The white-haired old man sighed. His stiffened body slackened as he shifted his feet against the stove.
“Why––why, I kinda hoped it was something like that,” he murmured; and he was talking more to himself than to Denny. “I kinda hoped it was––but I never had no reason to believe it.”
His voice lifted until it was its shriller, more natural falsetto.
“I wouldn’t ’a’ believed myself today, at twelve o’clock noon,” he stated flatly. “No, sir-e-e! After takin’ stock of myself, as you might say, the way I done this morning, I wouldn’t ’a’ believed myself on oath!”
His feet dropped noisily to the floor, and he sat bolt upright again.
“But she’s a-goin’ to believe me! Godfrey, yes, she’ll believe me when I git through tellin’ her!”
His pale eyes clung to the boy’s face, tinged with astonishment before so much vehemence.
“And ain’t it kinda struck you––ain’t it sorta come to you that she wa’n’t quite fair, either, any more than the rest of us, a-thinkin’––a-thinkin’ what she did, without any real proof?”
Young Denny did not have time to reply.