For a while he was very, very quiet, wondering just what it was in her mind which made her so cheerfully indifferent to his presence. She filled that last box while he stood there in the doorway, stood off to survey her work critically, and then picked up a hammer that lay on the table and prepared to nail down the lid.
“I’ve hit my finger four times today,” she apprised him between strokes as she drove the first nail home. “Four times this afternoon––and always the same finger, too!”
The very irrelevancy of the statement, coupled with her calm serenity, was appalling to the old man. She didn’t so much as lift her eyes when she told him, but when the lid was fastened she whirled suddenly with that impetuosity which always startled him more than a little, her hands tightly clasped in front of her, and fairly beamed at him.
“There, that finishes everything––everything but the pots and pans,” she cried. “And I’ll need them a little longer, anyway, won’t I? But maybe I won’t take them with me, either––they’re pretty old and worn out. What do you think?”
Old Jerry cleared his throat. He ignored her question.
“Ain’t––ain’t this a trifle sudden,” he faltered––“jest a trifle?”
She shook her head again and laughed softly, as if from sheer joyous excitement.
“No,” she said. “No, I’ve been planning it for days and days––oh, for more than a week!”
Then she seemed to catch for the first time the dreariness of his whole attitude––the dejection of his spare angular body and sparrowlike, anxious face.