“He’s your cousin, lad!”
“He’s as much your cousin as he is mine! She can’t endure the sight of him!”
Wully sat up. He looked at Dod. He had thought of him always as a child. He was a big, tall boy now. Fourteen years old he was, and doubtless able to put two and two together. How much did he know? He must have heard people talking. Wully suddenly wondered why he had not always been afraid of Dod. To be sure, he had always been careful to keep on the good side of his little brother-in-law.
“He never done us any good!” Dod spoke vindictively.
Now what could he mean by that? Wully was getting excited. Why had the boy so great a resentment against Peter, instead of against him, Wully, under the circumstances? Dod’s sudden and apparent preference for Wully at once grew odious to him. Dod had chosen that morning to work with Wully. He was always choosing to work with him. Why? It seemed unaccountable to him that he had never been suspicious of the lad before. Wully dared not say to him;
“Well, he never did you any special harm, did he?” Suppose Dod would blurt out what he knew! He said, confusedly;
“Look here, Dod. You oughtn’t to talk that way! Not at this time, I mean—you can’t speak ill of the dead, you know.”
“I ain’t said half the truth!”
“You know how Aunt Libby feels!” Wully urged stupidly. “And Chirstie wouldn’t like you to say that—not now, you know——”
“Old fool!” commented Dod. Undoubtedly he was meaning his aunt. Wully couldn’t approve of such sentiments in one so young.