Mr. Stamps remained seated near the steps and blinked after him silently until he was out of sight.
“Ye didn’t seem to talk none, D’Willerby,” said one of the outsiders when Tom reappeared.
Tom sank into his chair, thrust his hands into his pockets, and stretched his limbs out to their fullest capacity.
“Let a man rest, boys,” he said, “let a man rest!”
He was silent for some time afterwards, and even on the arrival of the mail was less discursive than usual. It was Mr. Stamps who finally aroused him from his reverie.
Having obtained his mail—one letter in a legal-looking envelope—and made all other preparations to return to the bosom of his family, Stamps sidled up to the counter, and, leaning over it, spoke in an insinuatingly low tone:
“She was bar’foot,” he said, mildly, “‘n’ she hadn’t been raised to it—that was one thing. Her feet wus as soft ‘n’ tender as a baby’s; ‘n’ fur another thing, her hands wus as white as her face, ‘n’ whiter. Thet ain’t the way we raise ’em in Hamlin County—that’s all.”
And, having said it, he slipped out of the store, mounted his mule, and jogged homeward on the Barnesville Road also.