“Well, you made a dandy trade, Mr. Bishop. Ah, that's what ready money will do. When you got the cash things seem to come at bottom figures.”
Old Bishop drew a folded paper from his pocket and slapped it on his knee. “Yes, I closed the deal this evenin', an' I was jest a-thinkin' that as you hain't rented fer next yeer—I mean—” Bishop was ordinarily direct of speech, but somehow his words became tangled, and he delivered himself awkwardly on this occasion. “You see, Alan thinks that you 'n Sally ort to live in a better house than jest this heer log-cabin, an'—”
The wan face of the tired woman was aglow with expectation. She sank down on the doorstep, and sat still and mute, her hands clasping each other in her lap. She had always disliked that cabin and its sordid surroundings, and there was something in Bishop's talk that made her think he was about to propose renting the new farm, house and all, to her husband. Her mouth fell open; she scarcely allowed herself to breathe. Then, as Bishop paused, her husband's voice struck dumb dismay to her heart. It was as if she were falling from glowing hope back to tasted despair.
“Thar's more land in that farm an' I could do jestice to, Mr. Bishop; but ef thar's a good cabin on it an' you see fit to cut off enough fer me'n one hoss I'd jest as soon tend that as this heer. I want to do what you an' Alan think is best all'round.”
“Oh, Pole, Pole!” The woman was crying it to herself, her face lowered to her hands that the two men might not see the agony written in her eyes. A house like that to live in, with all those rooms and fireplaces, and windows with panes of glass in them! She fancied she saw her children playing on the tight, smooth floors and on the honeysuckled porch. For one minute these things had been hers, to be snatched away by the callous indifference of her husband, who, alas! had never cared a straw for appearances.
“Oh, I wasn't thinking about rentin'' it to you,” said Bishop, and the woman's dream was over. She raised her head, awake again. “You see,” went on Bishop, still struggling for proper expression, “Alan thinks—well, he thinks you are sech a born fool about not acceptin' help from them that feels nigh to you, an' I may as well say grateful, exceedingly grateful, fer what you've done, things that no other livin' man could 'a' done. Alan thinks you ort to have the farm fer yore own property, an' so the deeds has been made out to—”
Pole drew himself up to his full height. His big face was flushed, half with anger, half with a strong emotion of a tenderer kind. He stood towering over the old man like a giant swayed by the warring winds of good and evil, “I won't heer a word more of that, Mr. Bishop,” he said, with a quivering lip; “not a word more. By golly! I mean what I say. I don't want to heer another word of it. This heer place is good enough fer me an' my family. It's done eight yeer, an' it kin do another eight.”
“Oh, Pole, Pole, Pole!” The woman's cry was now audible. It came straight from her pent-up, starving soul and went right to Bishop's heart.
“You want the place, don't you, Sally?” he said, calling her by her given name for the first time, as if he had just discovered their kinship. He could not have used a tenderer tone to child of his own.
“Mind, mind what you say, Sally!” ordered Pole, from the depths of his fighting emotions. “Mind what you say!”