"Crippled?"
"Yes, lost his truthfulness, and a professor without truth is like a woman with no tongue, plumb disabled. His talk in the Vancouver papers beat Ananias, besides exciting a sort of prejudice. The neighbors shies at me, and I'm no more popular. Shall I call Eph?"
"I think not to-day," said I, hurriedly rising, "for indeed I should be getting home at once."
Without ever touching the wound, he had given me the courage to live, had made my behavior of the morning seem that of a silly schoolgirl; but still I did not feel quite up to a social introduction. I said I was sure that Eph and I would have no interests in common.
"So you'll go home and face the music?" said Jesse's wise old eyes.
"My husband," said I, "will be getting quite anxious about me."
Without a word he brought my horse and saddled him.
And I, with a sinking heart, contrasted the loneliness and the horror which was called my "home" with all the glamour of this man's happy solitude.
While Jesse buckled on the head-stall, some evil spirit prompted me to use the word "romantic." In swift resentment he seized and rent the word.
"Romantic? Snakes! Thar's nothen romantic about me. What I can't earn ain't worth stealing, and I most surely despise all shiftless people."