“There’s room for it there.”
Dannie made a supreme effort. He feared that his grandfather had been deceived into selling a right of way through the graveyard, and he felt that if he spoke now, and told what he knew, regardless of consequences, there might yet be time to save the old man from utter humiliation and loss.
“But they did run through your graveyard, Gran’pap. They did set their line o’ stakes right across it. I know it. I saw ’em do it.”
“So you said before. But they thought better of it afterward, an’ went around on the other side o’ the brook, didn’t they?”
“Let me tell you, Gran’pap. Let me explain. Let me—”
What Dannie would have said, how he would have explained, what confession, if any, he would have made had he not been interrupted, is one of those things that will never be known. The emergency was sudden, and he intended to meet it at any cost. But a simple interruption altered the entire current of his thought. The outer door of the kitchen was opened and Gabriel came in. It seemed as though he was blown in by the gust of wind that followed him. Something in the kitchen fell with a clatter, and the old man and the boy both started up to see what it was. The clothes-horse with the week’s washing on it, drying and airing by the fire, had blown over; but Aunt Martha picked it up before it had fairly touched the floor.
“You always did beat the world for carelessness!” growled Abner Pickett at the unfortunate hired man. “Come in here and tell me what David Brown said about the thrashin’ machine.”
Gabriel hung up his wet hat and coat, muttering to himself:—
“Ef lightnin’ struck ’im dead he’d jump up an’ lay it onto me.” Then he added aloud:—