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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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64 black and brittle. He said to himself: “This is Matt’s last day,” and tried to think what the place would be without her. As he stood there he heard a step behind him and she entered. “Oh, Ethan-were you here all night?” She looked so small and pinched, in her poor dress, with the red scarf wound about her, and the cold light turning her paleness sallow, that Ethan stood before her without speaking. “You must be frozen,” she went on, fixing lustreless eyes on him. He drew a step nearer. “How did you know I was here?” “Because I heard you go down stairs again after I went to bed, and I listened all night, and you didn’t come up.” All his tenderness rushed to his lips. He looked at her and said: “I’ll come right along and make up the kitchen fire.” They went back to the kitchen, and he fetched the coal and kindlings and cleared out the stove for her, while she brought in the milk and the cold remains of the meat-pie. When warmth began to radiate from the stove, and the first ray of sunlight lay on the kitchen floor, Ethan’s dark thoughts melted in the mellower air. The sight of Mattie going about her work as he had seen her on so many mornings made it seem impossible that she should ever cease to be a part of the scene. He said to himself that he had doubtless exaggerated the significance of Zeena’s threats, and that she too, with the return of daylight, would come to a saner mood. He went up to Mattie as she bent above the stove, and laid his hand on her arm. “I don’t want you should trouble either,” he said, looking down into her eyes with a smile. She flushed up warmly and whispered back: “No, Ethan, I ain’t going to trouble.” “I guess things’ll straighten out,” he added. There was no answer but a quick throb of her lids, and he went on: “She ain’t said anything this morning?” “No. I haven’t seen her yet.” “Don’t you take any notice when you do.” With this injunction he left her and went out to the cow-barn. He saw Jotham Powell walking up the hill through the morning mist, and the familiar sight added to his growing conviction of security. As the two men were clearing out the stalls Jotham rested on his pitch-fork to say: “Dan’l Byrne’s goin’ over to the Flats to-day noon, an’ he c’d take Mattie’s trunk along, and make it easier ridin’ when I take her over in the sleigh.” Ethan looked at him blankly, and he continued: “Mis’ Frome said the new girl’d be at the Flats at five, and I was to take Mattie then, so’s ‘t she could ketch the six o’clock train for Stamford.” Ethan felt the blood drumming in his temples. He had to wait a moment before he could find voice to say: “Oh, it ain’t so sure |
