“I’d no idea anybody was looking. It was a joke, you know. He thought I was going ashore, too, but I didn’t want to.”
“So you made him walk home,” said Lockwood, at this dubious explanation. “Well, it’ll do him no harm. I expect he’s well on the way by this time.”
So were they, it appeared. The bayou made another twist, and there was a tiny pier, made of three pine logs, and a rough boat shelter of planks. Lockwood steered in, and they landed.
“We’ll go up to the house and get the car,” said Louise, as Lockwood paused dubiously. “You must meet my father besides. He knows about you, and I think you’ve met my brothers already.”
They went up a path for a couple of hundred yards, through the strip of pines, across a garden of collards and cabbages, and into the great, smooth, sandy expanse of the back yard, which an old negro was just sweeping with a huge broom of twigs. Louise opened a gate in an arch smothered in roses, and they passed through into the front yard, equally hard and sandy and swept, and they came to the steps of the wide gallery that ran around two-thirds of the house.
Lockwood was in tense expectation of meeting Hanna, of the critical moment of introduction, of speaking, of possible—though unlikely—recognition. It was with a sensible letting down of the strain that he saw only old Power on the gallery, his feet cocked up on the railing, half somnolent, holding an unlighted cob pipe in his teeth. On the steps young Jackson Power sat huddled up, still wearing his expensive clothing, but coatless and with his sleeves rolled up, looking half dead with boredom.
He jumped up joyfully as the pair came in. Henry Power awakened completely, and they gave him so delighted a welcome that it was plain they were overjoyed at anything to break up the monotony of life.
“Mr. Lockwood, sir! You’re Craig’s new woods rider, I believe. I’ve heerd of you. Come up on the gallery an’ have a chair where it’s cooler.”
Mr. Power had adopted none of the extravagant habits of his sons. He wore a blue cotton shirt without any collar or vest, strong brown trousers whose leather suspenders were very conspicuous, and he had no shoes on. His speech was a little shaky with age; he must have been far over seventy, for he had been in the Civil War as a mere boy, and he had almost as rich and slurred an Alabama accent as any negro. He had no grammar, and he looked what he was—a barbarian from the big swamps, but a trace of old-time courtesy and “family” hung about him yet.
Jackson meanwhile had hurried to bring out a bottle and glasses, and was apparently appalled when Lockwood declined any refreshment. He took a drink himself, while Louise, dropping into a rocking-chair, explained Lockwood’s interposition, rather magnifying the assistance he had given.