“Looks like some o’ the neighbors is powerful bent on the match,” continued Lucinda, her tone betraying her own lack of sympathy for the thing in question. “Marty was a-standin’ over thar at the fence jest ‘fore you come an’ whirled all of a sudden an’ went up to the house. She said she was afeered her cracklin’s would burn, but I ’ll bet she seed you down the road. I never have been able to make ’er out. She ain’t once mentioned yore name sence you went off. Dick, I’m one that don’t, nur never did, believe you meant to steal Williams’s hoss, kase you was too drunk to know what you was a-doin’, but Marty never says whether she does ur doesn’t. The day the news come back that you was sentenced I ketched ’er in the back room a-cryin’ as’ ef ’er heart would break, but that night ‘Lonzo Spann come in an’ said that you had let it out in the court-room that you’d be glad even to go to the penitentiary to git a rest from Marty’s tongue, an’—”
“Lucinda, as thar’s a God on high, them words never passed my lips,” the convict interrupted.
“I ‘lowed not,” the old maid returned. “But it has got to be a sort of standin’ joke ag’in Marty, an’ she heers it ev’ry now an’ then. But I’m yore friend, Dick. I’ve had respect fer you ever sence I noticed how you suffered when Annie got sick an’ died. Thar ain’t many men that has sech feelin’ fer their dead children.”
Wakeman’s face softened.
“I was jest a-wonderin’, comin’ on, ef—ef anybody has been a-lookin’ after the grave sence I went off. The boys in the penitentiary used to mention the’r dead once in a while, an’ I’d always tell ’em about my grave. Pris ‘ners, Lucinda, git to relyin’ on the company o’ the’r dead about as much as the’r livin’ folks. In the four years that I was in confinement not one friend o’ mine ever come to ax how I was gittin’ on.”
“Marty has been a-lookin’ after the grave,” said Lucinda, in the suppressed tone peculiar to people who desire to disown deep emotion. She turned her face toward the house. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about yore bein’ neglected down thar, Dick. The Lord knows I’ve laid awake many an’ many a cold night a-wonderin’ ef they give you-uns enough cover, an’ ef they tuk them cold chains off ’n you at night. An’ I reckon Marty did, too, fer she used to roll an’ tumble as ef ’er mind wasn’t at ease.”
Wakeman took off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeves.
“I’m itchin’ to set in to farm-work ag’in,” he said. “Let me salt fer you, an’ you run up thar an’ tell ’er I’m back. Maybe she ’ll come down heer.”
Lucinda gave him her place at the table, a troubled expression taking hold of her features.
“The great drawback is Jeff Goardley,” she said. “It really does look like him an’ Marty will come to a understandin’. I don’t know railly but what she may have promised him; he has seemed mighty confident heer lately.”