‘Oh, hyar and thar,’ answered Ephraim uncomfortably. ‘I sold things. She ain’t made er silk, ye know—only er cotton stuff.—Come on, Luce, it’s gittin’ late, and Aunty Chris will be hollerin’ fer her tea.’
But Lucius stood still, looking down upon the confused heap of material and cordage, and pondering deeply. All at once he swung round and faced Ephraim. ‘Grizzly,’ he said jerkily, ‘I believe you have broken into the pile.’
Ephraim’s face was a study. If he had been caught robbing his master’s till, he could not have looked more sheepish and ashamed. He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and twisted his long fingers in and out till all the joints cracked like a volley of small-arms. ‘Waal, waal’——he stuttered.
‘You’ve broken into the pile,’ interrupted Lucius. ‘For five years you’ve been grubbing and saving all for one purpose, working overtime, and making odds and ends here and there for the boys, all for one purpose—that you might go to college. And now you’ve gone and upset everything. I’ll bet you haven’t a dollar left of all your savings. Now, have you?’
‘No,’ mumbled Ephraim shamefacedly. ‘But’——
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ broke in Lucius—‘you did it for me. You are always doing things for me. But you’d no right to do this. You’d no right to spoil your whole life just for me. What can I do? I can’t pay you back. And father’——
‘Ez ter thet,’ interjected Ephraim, ‘it war my own. I ain’t askin’ any wan ter put it back.’
‘It wasn’t your own,’ burst out Lucius. ‘At least it wasn’t your own to do as you liked with. It was to help you on in the world. It was to give your brains a chance. Oh! weren’t there heaps of ways in which we could have had our fun without this? If I’d known it, if I’d dreamed of it, I’d have gone off and ‘listed without a word to any one.’
‘I know ye would, Luce,’ said Ephraim quietly. ‘Ye were mighty nigh doin’ it thet snowy night when ye came ter me. Thet sot me thinkin’. I sez ter m’self, sez I, I reckon it’s mostly froth on Luce’s part. Ef I ken git him pinned down ter come with me, I guess I kin keep him out er harm’s way. Lordy! Luce, what would I hev done ef I’d gone and lost ye? Waal, ez I sot thar thinkin’ ter m’self, all at once thar comes an idee. I dunno whar it came from, but thet’s it’—he pointed to the balloon—‘and wanst I gripped it I never let it go again, fer it jest seemed the best way in all the world fer ter let ye see all ye wanted ter see, and ter keep ye safe et the same time.’ He held up his hand as Lucius was about to speak.
‘Don’t say it again, Luce. It’s done now, and can’t be undone. Maybe some folk’d think it war a mad thing ter do; but it didn’t seem so ter me, seein’ it war done fer you.’