A soiled quilt of blue, magenta, and white squares wrapped the old man’s legs, as he sat by the window waiting for Silas to come in. His withered hands picked ceaselessly at the quilt.
“I wish Si’d come! I want my breakfast!” he kept repeating, now wistfully, now fretfully. His gaze wandered from the window to the stove, from the stove to the window, with slow regularity. When the pig came rooting into his line of vision, it vexed him, and he muttered peevishly to himself.
“That there hog’ll hev the whole place rooted up. I wish Si’d come and drive him out of that!”
At last Si came. The old man’s face smoothed itself, and a loving light came into his eyes as the lad adjusted the pillow at his head. The doings of the hog were forgotten.
Si bustled about to get breakfast, the old man’s eyes following every movement. The tea was placed on the back of the stove to draw. A plate of cold buckwheat cakes was brought out of the cupboard and set on the rude table. A cup, with its handle broken off, was half filled with molasses, for “sweetenin’,” and placed beside the buckwheat cakes. Then Si cut some thick slices of salt pork and began to fry them. They “sizzled” cheerfully in the pan, and to Si, with his vigorous morning appetite, the odour was rare and fine. But the old man was troubled by it. His hands picked faster at the quilt.
“Si,” said he, in a quavering voice, that rose and fell without regard to the force of the words, “I know ye can’t help it, but my stomach’s turned agin salt pork! It’s been a-comin’ on me this long while, that I couldn’t eat it no more. An’ now it’s come. Pork, pork, pork,—I can’t eat it no more, Si! But there, I know ye can’t help it. Ye’re a good boy, a kind son, Si, and ye can’t help it!”
Si went on turning the slices with an old fork till the quavering voice stopped. Then he cried, cheerfully:
“Try an’ eat a leetle mite of it, father. This ’ere tea’s fine, an’ll sort of wash it down. An’ while I’m a-working in the back field this morning I’ll try and think of somethin’ to kinder tickle your appetite!”
The old man shook his head gloomily.
“I can’t eat no more fried pork, Si,” said he, “not if I die fur it! I know ye can’t help it! An’ it don’t matter, fur I won’t be here much longer anyways. It’ll be a sight better fur you, Si, when I’m gone—but I kinder don’t like to leave ye here all alone. Seems like I kinder keep the house warm fur ye till ye come home! I don’t like to think of ye comin’ in an’ findin’ the house all empty, Si! But it’s been powerful empty, with jist you an’ me, sence mother died. It useter be powerful good, Si, didn’t it, comin’ home and findin’ her a-waitin’ fur us, an’ hot supper ready on the table, an’ the lamp a-shinin’ cheerful? An’ what suppers she could cook! D’ye mind the pies, an’ the stews, an’ the fried deer’s meat? I could eat some of that fried deer’s meat now, Si. An’ I feel like it would make me better. It ain’t no fault of yours, Si, but I can’t eat no more salt pork!”