"I never was mo' s'prized in my life than when I found you folks had suthin' ter eat over here," said Mrs. Lucas. "My consceounce alive, I wush I may never stir agin, ef I didn't 'spect ter find you all starved ter death."
Potter looked up with a broad smile, and attempted to make some sort of a pleasant reply, but had no sooner said "madam" than the old woman, using an illustration afterward employed by Alf, "fairly fluttered." "Oh don't call me er madam," she exclaimed. "Gracious knows I didn't come all the way over here ter be madamed. When a man calls a woman madam, he thinks he's done the biggest sorter day's work. Now thar's Jeff grinnin' jest like er 'possum. Do b'le've in my soul he would grin ef the woods was afire."
"I mout ef I had ter go through 'em" old Jeff replied.
"Yes, I'll be bound you would," she answered, giving, as a recognition of his reply, a sort of savage nod. "Wall, we kaint be settin' 'round here allus, Jeff. Let's be gittin' on home, fur it'll be night 'fo' we git thar, nohow."
Winter came. Snowbirds fluttered on the smoking ground where the hogs were fed. The dry and cupped leaf of the hornbeam tree floated down the shivering rivulet, carrying as a cargo the lifeless body of a cricket.
As the weather grew colder, Alf's daughter seemed to grow weaker. She spoke not of the pain she must have suffered, but all day, when the wind howled, she sat in a corner near the fire, with her wasted hands clasped and with musing gaze fixed upon the glowing coals. In the night, when the sharp sleet rattled against the window—when some homeless and abused dog howled dismally on the hill-side—old Alf would take her in his arms and walk the floor with her, whispering the while soft words of love's encouragement. The winter would soon be gone; the dry and stiffened twig would soon again be "velveted" with buds. He told her to think of the garden that he was going to clear for her in the edge of the woods.
"Doan talk erbout gittin' weaker ever' day, little angel," he would say. "W'y bless me, chile, you's gittin' heavier all time. Huh, airter while it will take er man ez strong ez Mr. Potter ter lif' you roun'." But when he would put her down and turn away from her, tears would start from his eyes. One night, after a physician had gravely shaken his head and gone away, Alf called Potter and John.
"Come in yere er minit, genermen," he said.
They followed him. A large stove had been placed in Alf's room. Two holes in the stove glared like two red eyes.