“All right, Hoss,”—Smeaton sighed heavily,—“but I guess they ain’t no ‘rest of it’ yit.”
Several weeks elapsed before the subject was mentioned again. The doctor had been up from Tramworth to take the splints from Smeaton’s leg and had mentioned Swickey’s message to the convalescent, which was that she hoped he would soon be able to be up again, and that she knew he would be just as strong and active as ever in a little while.
“Strong and active. Strong and active.” The phrase fixed itself in Smeaton’s memory and he repeated it to himself daily, usually concluding with, “Wal, I guess I am—even if I ain’t no dude fur looks.”
When “Red” was able to hobble about the house, it was noticed by Avery that he gave more than a passing glance at the kitchen looking-glass after his regular ablutions. By a determined and constant application of soap and water he discovered that he could part his hair for a distance of perhaps two inches, but beyond that the trail was a blind one. He shaved regularly, and sent to Tramworth for some much-needed clothing. Avery attributed “Red’s” outward reformation to his own example, never dreaming that the real cause was Swickey, who, for the first two weeks of Smeaton’s disability, had tended him with that kindly sympathy natural to her and her father, a sympathy which seemed to the injured man, unused to having women about him, nothing less than angelic. Her manifest interest in his welfare and recovery he magnified to proportions that his egotism approved immensely, but could hardly justify through any known sense of attractiveness in himself.
For the first time in his life, “Red” Smeaton was in love, and the illusion of vague possibilities was heightened rather than otherwise by Swickey’s absence.
“Suthin’ wuss than a busted leg ails Joe. He ain’t ‘Red’ no more. He’s gettin’ almost fit to be called Joseph, by stretchin’ things a leetle, and it ain’t my doin’s, howcome I done what I could. I’m sca’d he’s got a shock to his spine or suthin’ when he fell that time. He ain’t actin’ nacheral, ’ceptin’ his appetite. He ain’t hurt thet none.”
Avery soliloquized, Beelzebub asleep on his knee, as he watched Smeaton working in the garden-patch which was left soft by the recent spring rains.
“Says he’s goin’ back on the drive when she comes through—and she’ll be comin’ purty quick now. Mighty resky, I take it. But Joe knows his business. Danged if I ain’t gettin’ to like the cuss.”
Beelzebub stretched himself lazily, and worked his claws luxuriously, and incidentally through Avery’s blue jeans.
“Hi, thar, Beelzy, you hop down. My leg ain’t no fence-post!”