“I just don’t know how to say the thing I feel, Bill,” she said softly. “The thing you’ve been to me an’ mine. God’ll surely bless you, an’—an’—”
Bill laughed. He felt his laugh was needed.
“Not a word that way. Say, you been mother to my little Kid. It goes?”
“Sure. The thing you say goes with me—all the time.” Hesther glanced hastily back into the kitchen. She was seeking excuse and found it in her simple labours.
“I guess that stew’ll be boilin’,” she said. “I’ll go fix it.”
And Billy’s happy smile followed her into the room, while he caressed the hand he was holding.
Bill and the Kid had passed on down to the landing so pregnant with memories for them both.
It was the girl who was talking now while the man stared out down the busy river.
“You know, Bill. I just don’t sort of understand the way this—this gold makes folks act. It sort of seems to set them kind of crazy. The boys are the same. I used to feel it would be fine to have dollars an’ dollars. I used to think of all the swell food and clothes I’d buy for the boys, an’ Hesther, an’ the girls. That was all right. But I didn’t get crazy for gold like these folk. You say ther’s a heap of gold in my claim. I—I don’t seem to feel I want a thing of it. True I don’t.” She laughed. “Maybe you’ll guess I’m more crazy than they are. Do you?”