"Will you be likely to see her?" pursued Mrs. Deans.
"Yes," said Homer, in a matter-of-course tone. "Oh, yes, of course I'll see her."
"Still, after all," Mrs. Deans hesitated with a fine show of prayerful reflection, "maybe I hadn't ought to ask you to call there? There's no use making things worse than they are, and I'd never forgive myself if I thought I put you in the way of wrongdoing."
"I don't understand," said Homer, calmly. "Is there anything wrong about your message?"
"Not about my message," answered Mrs. Deans; "but, after all that's come and gone, I dare say you would not like to go to the Holder place. Well, I don't know as I blame you. It's terrible discouragin' to be mixed up with such a story; but there, never mind, I can send Maley. No one would think anything of his going."
"Make your mind easy, Mrs. Deans," said Homer, contemptuously. "Ann Lemon, I am sure, has let you know that I am in the habit of going to Myron's as often as she'll let me. I'll be very glad of your message as an excuse to go again."
With this Homer departed, leaving Mrs. Deans as nearly dumbstruck as it was possible for her to be.
That afternoon Myron stood knocking at Mrs. Deans' kitchen-door, holding My by the hand, whilst he struggled to get away to the collie dog which lay on the porch, its front paws crossed in an attitude of dignified leisure.
From the poultry-yard came the mingled babble of the fowls' cries. A thin blue banner of smoke uncoiled in a long spiral from behind the house. It diffused an aroma of herbs and withered grass: the rakings of the garden were being burned. Gamaliel and the hired men were opening a ditch in the field next the house. Their coarse voices and coarser laughing came clearly through the spring air. A sparrow flew down and, laden with a long straw, flew up again to the woodshed eaves, where its mate proceeded to help it to weave the straw into the walls of their nest. The old cat, thinner now than in the winter, looked up at their toiling malignantly. Every now and then the eye was conscious of a dark speck above the line of direct vision, as the swallows soared in long sweeps over the building.
The sky was bright, but not very warm; and when one of the many floating clouds interposed a veil betwixt its rays and the earth, there came a quick sense of chill. The men's voices grew higher and more confused. Then, clear above the murmur that they made, came shrill whistles and shouts of "Bob! Bob!" The collie sprang up, and, throwing dignity to the wind, wriggled between the boards of the garden fence and darted across the field, to enjoy presently a hilarious chase after a pair of water-rats that the men had found in the stopped up drain.