I told Loveday, then, all that had happened that day and how all Dave’s disgrace had been borne for Rob’s sake.
Loveday rocked furiously in the kitchen rocking-chair, saying only “suz-a-day! suz-a-day!” at intervals.
“I got an inklin’ of it, Miss Bathsheba,” she exclaimed when I had finished. “Long in the winter I got an inklin’ of it. Such doin’s as they accused our boy of I knew wa’n’t in him. Land! you can’t take care of a young man from the day he comes into the world without knowin’ whether there’s any mean kind of wickedness in him or not!
“When I come acrost that photograph, a-sweepin’ out Hiram’s wagon, one day, so’st’ everything shouldn’t get spiled with dust, I knew the minute I clapped my eyes on to it that ’twas old Lucifer that Mr. Pa’tridge sold jest because Master Rob was so foolish about him.
“The photograph was marked ‘Alf Reeder’s racer, Prince Charley,’ and I got an inklin’. I knew there wasn’t hardly anything in this livin’ world that our boy wouldn’t do for Master Rob, and I knew how terrible afraid Master Rob was of his father. And he never had a bit of patience, his father hadn’t, with his bein’ foolish over animals. He took it from his mother, Master Rob did, and Mr. Pa’tridge never could put up with it in her, for all he was so fond of her. Land! I remember when he carried off a little mite of a white kitten of hers and had it drowned jest because she thought so much of it! He wa’n’t never a cruel man to dumb creturs neither, Mr. Pa’tridge wa’n’t; he always treats his live-stock well; but he couldn’t put up with no foolishness over ’em. There’s no denyin’, Miss Bathsheba, but what he’s kind of a hard man, though he never took it from your sainted grandpa or your blessed grandma.
“And he’s knowin’ to it now! Mr. Pa’tridge is knowin’ to it! And I thinkin’ all the time that ’twas only the business troubles that had ketched a holt of him so!”
“The business troubles are bad enough, Loveday,” I said dejectedly.
“Bad enough, Miss Bathsheba,” repeated Loveday, “but nothin’, nothin’——” Loveday gave way to a burst of tears, the first I had ever seen her shed—“compared to the happiness of knowin’ that neither one of them blessed boys is startin’ in to be ruffin’s like them I see to that terrible place! Yes, forgin’ his father’s name was a terrible thing, but you and I know, Miss Bathsheba, that that blessed boy never realized what he was a-doin’, bein’ so crazy to get back his poor old horse. And Mr. Pa’tridge knows it, he knows it all, and comin’ jest now ’long with the business troubles I’m afraid he ain’t a-goin’ to stan’ it! It’s broke down his pride and pride always ’peared to be the strongest part of your Uncle Horace!
“And Master Rob is in a terrible bad way; he’s never been in so bad a way as he is now. He’s took it hard, Mr. Pa’tridge has, that he wa’n’t strong like other boys, but it ’pears to me it would kill him certain to lose him now.”
It did seem as if troubles were overwhelming us. Cyrus still played checkers with grandma and kept her in ignorance of the coming trouble, but he forgetfully played so well, now, as to beat her often, to her great humiliation.