“Abel, you dear, you can beat Mercy talking, by a great length. It’s funny to hear you blaming her for the very thing you do. But I like it. You can’t guess how I like it, and how it brings back my childish days in the forest. Now come in and get something to eat. Then we can have another talk.”
“I ain’t hungry. I had some doughnuts in my saddle-bags, and I munched them along the road. Say, Kit. Don’t tell Mercy; but I didn’t try to sell. Just put the question once, so to satisfy her when she asked. We hain’t no need. She’s got a lot of money in a buckskin bag tied round her waist. The land’s all right. It’s a good investment. I’ll let it stand. This country is bound to grow. Some day it will be worth a power, and then I’ll sell out, if I’m livin’; and if I ain’t, you can. One of the reasons I came was to fix things up for you. I always meant to make you my legatee. We’ve no kith nor kin nigh enough to worry about, Mercy an’ me; an’ I ’low she’d be agreeable. So we’ll let the land lie. Oh, bosh! There she is, calling again. May as well go in for she won’t stop till we do.”
After all, there was real pleasure in the faces of both husband and wife at their reunion, short though their separation had been, and bitter though their words sounded to a stranger; and, already, there was a personal pride in Mercy’s tones as she exhibited the house over which the Sun Maid presided, and explained the details—supplied by her own imagination—of its purposes.
“But about Gaspar, Mercy. Has she told you anything about him yet? I’m ’lowing to have him help me keep tavern if he’s grown up as capable as he promised when he was a little shaver.”
“No. She hain’t said a word. Fact is, I hain’t asked. We’ve been too busy with other things. Likely he’s round somewheres. Maybe off hunting with them lazy soldiers. Shame, I think. The Government keepin’ ’em just to loaf away their time.”
“Hmm! What on earth else could they do with it? I met a man, coming along, said there’d been a right sharp lot of wolves prowlin’ this winter an’ spring. They’re gettin’ most too neighborly for comfort for the settlers across the prairies, so the military are trying to clear them out. That’s not a bad idee. But don’t it beat all! That little sissy, that used to have to stand on a three-legged stool to turn the stirabout, grown like she has? I never saw a finer woman, never; and her hair’s the same dazzlin’ kind it always was. I ’low I’m proud of her, and no mistake. Hello! What’s yonder? An Indian, on horseback, a-stoppin’ to this place! What’s he after? His face is painted black, too. There’s Sunny Maid going out to talk with him, and Wahneeny, too. Must be somethin’ up.”
“There’s always somethin’ up, where there’s an Indian. I hate ’em, an’ they know it.”
“I guess they do, ma. Wahneeny, for instance, and—Shucks! That long, lanky, copper-face out back there, settin’ flat on the ground, trying to pitch jack-knives with a lot of other boys, white ones; he’s the chap that hung around our place so much—the chicken-stealer. I’m going to speak to him.”
“And I’m going to get him took up, just as soon as the Captain gets back, for setting our house afire. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been home; but you never could be trusted to look after things.”