I loitered away several weeks with the Steadmans, having induced the old woman to take me as a boarder. The house was but a large hut, with a wide kitchen below, and two lofts over it, in one of which the boys slept, and in the other their mother and Cousin Jane, a young woman of Abel's age. I had a bunk fitted up in a closet off the kitchen. Perceiving that Abel took notes of our researches, making drawings with me of the painted rocks, etc., I wondered to find a day-laborer with a taste for such pursuits, unusual even among educated men. When our supper of flitch and molasses was over one evening, therefore, I asked him how he meant to use his papers. Abel ran his fingers through his thin, red whiskers.
"Material for future work,—material," he said, vaguely staring into the fire.
I saw that Mrs. Steadman, a thin, hollow-chested woman, looked up to hear his answer, and Matt gave a keen glance round from his work. Matt was a stout, clean-skinned lad, with a firm, decisive way of shutting his lips, and a pair of shrewd, kindly blue eyes that I liked. He was trying to be a carpenter without learning the trade: had put up a shed outside, and was up by daylight every morning hewing away with his one plane and saw. Boy-like, he had made a chum of me already. My question had curiously disquieted Abel. He rose and left the room. Matt drew his bench up.
"That hurt Abe, you see?"
"I do not see why."
"True for you. But" (in a whisper) "he can't help doin' them things; and then, seein' they don't help, he worries like a girl."
"Help?"
"Yes,"—then was silent, his mouth harder set. "Well," (a rush of blood dyeing his face,)—"look yonder" (jerking his head back) "at mother. Don't you think it's time somethin' was done?"
I had noticed that the woman was raw-boned and stoop-shouldered, with that etiolated yellow flesh that comes of long overwork. I might have heard her cough, but had paid no attention to it until now, when a fit came on dry and hollow.
"How long has she had that?" I asked, gravely.