“You ain’t goin’ to use thet good hay fur beddin’, be ye, M’ri?” asked Silas in pathetic anxiety.
“I tell you let me be. Who has a better right to this? His labor cut it and hauled it; this is a time when the laborer shall git his hire.”
Silas went on rubbing, listening in painful silence to the click of the lock on the grain bin, and the swish of oats being poured into a trough.
“Don’t give him too much, M’ri,” he pleaded humbly, “I don’t mean ter be savin’, but he’ll eat hisself to death.”
“The first that ever did on this place,” laughed the woman wildly.
Then standing on the milking-stool she piled the blankets on the grateful horse, then led him to the stall where she stood and watched him eat. “I never see you so free ’round a hoss afore,” said Silas; “you used to be skeered of ’em, he might kick ye.”
“He wouldn’t because he ain’t a man,” she answered shrilly; “it’s only men that gives blows for kindness!”
“Land of the living!” cried Silas, as a step sounded on the floor, and a queer figure came slowly into the glare of light by the lantern, a figure that had a Rembrandt effect in the shadow—an old man, lean and tall, shrouded in a long coat and bearing on his back a heavy basket.
“You can’t be a human creetur, comin’ here to-night,” said Maria; “mebbe you’re the Santy Claus Jim used to tell on as the boys told him; no man in his senses would come to Sile Lowell’s fur shelter.”
“M’ri’s upsot,” said Silas meekly, taking the lantern with trembling hand; “I guess you’ve got off the road; the tavern’s two mile down toward the river.”