He made a hurried but bounteous choice of the parts of meat on the dish, and then gave it over into the outstretched hands of Lucinda. Marty was pouring out the coffee. She passed the old-fashioned mustache-cup to her sister, and that lady transferred it to Wakeman. He sipped from it lingeringly.
“My Lord!” he cried, impulsively. “I tell you the God’s truth; sech good coffee as this hain’t been in a mile o’ my lips sence I went—sence I was heer,” he corrected, as Lucinda’s warning stare bore down on him.
After that the meal proceeded in silence. When he had finished, Dick went back to his chair in the chimney-corner near the battered woodbox. After putting away the dishes and removing the cloth from the table, Lucinda came and sat down near him. Mrs. Wake-man, casting occasional furtive glances toward the front door, appropriated her share of the general silence in a seat where the firelight faded. Richard wore an unsettled air, as if getting into old harness came as awkward as putting on the new had come when he married, years before. After a few minutes he became a little drowsy, and began to act naturally, as if by force of returning habit. He unlaced his shoes, took them off, rubbed the bottoms of his feet, thrust those members toward the fire, and worked his toes. He also took a chew of tobacco. Profound silence was in the room; the thoughts of three minds percolated through it. Marty picked up the Christian Advocate and pretended to read, but she dropped it in her lap and cast another look toward the door.
The rustling of the paper attracted Richard’s gaze.
“Is she expectin’—is anybody a-comin’?” He directed the question to Lucinda.
“I wouldn’t be much surprised,” was the answer. “It’s Jeff Goardley’s night.”
“You don’t say!” Each of the words had a separate little jerk, and the questioning stare of the convict’s eyes pierced the space intervening between him and his divorced wife. He spat into the fire, wiped his mouth with an unsteady hand, and caught his breath.
Silence again. Lucinda broke it.
“You hain’t never told us how you happened to git yore pardon,” she ventured.
“By a streak o’ luck,” Wakeman said, the languid largeness of his eyes showing that he was still struggling against the inclination to sleep. “T’other day the governor sent word to our superintendent that he was comin’ to see fer hisse’f how we wus treated. The minute I heerd it, I said to myself, I did, ‘Wakeman, you must have a talk with that man.’ So the mornin’ he got thar we wus all give a sort of vacation an’ stood up in rowslike fer inspection. When I seed ’im a-comin’ towards me I jest gazed at ’im with all my might an’ he got to lookin’ at me. When he got nigh me he stopped short an’ said: