Part 19

"Did you make that pie William Benson brought me last month?"

"What made you think I did?"

"Oh, I don't know; it looked, an' it tasted like one o' yours," he said, closing his eyes again. "If you know a woman, you can tell her pie, somehow!"

When had Caleb Kimball ever tasted any of her cooking? A mysterious remark, but everything he said sounded a trifle lightheaded.

His questions came back to her when she was waiting for William Benson at twilight that same day.

Caleb had been sleeping quietly for an hour or more. Amanda was standing at the stove stirring his arrowroot gruel. The kitchen was still.

A smothered "miaow" and the scratching of claws on wood arrested her attention, and she went hurriedly to the door.

"Tristram Dalton; what are you up here for, away from your own home?" she exclaimed.

Tristram vouchsafed no explanation of his appearance, but his demeanor spoke louder than words to Amanda's guilty conscience, as he walked in.

"No shelter for me but the shed these days!" he seemed to say. "Instead of well-served meals, a cup of milk set here or there!"

He made the circuit of the kitchen discontentedly and finding nothing to his taste went into the adjoining room, and after walking over the full length of Caleb's prostrate form curled himself up in a hollow at the foot of the bed.

"I've neglected him!" thought Amanda; "but his turn'll come again soon enough," and she bent her eyes on the gruel.

The blue bowl sat in the pan of hot water on the stove, and she stirred and stirred, slowly, regularly, continuously, in order that the arrowroot should be of a velvety smoothness.

The days were drawing in, and the October sun was setting very yellow, sending a flood of light over her head and shoulders. She wore her afternoon dress of alpaca, with a worked muslin collar and cuffs and a white apron tied round her trim waist. She was one of your wholesome shining women and her bright brown hair glistened like satin.

Caleb's black eyes looked yearningly at her as she stood there all unconscious, doing one of her innumerable neighborly kindnesses for him.

She made a picture of sweet, strong, steady womanliness, although she did not know it. Caleb knew something extraordinary was going on inside of him, but under what impulse he was too puzzled and inexperienced to say.

"Amanda."

Amanda turned sharply at the sound of his voice as she was lifting the steaming arrowroot out of the water.

"Whose cat is this?"

"Mine.--Come off that bed, Tristram!"

"Don't disturb him; I like to have him there.--Where's Abby Thatcher?"

"She's gone home on an errand; she'll be back in fifteen minutes now."

"Where's William?"

"It's only five o'clock. He don't come till six. What can I get for you? Have you had a good sleep?"

She set the gruel on the back of the stove and went in to his bedside.

"I don't sleep much; I just lie an' think ... Amanda, ... now, they're all away, ... if I get over this spell, ... an' take a year to straighten up an' get hold o' things like other folks, ... do you think ... you'd risk ... marryin' me?"

There was a moment's dead silence; then Amanda said, turning pale: "Are you in your right mind, Caleb Kimball?"

"I am, but I don't wonder at your askin'," said the man humbly. "I've kind o' fancied you for years; but you've always been way down there across the fields, out o' reach!"