"Perhaps," she said faintly, "there isn't any. Oh, I don't know . . . what's the difference?"
And so they rode on in silence, with pale cheeks and strange thoughts.
IV
MR. JEMINY BUILDS A HOUSE OUT OF BOXES
Mr. Jeminy liked to call on Mrs. Wicket, whose little cottage, at the edge of the village, on the way to Milford, had belonged to Eben Wicket for nearly fifty years. Now it belonged to the widow of Eben's son, John. Mr. Jeminy remembered John Wicket as a boy in school. He was a rogue; his head was already so full of mischief, that it was impossible to teach him anything. So he was not much wiser when he left school, than when he entered it. However, Mr. Jeminy was satisfied with his instruction. "With more knowledge," the old schoolmaster thought to himself, "he might do a great deal of harm in the world. So perhaps it is just as well for him to be ignorant." And he consoled himself with this reflection.
A year later John Wicket ran away from home, taking with him the money which his father kept in a stone jug in the kitchen. Old Mr. Wicket refused to send after him. "I didn't need the money," he said, "and I don't need him. Well, they're both gone."
But after a while, since his son was no longer there to plague him, he began to feel proud of him. "An out and out scamp," he said, with relish. "Never seen the like."
John Wicket was gone for three years, no one knew where. At last Eben received news of him again. His son, who had been living all this time in a nearby village, fell from a ladder and broke his neck. "Just," said Eben Wicket, "as I expected."
No one, however, expected to see his widow come to live with her father-in-law. The old man himself went to fetch her and her year-old child. She proved to be a small, plain body, with an air of fright about her, as though life had surprised her. Out of respect for Eben, as they put it, the gossips went to call. They found her shy, and inclined to be silent; they drank their tea, and examined her with curiosity, while she, for her part, seemed to want to hide away.
"As who wouldn't, in her place," said Mrs. Ploughman.