“Oh, it does—it does,” said Rose, with still a little sob in her voice.
“I didn’t want that woman to cry. But you don’t mind my crying, now, do you? That was the sweetest little fellow.”
“Please don’t,” said Rose.
“No, no; I won’t, I know. Isn’t it awful lucky men can’t cry? That’s just the only way we can get even with ’em. How’s mother? And Miss Anne? Now, that is a woman. Never saw a woman like her in all my born life. Ain’t she got a way of saying things? Oh, here’s Hiram. Hiram, this is Miss Rose Lyndsay. I reckon”—Mrs. Maybrook reckoned, calculated, or guessed with the entire indifference of a woman who had lived south, north, and east—“I reckon they knew what they was about when they called you Rose. ’T ain’t easy naming children. They ain’t all like flowers, that just grow up, according to their kind. If you’d have been called Becky, there wouldn’t have been no kind of reason in it.“
“I trust not,” laughed Rose.
“How do you do, miss?” said Hiram. He was tall, a little bent, clad in sober gray, and had a shock of stiff, grizzly hair and a full gray beard. His eyes, which were pale blue and meaningless, wandered as he stood.
“Miss Rose has fetched a fish,” said Dorothy. “You might clean it, Hiram.”
“I’ll do it,” he said, stolidly, and turned to go like a dull boy sent on an errand.
“And don’t forget to fetch the cows in at sundown.”
“I’ll do it,” and he went out.