On this Saturday evening, while Rose was relating her day to Aunt Anne, Joe Colkett sat, meditatively, astride of his wood-saddle.[5] In the morning he had seen Dorothy Maybrook, and had been as cunning as he knew how to be. He had found Dory engaged in “p’inting her man,” as she said; he was to saw some wood, and to kill two chickens for Mrs. Lyndsay’s table. “Now, two p’ints, Hiram, two!” The pale, square-shouldered man considered her with dull eyes.

5. The cross-pieces on which wood is laid for sawing.

“You said two pairs.”

“Oh, you are not p’inted right yet. Don’t you kill more than two chickens. Here,” and she set two pins in his sleeve, “you can look at these.”

“There, one pin stands for each chicken,” he said. “Guess I’m p’inted,” and he went away.

“What’s wanting,Joe?” she said. “How’s Susie?”

“Oh, she’s kind of upsot. She takes on ’bout that last boy like there wasn’t a boy on airth.”

“There isn’t for her.”

“There’s no gainsayin’ that. She’s allus a-talkin’ about them Lyndsays, and how they sot a stone, a right handsome stone, up on that there boy of theirn,—and 249she ain’t got none. Women’s awful queer, Dory. I can’t buy no tombstone.”

“It doesn’t seem so queer to me. Can’t you get some kind of a thing, just to please the woman? Why, if it was only of wood, you see, it might help.”

“That’s so. I was a sort of thinkin’ ’bout that. Queer how folks thinks ’bout the same things.”

“Were you? Well, you’re a better kind of man than I took you for, Joe Colkett. Your wife’s about half off her wits with grieving. If I was you, I wouldn’t—well, I wouldn’t take her too serious. People that are troubled the way she is do have strange notions. I think the devil he’s as like as not to get a grip on us when we are—”

“What was you a-thinkin’, Dory?” he broke in, suspiciously.

“I ain’t fully minded to tell you, Joe. But Susie’s a masterful woman, and don’t you let her get you into trouble. If it’s money, my man and me we’ve got a little put by. I’d a heap rather spend a bit of it than see you tormented into some wickedness.”

“You must think I’m right bad, Dory. Can’t you talk out?”

“No; I might, but I won’t. Only you remember, Joe, I didn’t say you were bad, but I do say anybody you care for might p’int you wrong. It’s a queer thing how easy men can be p’inted.”

He was terribly scared, and, seeing that no more was to be had out of Dory, resolved to profit by her warning. How she could have guessed anything of his or his wife’s intentions he was at a loss to comprehend. But he was timid, and eager to steer clear of 250trouble. After a few moments of silent consideration, he spoke:

“It ain’t always easy to keep straight. Guess I’m p’inted now, like Hiram,” and he grinned. “I don’t drink none neither, not now.”

“Stick to that and keep your mouth shut, or it may be worse for you—and for Susie, too,” she added.

“I will. Don’t you be afraid.”

“And what fetched you, Joe?”

“I was minded to set a nice clean board over them boys. I was a-tellin’ you that. And I can’t read none nor write. But if you was to write big on a paper just what a man might want to set on a board like I was a-talkin’ of, guess I could copy it plain enough.”

Dorothy considered. “Can you wait? It’ll be quite a time.”

“Yes, I kin wait.”

She left him, and went into the house, and was gone a full hour. What the man thought of as he leaned against the rails, or sat on top, I do not know. He had the patience of an ant.

When he saw Dorothy again at the door he climbed down, and, with some excitement in his face, went toward the cabin.

“It wasn’t right easy, Joe. I was thinking I might ask Mr. Carington about it. Mr. Lyndsay he’d be best; but I guess I wouldn’t ask him.”

“No,” said Joe, promptly. He saw why this might not be well. “I don’t want nobody to know, Dory, ’cept you and Susie. It’ll kind of surprise her, and she’ll like it.” Then he added, with some cunning, 251“She hates to have folks goin’ there where them children’s buried.”

“I shall never want to,” said Dorothy. She still carried an unpleasant remembrance of the dismal burial.

“Well, I thought I’d tell you, Dory.”

“Yes, of course.” She took the hint as but another evidence of Susie’s state of mind and of Joe’s dreads and anxieties, and failed to examine it closely, not being of a suspicious turn, despite a life which had given little and taken much. Whoever asked of Dorothy a favor approached her on the side of her nature most open to capture.

“You are a good deal more patient than most men,” she said. “Come in; come in.” Joe entered after her. A Sunday quiet was in the air of the place. There was no fire, and the sun, as it looked in, disclosed no want anywhere of neatness and care. It was not lost on poor Joe as he looked around the small house. He had been here often, but there are times when we see and times when we do not. Now, perhaps because of being on guard, all his senses, and the inert mind back of them, were more alive than usual. A book lying open on the spotless table struck him most; a snow-white rolling-pin had been hastily laid on it to keep the place at the moment of Joe’s coming.

He was bent on making himself agreeable to his hostess, who now stood by an open window, well satisfied with her work, a large sheet of paper in her hand. She had put on for Sunday a white gown which had known the summers of Georgia. It was 252clean and much mended, but it set off her fair rosiness and dark hair, and made her look larger than she was.

“Sit down, Joe.”

“Guess I will,” said Joe. “Top rail of Hiram’s fence is mighty sharp.”

He sat down with caution, being heavy. In his own home the furniture was apt to go to pieces unless humored by a but gradual abandonment to it of the full weight of the human frame. Satisfied as to this, he began to use the weapon of his sex:

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