The mother gave the same answer as had Mavis, but she looked anxious and worried.
"Mavis is a-goin' back to the mountains with me," said the boy, and the girl looked up in defiant expectation, but the mother did not even look around from the stove.
"Mebbe yo' pap won't let ye," she said quietly.
"How's he goin' to help hisself," asked the girl, "when he ain't hyeh?"
"He'll blame me fer it, but I ain't a-blamin' you."
The words surprised and puzzled both and touched both with sympathy and a little shame. The mother looked at her son, opened her lips again, but closed them with a glance at Mavis that made her go out and leave them alone.
"Jasie," she said then, "I reckon when Babe was a-playin' 'possum in the bushes that day, he could 'a' shot ye when you run down the hill."
She took his silence for assent and went on:
"That shows he don't hold no grudge agin you fer shootin' at him."
Still Jason was silent, and a line of stern justice straightened the woman's lips.