“This is worse'n usual,” she said sharply. “And I ain't going to have you fill yourself with any more of that patent trash. You don't spare me by not letting on. I can tell as soon as you're miserable. David can fetch the doctor from Crabapple to-night if you don't look better.”
“But I am,” he assured her. “It's just a comeback of an old ache. There was a power of heavy work to that fence.”
“You'll have to get more to help you,” she continued. “That Galt'll let you kill yourself and not turn a hand. He can afford a dozen. I don't mind housing and cooking for them. David's only tol'able for lifting, too, while he's growing.”
“Why,” David protested, “it ain't just nothing what I do. I could do twice as much. I don't believe Allen could helt more'n me when he was sixteen. It ain't just nothing at all.”
He was disturbed by this assault upon his manhood; if his muscles were still a little stringy it was surprising what he could accomplish with them. He would show her to-morrow.
“And,” he added impetuously, “I can shoot better than Allen right now. You ask him if I can't. You ask him what I did with that cranky twenty-two last Sunday up on the mountain.”
His clear gaze sought her, his lean face quivered with anxiety to impress, convince her of his virility, skill. His jaw was as sharp as the blade of a hatchet. She studied him with a new surprised concern.
“David!” she exclaimed. “For a minute you had the look of a man. A real steady look, like your father. Don't you grow up too fast, David,” she directed him, in an irrepressible maternal solicitude. “I want a boy—something young—round a while yet.”
Hunter Kinemon sat erect and reached for his pipe. The visible strain of his countenance had been largely relaxed. When his wife had left the room for a moment he admitted to David:
“That was a hard one. I thought she had me that time.”