“Well,” said Tom, “perhaps you’re right; but don’t send too many of ’em, and let your wife tell ’em to talk as little as possible and leave the man alone. He’s got enough to stand up under.”
Before the day was over there were women enough in the hillside cabin. Half a dozen faded black calico riding-skirts hung over the saddles of half a dozen horses tethered in the wood round the house, while inside half a dozen excellent souls disposed themselves in sympathetic couples about the two rooms.
Three sat in the front room, their sunbonnets drawn well down over their faces in the true mourner’s spirit, one at the head of the bed slowly moving a fan to and fro over the handkerchief-covered face upon the pillow. A dead silence pervaded the place, except when it was broken by occasional brief remarks made in a whisper.
“She was a mighty purty-lookin’ young critter,” they said. “A sight younger-lookin’ than her man.”
“What’s the child?”
“Gal.”
“Gal? That’s a pity. Gals ain’t much chance of bein’ raised right whar they’re left.”
“Hain’t they any folks, neither on ’em?”
“Nobody don’t know. Nobody hain’t heerd nothin’ about ’em. They wus kinder curi’s about keepin’ to themselves.”
“If either on ’em had any folks—even if they wus only sort o’ kin—they might take the chile.”