She was now almost blind. The strapping figure of her grandson was only a blur to her eyes.
Wolfe bent over her. "Don't you know me, grand—grammaw?"
The poor old creature did not recognize his voice. "Not from Adam's off ox, nor a side o' sole-leather!" she cried. "You're a stranger to me, shorely! And might I ax, dad-burn it, what ye're a-sellin'—lightnin'-rods, sewin'-machines, patent churns, spec's, potater-peelers, or hillside plows; hey?"
Wolfe dropped into a chair facing hers, and picked up one of her pitifully thin hands.
"I—I'm Little Buck, grammaw," he said, a trifle unsteadily.
She pulled her hand away quickly. "Stuff! Stuff!" she exclaimed. "It's a durned pore joke, stranger! Little Buck, pore boy, he's been dead a long time. And ef ye try to spring 'at joke on me ag'in, I'll bust ye acrost the forrard wi' my stick—ef I don't, I wisht I may drap dead right here in my tracks, and never git another breath!"
Wolfe shrugged, then he asked anxiously, "Are the Masons still living? And who—who has died here in the last seven years?"
"The Masons is both alive. Hain't been but one grown pusson died here in the last seven year; 'at was pore old Grandpap Bill Singleton, the Prophet. Pore old Bill! Yes, he's done went up to his little shelter in the skies."
The assurance that both his fathers and both his mothers still lived filled Wolfe's heart with thankfulness. "If you'll only listen, grammaw," he pursued, "I'll prove to you that I'm Little——"
"Hush yore mouth!" she cut in angrily. "I hain't a-goin' to listen to no sech danged fool talk! But—" and she lowered her creaking voice to a whisper—"but I mustn't be so consarned loud. The widder woman I live with here she's a-sleepin', and she mustn't be woke up. Pore gyurl, she set up mighty nigh it the whole night wi' Lon Singleton's little boy, Robert Bob, who went and et a whole wagon-load o' green apples yeste'day."