Part 26

"'No,' says Eb, shakin' his head. 'No. No, I donno's I would take it either, Mr. Sykes.'

"I was goin' to say somethin' about the wind blowin' now east, now west, an' the human spine makin' a bad weathercock, but I held on, an' pretty soon Timothy an' Silas went out.

"'Seven o'clock Friday A.M., now!' says Silas, playful, over his shoulder to Elspie. But Elspie didn't answer. She was just sittin' there, still an' quiet, an' she didn't eat another thing.

"That afternoon she slipped out o' the house somewheres. She didn't hev a hat--what few things she did hev hed been burnt. She went off without any hat an' stayed most all the afternoon. I didn't worry, though, because I thought I knew where she'd gone. But I wouldn't 'a' asked her,--I'd as soon slap anybody as quiz 'em,--an' besides I knew't somebody'd tell me if I kep' still. Friendship'll tell you everything you want to know, if you lay low long enough. An' sure as the world, 'bout five o'clock in come Mis' Postmaster Sykes, lookin' troubled. Folks always looks that way when they come to interfere. Seems't she'd just walked past the poorhouse ruins, an' she'd see Elspie settin' there side of 'em, all alone--

"'--singin',' says Mis' Sykes, impressive,--like the evil was in the music,--'sittin' there singin', like she was all possessed. An' I come up behind her an' plumped out at her to know what she was a-doin'. An' she says: "I'm makin' a call,"--just like that; "I'm makin' a call," s'she, smilin', an' not another word to be got out of her. 'An',' says Mis' Sykes, 'let me tell you, I scud down that hill, one goose pimple.'

"'Let her alone,' says I, philosophic. 'Leave her be.'

"But inside I ached like the toothache for the poor thing--for Elspie. An' I says to her, when she come home:--

"'Elspie,' I says, 'why don't you go out 'round some an' see folks here in the village? The minister's wife'd be rill glad to hev you come,' I says.

"'Oh, I hate to hev 'em sit thinkin' about me in behind their eyes,' s'she, ready.

"'What?' says I, blank.

"'It comes out through their eyes,' she says. 'They keep thinkin': Poor, poor, poor Elspie. If they was somebody dead't I could go to see,' she told me, smilin', 'I'd do that. A grave can't poor you,' she told me, 'an' everybody that's company to you does.'

"'Well!' says I, an' couldn't, in logic, say no more.

"That evenin' Eb come in an' set down on the edge of a chair, experimental, like he was testin' the cane.

"'Miss Cally,' s'e, when Elspie was out o' the room, 'you goin' t' let her go with them folks to the Alice County poorhouse?'

"I guess I dissembulated some under my eyelids--bein' I see t' Eb's mind was givin' itself little lurches.

"'Well,' s'I, 'I don't see what that's wise I can do besides.'

"He mulled that rill thorough, seein' to the back o' one hand with the other.

"'Would you take her to board an' me pay for her board?' s'e, like he'd sneezed the i-dea an' couldn't help it comin'.

"'Goodness!' s'I, neutral.

"Eb sighed, like he'd got my refusal--Eb was one o' the kind that always thinks, if it clouds up, 't the sun is down on 'em personally.

"'Oh,' s'I, bold an' swift, 'you great big ridiculous man!'

"An' I'm blest if he didn't agree to that.

"'I know I'm ridiculous,' s'he, noddin', sad. 'I know I'm that, Miss Cally.'

"'Well, I didn't mean it that way,' s'I, reticent--an' said no more, with the exception of what I'd rilly meant.

"'Why under the canopy,' I ask' him, for a hint, 'don't you take the Sum Merriman store, an' run it, an' live on your feet? I ain't any patience with a man,' s'I, 'that lives on his toes. Stomp some, why don't you, an' buy that store?'

"An' his answer su'prised me.

"'I did ask Mis' Fire Chief fer the refusal of it,' he said. 'I ask' her when I took my flowers to Sum, to-day--they was wild flowers I'd picked myself,' he threw in, so's I wouldn't think spendthrift of him. 'An' I'm to let her know this week, for sure.'

"'Glory, glory, glory,' s'I, under my breath--like I'd seen a rill live soul, standin' far off on a hill somewheres, drawin' cuts to see whether it should come an' belong to Eb, or whether it shouldn't.