"Nothin'," he answered, "nothin' caynt. Nothin' don't—an' you're young."
And he was so far moved by his secret thought that he smoothed her hair from her forehead the wrong way again with a light touch, before he let her go.
CHAPTER X.
THE GREAT WORLD.
The next morning he went to the Springs.
"I'll go an' settle up and bring ye your trunk an' things," he said. "Mebbe I mayn't git back till to-morrer, so don't ye be oneasy. Ef I feel tired when I git thar, I'll stay overnight."
She did not think it likely he would stay. She had never known him to remain away from home during a night unless he had been compelled to do so by business. He had always been too childishly fond of his home to be happy away from it. He liked the routine he had been used to through forty years, the rising at daylight, the regular common duties he assumed as his share, his own seat on the hearth or porch and at table.
"Folks may be clever enough," he used to say. "They air clever, as a rule—but it don't come nat'ral to be away. Thar aint nothin' like home an' home ways."
But he did not return that night, or even the next morning. It was dusk the next evening before Louisiana heard the buggy wheels on the road.