To reassure themselves they hastened home. Crossing the porch where the dog lay asleep, their hurrying feet lagged a little, a sort of superstitious fear upon them. A sound fell upon their ears—a low, piteous sobbing, that made them clutch each other’s frocks and peer breathlessly in at the half-closed door. On the sill was a freshly-filled pail of water, and in the middle of the floor knelt their grandmother, her head bowed in the string of wool hats which hung dependant from one nail—in his haste Gabe had not taken time to fasten again the end which he had removed from the opposite joist. And so it was, when she returned from the spring whither she had gone when he entered the house, the sight met her gaze—the sacred line of relics trailed in the dust, as it were, affection’s altar rudely torn of its sacred image, and that by the ruthless hand of her own son—and his son!
She raised her head as the boards creaked under the stealthy tread of the twins. “He done it!” she cried brokenly, the tears running down her wrinkled cheeks. “Gabe done it. I seen ’em ez I wuz comin’ up the hil frum the spring—him an’ that thar Bozeman boy er ridin’ off—but I didn’t know ez ’twuz yer Gran’pap’s hat the boy wuz er wearin’ ’tel I got here an’ seen it wuz gone, an’ then I knowed it hed looked pow’rful familiar. But what did he do it fer? What did he do it fer?” her voice rose into a little wail and her bent form shook with painful sobbing.
Bet stared at her, dumb; her round eyes filled with responsive tears which she wiped away with the corner of her dress.
“Did he tell yer?” asked Liz. “He’s gone ter git married.”
Mrs. Freeler sank weakly into a chair, and her hands fell limp in front of her. “I knowed ’twuz comin’,” she said, “but I ’lowed ez how he’d tell me. He ain’t never married yet ’thout tellin’ me.”
“He never had time, I reck’n,” said the girl, and then recounted the incident of the coat and the letter; the coming of the Bozeman boy and the reading of the letter, the contents of which were fully detailed; and, finally, the circumstance which had led to the taking of the hat.
The old woman interrupted her not at all, only when she came to the mention of the hat, wiped her tears again with shaking hand. Then they sat in silence, drifting after a while into desultory talk, as other occasions like this came back to memory.
“I rickerleck,” said the grandmother, “when he brought yer ma home. It was jes’ this time o’ year. She wuz the likeliest one of ’em all—I knowed the minute I set eyes on her she’d do. The fust one wuz a peart enough young thing, too, but she whirled in an’ died that very summer, an’ in two months he married yer ma. You know how long it’s ben sence the las’ one was tuk. Well, Gabe never did lose no time!”
The sun’s rays grew less strong; she rose mechanically. “Git up some light-’ood knots,” she said, as she gathered her milk pail. “They’ll be late gittin’ here, an’ the nights is growin’ chilly. I’ll set up fer ’em an’ have a blaze in the chimley, an’ some supper ready—he allus wants sumpin’ hot when he comes in late.”
And when “the chillun” had gone to bed she sat through her lonely vigil, pondering over the advents and the changes the room had known since the time she and her “ole man” had been its first occupants, gazing mournfully upon the string of hats still hanging as she had found them, and going now and then to look out on the changing sky. She had calculated the extra three miles around by Parson Damon’s would make it twelve o’clock by the time they could arrive, and at eleven the moon had disappeared and clouds were gathering thick and ominous. She moved about restlessly, threw on a fresh pine knot, trimmed the small lamp, and was just settling herself to renewed rumination when a low “Whoa!” fell on her ears. Rising quickly, she flung wide the door so that the friendly light streamed out.