“Do come, Rose.”
“That’s an odd sort of a man, Pardy,” said the young woman, while the canoe sped away, and the odd sort of a man said:
“Set me ashore at the ox-path; no, at the brow above. I’ll walk up. I am soaked. I shall take Colkett’s dugout and cross at my camp. Here’s another dollar, you old saint, and if ever you tell, I will scalp you!”
“All right, Mr. Carington.”
“Well,” exclaimed that gentleman, as he strode away, “if that wasn’t fun, there isn’t decent cause left for a laugh in the universe.” Then he lit a pipe, inspected by its dim light the gold dollar, and, smiling, carefully put it away in a safe pocket.
CHAPTER XI
The transmutation of the emotions or the passions into one another is among the mysteries of the sphere of morals. In some natures, even the most sacred grief, the outcome of a child’s death, I have seen capable of change into anger at a world in which such things are possible.
Susan had loved her sturdy little boy with unreasoning ardor, and indulged him to the utmost limit their scant means allowed. He had been like her in face, and this pleased her. He had, too, her masculine vigor, and seemed more bone of her bone than the two idiots who had gone early to the grave.
She sat just within the doorway, rocking. The chair creaked at each strong impulse of her foot. An oblong of sunshine lay at her feet, and in it a faded crape bonnet, last relic of a day when prosperity could afford to grief a uniform. It had turned up in her vain search after a decent garment for the dead. As she continued to rock with violence, the loose planks of the floor moving, a toy ark, the gift of Dorothy to the boy, fell from a shelf. Noah and his maimed beasts tumbled out, and lay on their sides in the sun. She took no note of the scattered menagerie.