“I'll have a game with her; I'll take her by surprise.”
His eyes began to dance with mischief, like a child's, and he crept along the path with big cat strides, half doubled up, and holding his breath, lest he should laugh aloud.
“The sweet creatures! A man shouldn't frighten them, though,” he thought.
When he reached the porch he went down on all fours, and began mewing like a mournful tom-cat near to the bottom of the door. Then he listened with his ear to the jamb. He expected a faint cry of alarm, the raucous voice of Nancy Joe, and the clatter of feet towards the porch. There was not a sound.
“She's upstairs,” he thought, and stepped back to look up at the front of the house. There was no light in the rooms above.
“I know what it is. Nancy is not home yet, and Kirry's fallen asleep at the rocking.”
He stole up to the window and tried to look into the hall, but the blind was down, and he could not see much through the narrow openings at the sides of it.
“She's sleeping, that's it. The house was quiet and she dropped off, rocking the lil one, that's all.”
He scraped a handful of the light gravel and flung a little of it at the window. “That'll remind her of something,” he thought, and he laughed under his breath.
Then he listened again with his ear at the sill. There was no noise within. He flung more gravel and waited, thinking he might catch her breathing, but he could hear nothing.