"There's not a time she comes back here it don't have an upsettin' influence on you, Hanna."
"I know what's upsettin' me, all right. I know!"
He sighed heavily.
"I'm just the way I am, Hanna, and there's no teachin' an old dog new tricks. It's a fact I ain't much good after eight o'clock evenin's. It's a fact—a fact!"
They sat then in a further silence that engulfed them like fog. A shift of wind blew a gust of dry snow against the window-pane with a little sleety noise. And as another evidence of rising wind, a jerk of it came down the flue, rattling the fender of a disused grate.
"We'd better keep the water in the kitchen runnin' to-night. The pipes'll freeze."
Tick-tock. Tick. Tock. She had not moved, still sitting staring above the top of his head. He slid out his watch, yawning.
"Well, if you think it's too raw for the movin' pictures, Hanna, I guess I'll be movin' up to bed. I got to be down to meet a five-o'clock shipment of fifty bales to-morrow. I'll be movin' along unless there's anything you want?"
"No—nothing."
"If—if you ain't sleepy awhile yet, Hanna, why not run over to Widow
Dinninger's to pass the time of evenin'? I'll keep the door on the latch."