Daylight’s gradual fading out was of more interest to her than the accumulation of De Zhirley things around her. She listened for the crunch of the ferryboat prow on gravel; and voices and departing wheels at last moved by the cabin, and the proper owner entered. She stealthily unlatched her door and set it ajar, so the crack intersected the hearth. There in the seat she had taken thought to set ready sagged the drunken person of her stepbrother.
“You here, Billy Aarons?” said young De Zhirley, as he approached the fire; and his voice had no joy in it. His blind eye was toward the stair door, for the Calhoun fiddler was a one-eyed man. This defacement scarcely marred the beauty of the athletic man thrown out by firelight. Jeanne Sattory had, indeed, never seen him without pitying people who were two-eyed. His misused skin yet held the milk and wine flush of childhood, and his fleece of red-gold rings was a gift not to be spoiled.
“Yes, I’m here, Theodore,” said the man in the chair thickly.
“Mother Roundcounter has been here too,” added De Zhirley, as he looked about. “It makes a feller feel good to see his house clean and smell new bread.”
He hung a teakettle on the crane, and thrust a fork through some bacon to toast on the polished hearthstone. Then he drew his table toward the fireplace, and Jeanne could see his appreciative touch on the yellow ware she had washed.
“What do you want, Billy? Did you come in to take a bite with me?”
“No.” Aarons stirred from his doze. “I’m buyin’ cattle, Theodore.”
“No cattle to sell here.”
“I know it, Theodore. You’re a poor man by the side of me.”
Indifferent to this fact, De Zhirley turned his bacon and proceeded to make coffee.