Amanda had been busy all day cooking dainties—pies, cakes, custards, and making cider from apples gathered in the orchard. She had swept and dusted the house throughout, put the candles into their places, cleaned and filled the lamps, and altered her black dress to fit the slender form of her sister, who had been in her room all day, refusing to show herself to the constant stream of curious, inquiring visitors—men, women, and children who sat about the front and rear doors, leaned on the fences of the yard and cow-lot, and even invaded the kitchen.
As for Paul, no one seemed to notice him, and of sympathy for him little was expressed. Mute and dejected he moved about, attending to his father's former duties as well as his own.
The night fell. The stars came out. There was a low hum of good cheer and merriment from the assembled company inside. To escape it, Paul slipped behind the house and threw himself down on the grass sward beneath the apple-trees. His awful sorrow, weird and gruesome, for which there was no outlet, gave him actual physical pain.
There was singing within the house. The young persons were practising hymns for the funeral service the next day. Mistakes were made, and there was merry, spontaneous laughter, which grated on the boy's ears. He buried his face in the cool, fragrant grass, and thus subdued the rising sob of which he was ashamed. In his mind's eye he saw the exquisite face of Ethel Mayfield, but even it held scant comfort, for how could such as she belong to such deplorable surroundings? The tones of her gentle voice, as she promised to pray for him, seemed a part of some vague dream from which sordid fact had roused him.
“Prayers?” he sneered. “What puny mortal could pray this away, or undo the damnable thing even by the weight of a hair? There isn't any God to pray to—there isn't anything but pain, torment, and death.” There was a tentative step on the grass. Amanda was groping her way around the well. He saw her peering here and there in the shadows under the trees. “Oh!” she exclaimed, on seeing him, as he suddenly sat up and turned his face toward her. “You gave me a scare. At sech a time a body is apt to think they see ghosts, whether they do or not. I've been lookin' high an' low for you, an' axin' the company whar you was at. You hain't had no supper, have you?”
He answered briefly in the negative.
“Well, come on in the kitchen,” she pursued. “I've kept some 'taters and pork-chops hot, an' thar's plenty o' cold buttermilk.”
“I don't want anything,” he said, impatiently, and even roughly. “I couldn't swallow a bite to save my life—not to save my life, I couldn't!”
Her hands on her hips, Amanda stared down at him. “This ain't a-goin' to do, Paul,” she gently protested. “This ain't no time for you to pout an' be cranky. You are our only man now. Yore ma's shet up in her room with a mad cryin' spell every half-hour, an' I have to lay down my work an' run, pacify, an' pet 'er. She's got all sorts o' finicky notions in 'er head that folks are a-talkin' about her an' a certain party. She heard 'em a-laughin' in thar jest now, an' actually started in to give 'em a piece o' 'er mind. I got to 'er in time—thank the Lord! She's now in bed cryin' like 'er heart is broke.”
“Huh, I see, I see!” Paul sniffed. “An' well she may be afraid o' talk, an' you too, for bringing her up as you have. Folks say she's jest a doll, and she is—she is, and a fool flimsy one at that!”