“It passed away with the pioneers,” sighed she.
“I suppose they’ll build in time, though?” Sol said.
“I ’low they will, maybe, after I’m gone,” said she.
“Well, well!” said Sol. He sat silent a little while. “Folks never have got over wonderin’ on the way she took up with Joe,” he said.
Mrs. Newbolt flashed up in a breath.
“Why should anybody wonder, I’d like for you to tell 367 me?” she demanded. “Joe he’s good enough for her, and too good for anybody else in this county! Who else was there for Joe, who else was there for Alice?”
Sol did not attempt to answer. It was beyond him, the way some people figgered, he thought in the back of his mind. There was his own girl, Tilda Bell. He considered her the equal to any Newbolt that ever straddled a horse and rode over from Kentucky. But then, you never could tell how tastes run.
“Well, reckon I’ll have to be rackin’ out home,” said he, getting up, tiptoeing to take the cramp out of his legs.
“Yes, and I’ll have to be stirrin’ the pots to get supper for my boy Joe,” she said.
The smoke from her kitchen fire rose white as she put in dry sumac to give it a start. It mounted straight as a plume for a little way, until it met the cool air of evening which was beginning to fall. There it spread, like a floating silken scarf, and settled over the roof. It draped down slowly over the walls, until it enveloped the old home like the benediction of a loving heart.