“I’ll never forget this, Mrs. Sniff.” In the gathering gloom, behind Peneluna’s striding form, Larry’s voice almost broke again and undoubtedly the tears were on his cheeks. “Some day, when you know all, you’ll understand.”
“I’m a good setter and waiter, Larry Rivers, and as to understanding, that is as it may be. I can only see just so far! I can’t turn my back on the old doctor’s son nor Mary-Clare’s husband but I don’t want any tricks. You better not forget that! There’s a bed in yonder.” The two had entered the house next door. Jan-an had done good work. The place was in order and a fire burned in the stove. “I’ll fetch food later.” With this Peneluna, followed by Jan-an, a trifle more vague than usual, left the house.
The rain was already falling and the wind rising––it was the haunted wind; the bell sounded in the distance sharply. Jan-an paused in the gathering darkness and spoke tremblingly:
“What’s a-going on?” she asked. Peneluna turned and laid 101 her hand on the girl’s shoulder; her face softened––but Jan-an could not see that.
“Child”––the old voice fell to a whisper––“I ain’t going to expect too much of yer––God Almighty made yer out of a skimpy pattern, I know, but what He did give yer can be helped along by using it for them yer love. Child, watch there!”
A long crooked forefinger pointed to the shack, the windows of which were already darkened––for Larry had drawn the shades!
“Watch early and late there! Keep your mouth shut, except to me. Jan-an, I can trust yer?”
The girl was growing nervous.
“Yes’m,” she blurted suddenly and then fell to weeping. “I keep feelin’ things like wings a-touching of me,” she muttered. “I hate the feelin’. When nothing ain’t happened ever, what’s the reason it has ter begin now?”
It was nearly midnight when Peneluna sat down by her fireside to think. She had cooked a meal for Larry and carried it to him; she had soothed and fed Jan-an and put her to bed on a cot near the bed upon which old Philander Sniff had once rested, and now Peneluna, with Sniff’s old Bible on her knees, felt safe to think and read, and it seemed as if the wings Jan-an had sensed were touching her! The book was marked at passages that had appealed to the old man. Often, after Mary-Clare had read to him and left, thinking that she had made no impression, the trembling, gnarled hand had pencilled the words to be reread in lonely moments.