II
After supper Laramore left his mother and sisters removing the dishes from the table and went out. He did not want to be left alone with his stepfather.
He crossed the little brook that ran behind the cabin, and leaned against the rail fence which surrounded the pine-pole corn-crib. He could easily leave them in their poverty and ignorance, and return to the great intellectual world from which he had come—the world which understood and honored him; but, after all, could he do it now that he had seen his mother?
The cabin door shone out a square of red light against the blackness of the hill and the silent pines beyond. He heard Jake whistling a tune he had whistled long ago when they had worked in the fields together, and the creaking of the puncheon floor as the family moved about within.
A figure appeared in the door. It was his mother, and she was coming out to search for him.
“Here I am, mother,” he said, as she advanced through the darkness; “look out and don’t get your feet wet!”
She chuckled childishly as she stepped across the brook on the stones. When she reached him she put her hand on his arm and laughed: “La, me, boy, a little wet won’t hurt me—I’m used to it; I’ve milked the cows in that thar lot when the mire was shoe-mouth deep. I ‘lowed I’d find you heer some’rs. You used to be a mighty hand to sneak off from the rest, an’ you hain’t got over it. But you have changed. You don’t talk our way exactly, an’ I reckon that’s what aggravates Sam. He was goin’ on jest now about yore bein’ stuck up in yore talk an’ eatin’.”
He looked past her at the full moon which was rising above the trees.
“Mother,” said he, abruptly, and he put his arm around her neck, and his eyes filled—“mother, I don’t see how I can stay here long. Your health is bad and you are not comfortable; the others are strong and can stand it, but you can’t. Come away with me, for a while anyway. I ’ll put you under a doctor and make you comfortable.”
She looked up into his eyes steadily for a moment, then she slapped him playfully on the breast and drew away from him. “How foolish you talk!” she laughed; “why, you know I couldn’t leave Sam an’ the children. He’d go stark crazy ‘thout me round, an’ they’d be ‘thout advice an’ counsel. La, me! What makes you think I ain’t comfortable? This house is a sight better ’n the last one we had, an’ dryer, an’ a heap warmer inside. Hard times is likely to come anywhar an’ any time. It strikes rich an’ pore alike. Thar’s ‘Squire Loften offerin’ his big river-bottom plantation an’ the best new house in the county at a awful sacrifice, kase he is obliged to raise money to pay out ’n debt. He offers it fer ten thousand dollars, an’ it’s wuth every dollar of twenty. Now, ef we-all jest had sech a place as that we’d ax nobody any odds. Sam an’ Jake are hard workers, but they’ve had ’nough bad luck to dishearten anybody.”