“Yes!” says Amos, commanding, “I don’t know when I’ll see you again. Set down here, by me.”
And by the little stillness, I judged she done so. And I says this: “Them poor things ain’t had ten minutes with each other in over a year, and if they know I’m here, that’ll spoil this time. I’d better stay where I am, still, with my thoughts on my sandwiches.” And that was what I done. But I couldn’t—I couldn’t—and neither could most anyone—of helped a word or two leaking through the pantry door and the sandwich thoughts.
“I just wanted to pretend—for a minute,” Amos said, “that this was our house. An’ our kitchen. An’ that we was settin’ here side of the stove an’ belonged.”
“Oh, Amos,” said Hettie, “it don’t seem right to pretend that way with Aunt Hettie’s stove—an’ her feelin’ the way she does.”
“Yes, it is right,” says Amos, stout. “Hettie! Don’t you see? She don’t feel that way. She’s just nervous with grievin’, an’ it comes out like that. She don’t care—really. At least not anything like the way she thinks she does. Now don’t let’s think about her, Hettie—dearest! Think about now. An’ let’s just pretend for a minute it was then. You know—then!”
“Well,” says Hettie, unwilling,—and yet, oh, so willing,—“if it was then, what would you be sayin’?”
“I’d be sayin’ what I say now,” says Amos, “an’ what I’ll say to the end o’ time: that I love you so much that the world ain’t the world without you. But I want to hear you say somethin’. What would you be sayin’, Hettie, if it was then?”
I knew how she dimpled up as she answered—Hettie’s dimples was like the wind had dented a rose leaf.
“I’d prob’ly be sayin’,” says Hettie, “Amos, you ain’t filled the water pail. An’ I’ll have to have another armful o’ kindlin’.”
“Well,” says Amos, “but then when I’d brought ’em. What would you say then?”