Ab declined accompanying them, although he had partially recovered from the fatigue of the day before, and he obstinately refused to allow one of the family to remain at home with him, to his sister's distress. She would gladly have remained, for there were still many things she wished to talk over with him, but he would not hear to it.
"I make no pretensions, Peggy, but neither am I goin' ter keep them erway that does," he said more decidedly than she had yet heard him speak.
He was sitting on the fence whittling a stick, and many were the curious glances directed toward the shabby, stooping figure, as the country people passed on their way to Ebenezer.
It was soon known throughout the settlement that Ab Dyer, Peggy Upchurch's brother had come, and the women discovered they owed Peggy a visit, and the men dropped in to see Upchurch, or to borrow some farming tool. Ab did not impress the visitors very favorably. Some regarded him suspiciously, others with more or less contempt.
"He's shore to be crazy," said old Miss Davis confidentially to Sally Gancey.
"You reckon?" in a shocked tone.
"Yes, an' er tramp, too. Won't you take er dip?" producing the little black snuff-box her grandfather had bequeathed to her.
"B'lieve I will. Po' Mis' Upchurch! how she mus' feel!"
"Law, it ain't no new thing. I knowed Ab Dyer when he wasn't much bigger'n er woodpeck, an' he never was right bright. He ain't 'walked fur with Solomon,' I kin tell you," rolling her eyes knowingly.
So the bit of gossip went from house to house, and hints of it reached the Upchurches; but if the poor wanderer ever heard of it, he made no sign. Yet it cut Peggy Upchurch to the heart, and she strove, by additional tenderness and consideration, to make up to him for all he had lost in not gaining the good will of the neighbors.