Alexander Crandall quickly appeared, in a hide apron covered with curlings of wood. A slight concern was visible upon his countenance, as though he expected at any moment to see revealed the “string” of which his brother had spoken.
Gordon adequately met his salutation, and turned to the woman. He saw now that she was more mature than Lettice: the mouth before him, although young and red, was bitten in at the corners; already the eyes gazed through a shadow of care; the capable hands were rough and discolored from toil and astringent soaps.
“Come in, come in,” Crandall urged, striving to banish the sudden anxiety from his voice.
“And you go right around, Alec,” his wife added, “and twist the head off that dominicker chicken. Pick some flat beans too, there’s a mess still hanging on the poles. Go in, Mr. Makimmon.”
He was ushered into the ceremonious, barely-furnished, best room. There was a small rag carpet at the door, with an archaic, woven animal, and at its feet an unsteady legend, “Mary’s Little Lamb”; but the floor was uncovered, and the walls, sealed in resinous pine, the pine ceiling, gave the effect, singular and depressing, of standing inside a huge box.
“It’s mortal cold here,” Mrs. Crandall truthfully observed; “the grate’s broken. If you wouldn’t mind going out into the kitchen—”
In the kitchen, from a comfortable place by the fire, Gordon watched her deft preparations for an early supper. Crandall appeared with the picked dominicker, and sat rigidly before his guest.
“I don’t quite make out,” he at last essayed, “how you expect your money, what you want out of it.”
“I don’t want anything out of it,” Gordon replied with an almost bitter vigor; “leastways not any premium. I said you could pay me when you liked. I’ll deed you the farm, and we’ll draw up a paper to suit—to suit crops.”
The apprehension in Alexander Crandall’s face turned to perplexed relief. “I don’t understand,” he admitted; “but I haven’t got to. It’s enough to know that you pulled us out of ruination. Things will come right along now; we can see light; I’m extending the sheep-cots twice.”