewarn the “boys” of who and what was coming. Jessica comprehended and quickly followed, but her object was to bespeak a different kind of welcome from that he intended. Neither knew, then, just how heartily glad they would be before many hours were over of the helpful, yet disturbing, presence of this same masterful woman.
The Easterner was left to jog alongside the curious team and its more curious mistress, who, even, while she held the rope reins in one hand, was threading her needle and sewing that patchwork which was as characteristic of her as the ceaseless knitting was of Elsa.