And in a little he added, as if worried some: “But I am going over there after my rifle.”
THE following Sunday—three days later—father and I went to Black Jean’s to get the rifle.
The door of the cabin opened, and the little woman came out. She was carrying the rifle. Somehow, she looked thin and old and her hands were like claws. But her eyes were bright and as sharp as the teeth of a weazel trap.
“I suppose,” she said, as cool as a cucumber and as sweet as honey, “you have come after the rifle.”
“That is what,” said my father, sternly.
She handed it over.
“Please apologize to your wife for me,” she said, “for the sudden way I took it. I was in a hurry. I saw a deer down by the marsh.”
“Did you get the deer?” I piped in.
“No,” she said. “I missed it.”