“Ain’t heerd about it, has ’e?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Who’s a-goin’ to tell ’im?”
“Can’t you?”
“Not on your life! Wouldn’t do it fer the hull farm—live-stock throwed in. He’d light onto me like a thousan’ o’ brick. ‘Discretion is the better part o’ valor when theys a job to lose,’ ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say.”
“Well, then, I suppose I’ll have to. Thought I’d wait till after he’s had his supper. Wouldn’t you?”
“Great scheme! ‘A full stummick is twin brother to a big heart,’ ez ol’ Isra’l—’sh! ’sh!”
Abner Pickett came back from the feed-room with a measure brimming full with oats, and divided the grain carefully between the two horses, talking in the meantime in the most cheerful manner of the work on the farm, and of the incidents of his trip to town.
When the task at the barn was finished, they all went back to the house, and the old man sat down alone to the supper saved for him by Aunt Martha. Afterward he joined Dannie and Gabriel on the side porch. The smoke from his pipe curled up through the warm, still air, and floated about among the rafters of the ceiling.
“Ain’t it about time you went to bed, Dannie?” he asked gently, lifting his feet to a resting-place on the porch railing.