The rest of the breakfast was finished almost in silence. Every once in a while Abner and Esther would exchange looks, his gravely kind, hers gratefully contented, and these seemed really to render speech needless. For my own part, I foresaw with some degree of depression that there would soon be no chance whatever of my securing attention in the rôle of an invalid, at least in this part of the barn.
Perhaps, however, they might welcome me in the kitchen part, as a sort of home-product rival to the sick cooper. I rose and walked languidly out into M’rye’s domain. But the two women were occupied with a furious scrubbing of rescued pans for the morning’s milk, and they allowed me to sit feebly down on the wood-box behind the stove without so much as a glance of sympathy.
By and by we heard one of the great front doors rolled back on its shrieking wheels and then shut to again. Some one had entered, and in a moment there came some strange, inarticulate sounds of voices which showed that the arrival had created a commotion. M’rye lifted her head, and I shall never forget the wild, expectant flashing of her black eyes in that moment of suspense.
“Come in here, mother!” we heard Abner’s deep voice call out from beyond the democrat wagon. “Here’s somebody wants to see you!”
M’rye swiftly wiped her hands on her apron and glided rather than walked toward the forward end of the barn. Janey Wilcox and I followed close upon her heels, dodging together under the wagon-pole, and emerging, breathless and wild with curiosity, on the fringe of an excited group.
In the centre of this group, standing with a satisfied smile on his face, his general appearance considerably the worse for wear, but in demeanor, to quote M’rye’s subsequent phrase, “as cool as Cuffy,” was Ni Hagadorn.
CHAPTER XIV—FINIS
HE’S all right; you can look for him here right along now, any day; he was hurt a leetle, but he’s as peart an’ chipper now as a blue-jay on a hick’ry limb; yes, he’s a-comin’ right smack home!”