“What made you come to see me?” he asked, still staring.
“What made me?”
“Yes. What made you? Have you found—has anybody told you—er—anything?”
“Anybody told me! My soul and body! That's what you said when I was here before. Do you say it to everybody? What on earth do you mean by it? Who would tell me anything? And what would they tell?”
Solomon pulled his whiskers. “Nothin', I guess,” he said, after a moment. “Only there's so much fool talk runnin' loose I didn't know but you might have heard I was—was dead, or somethin'. I ain't.”
“I can see that, I hope. And if you was I shouldn't be traipsin' ten miles just to look at your remains. Time enough for that at the funeral. Dead! The idea!”
“Um—well, all right; I ain't dead, yet. Set down, won't ye?”
Thankful sat down. Mr. Cobb swung about in his own chair, so that his face was in the shadow.
“Hear you've been doin' pretty well with that boardin'-house of yours,” he observed. “Hear it's been full up all summer.”
“Who told you so?”