Finally she checked his amusement sharply.
“Yes? Well?”
“Well, then she see me, an’ she turned on me like a wildcat, an’ I was ’most scairt to death. She said, ‘What you doin’ here, you imp o’ Satan? Who’s done this? Tell me! Tell me an’ I’ll lay for ’em! I’ll shoot ’em down 41 like vermin.’ I knew she wasn’t really talkin’ to me, so then I wasn’t scairt. She was jest blowin’ off steam. Then I got around an’ looked close at ’em––the checkens, I mean––and I see just where the knife had cut their necks off. It was an elegant way of killing ’em, and say, how they must have flapped around after they’d got clear of their silly heads.” He laughed gleefully again. “I looked up after that and see her watchin’ me. Guess her eyes was kind of funny lookin’, so I said, ‘You don’t need to take on, mam,’ I said. ‘They’ll make elegant roasts, an’ you can get busy and hatch out some more.’ And somehow she got quiet then, and I watched her gather them checkens up, an’ take ’em into the house. Then when she came out an’ see me again, she says, ‘Light you right out o’ here, you imp o’ Satan! I fair hates the sight o’ you.’ So I lit out. Say, Eve,” he added, after a reflective pause, “why does folks all hate me so much?”
The girl sighed and shook her head. Then she came over to him, and, bending down, kissed his fair waving hair.
“Never mind, dear. I don’t hate you,” she said. “Perhaps it is you offend folks somehow. You know you do manage to upset folks at times. You seem to say––say queer things to them, and get them mad.” She smiled down upon the boy a little wistfully. She knew her brother was disliked by most in the village, and it pained her terribly that it should be so. They tried to be outwardly kind to him, but she always felt that it was solely for her sake and never for his. As Elia had never spoken of it before, she had lived in the hope that he did not understand their dislike. However, it was as well 42 that he should know. If he realized it now, as he grew older he might endeavor to earn their good-will in spite of present prejudice.
“Guess it must be, sis. You see I don’t kind of mean to say things,” he said almost regretfully. “Only when they’re in my head they must come out, or––or I think my head would jest bust,” he finished up naively.
The girl was still smiling, and one arm stole round the boy’s hunched shoulders.
“Of course you can’t help saying those things you know to be true–––”
“But they most generally ain’t true.”
The innocent, inquiring eyes looked straight up into hers.