Billy eyed her indifferently.
"Push them 'taters nearer," was all he replied.
"Your father'll kill you," Peggy ventured timidly, as she filled Billy's cup for the fourth time with a concoction which passed in St. Angé for coffee, because Leon Tate so declared it.
"No, he won't, neither," Billy said; "nobody ain't ever going to kill me, never!"
He turned a tense, defiant face to his mother, but there was something in his eyes that drew tears to Peggy's. She came behind his chair and, half afraid, let her hand rest upon his thin shoulder.
Wonder of wonders! Billy did not shake off the unfamiliar caress. On the contrary he smiled into the work-worn face above him.
"Ain't Billy terrible speckled when the tan's off?" Maggie broke in, "and his hair's as red as my flannel petticoat."
Peggy cast a threatening glance at her daughter.
"Clear off the table!" she commanded, for Billy was at last finished.
Maggie set about the task with relief. Something was afoot that she could not understand. Maggie was not spiritually constructed, but she was going to be a woman some day!