4
Abe took another bite of cornbread and swallowed hard. "Don't you like it?" asked Sally anxiously. "I know it doesn't taste like the cornbread Mammy used to make."
She looked around the room. The furniture was the same as their mother had used—a homemade table and a few three-legged stools. The same bearskin hung before the hole in the wall that was their only door. But Nancy had kept the cabin clean. She had known how to build a fire that didn't smoke. Sally glanced down at her faded linsey-woolsey dress, soiled with soot. The dirt floor felt cold to her bare feet. Her last pair of moccasins had worn out weeks ago.
"I don't mind the cornbread—at least, not much." Abe finished his piece, down to the last crumb. "If I seem down in the mouth, Sally, it is just because—"
He walked over to the fireplace, where he stood with his back to the room.
"He misses Nancy," said Dennis bluntly, "the same as the rest of us. Then Tom has been gone for quite a spell."