He was a youth of large, palpable bones, joints and knuckles; his face was long and preternaturally pale, and bore an abstracted expression which deepened almost to idiocy when bent above the quavering, unaccountable accordion.
The Vibard baby was alarmingly little, with a bluish face; and, as if in protest against her father’s interminable noise, lay wrapped in a knitted red blanket without a murmur, without a stir of her midgelike form, hour upon hour.
VI
Some days after the Vibards’ arrival Gordon Makimmon was standing by the stable door, in the crisp flood of midday, when an ungainly young man strode about the corner of the dwelling and approached him.
“You’re Makimmon,” he half queried, half asserted. “I’m Edgar Crandall, Alexander’s brother.” He took off his hat, and passed his hand in a quick gesture across his brow. He had close-cut, vivid red hair bristling like a helmet over a long, narrow skull, and a thrusting grey gaze. “I came to see you,” he continued, “because of what you did for Alec. I can’t make out just what it was; but he says you saved his farm, pulled it right out of Cannon’s fingers, and that you’ve given him all the time he needs to pay it back—” He paused.
“Well,” Gordon responded, “and if I did?”
“I studied over it at first,” the other frankly admitted; “I thought you must have a string tied to something. I know Alexander’s place, it’s a good farm, but ... I studied and studied until I saw there couldn’t be more in it than what appeared. I don’t know why—”
“Why should you?” Gordon interrupted brusquely, annoyed by this searching into the reason for his purchase of the farm, into the region of his memories.