"That she's living yet? Yes, I do,—ninety-eight last spring."
The wreck before me was so miserable that I could not laugh.
"And meanwhile, Abel?"
"I've tried to shift as I could,—sometimes as day-laborer, or running on railroads as brakeman; and I got once into a photographist's wagon to help prepare the plates. Was no use going into anything regularly, you know, when my luck might come any day. I kept my eye on that Shepler land, though,"—something like life coming into his lack-lustre eye. "She's mismanaging the bottom fields terribly these late years. All in oats. But they'll bring in good returns some day, when they're properly worked. There's surface indications of oil along the creek, too."
"About your studies, Steadman?"
"I've read a bit here and there. I mean to go in training when I get my rights. Good God! the man I ought to be!"—suddenly putting his hand to his head.
This feeble outcry was the only sign of manhood that he gave. It was gone in a moment, and he droned down into the old speculations as to her "holding out another winter."
"Did you ever meet her?" I asked, with perhaps idle curiosity.
"Only once,—last winter. I was creeping out one cold evening to the——well, my boarding-house, and I met her face to face, in her pony chaise, near her own gate. She's withered into something like wrinkled leather now, with heavy opal ear-drops at each side of her skinny face. She makes the black fellow pull up. 'So! you're prowling round still, Steadman, hyena-like? Stand, and let me look at you.' With that her eyes went all over, gloating like a beast of prey, I thought, but I said nothing. Then she laughed. 'I'll walk over your grave yet!' she said. 'Drive on, Joe.' Nobody goes near her now but her blacks; her sharp tongue keeps them off."
"And Matt?" I asked.