Part 1 (2/2)
”Bill's allers a-quittin'. Trouble with Bill is, he can't stay quit. I see him yesterday comin' down the road zig-zaggin' like a rail fence.
Fust she knows, she'll hev to be takin' was.h.i.+n' to support him.
Sometimes I think 't would be a good idee to let him git sent over the road onct. Mebby 't would learn him a lesson--”
He stopped short, noticing the significant look in M'ri's eyes and the two patches of color spreading over David's thin cheeks. He recalled that four years ago the boy's father had died in state prison.
”You'd better go right over to Zine's,” he added abruptly.
”I'll wait till after dinner. We'll have it early.”
”Hev it now,” suggested Barnabas.
”Now!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed David. ”It's only half-past ten.”
”I could eat it now jest as well as I could at twelve,” argued the philosophical Barnabas. ”Jest as leaves as not.”
There were no iron-clad rules in this comfortable household, especially when Pennyroyal, the help, was away.
”All right,” a.s.sented M'ri with alacrity. ”If I am going to do anything, I like to do it right off quick and get it over with. You stay, David, if you can eat dinner so early.”
”Yes, I can,” he a.s.sured her, recalling his scanty breakfast and the freezer of cream that was to furnish the dessert. ”I'll help you get it, Miss M'ri.”
He brought a pail of water from the well, filled the teakettle, and then pared the potatoes for her.
”When will Jud and Janey get their dinner?” he asked Barnabas.
”They kerried their dinner to-day. The scholars air goin' to hev a picnic down to Spicely's grove. How comes it you ain't to school, Dave?”
”I have to help my mother with the was.h.i.+ng,” he replied, a slow flush coming to his face. ”She ain't strong enough to do it alone.”
”What on airth kin you do about a was.h.i.+n', Dave?”
”I can draw the water, turn the wringer, hang up the clothes, empty the tubs, fetch and carry the was.h.i.+ngs, and mop.”
Barnabas puffed fiercely at his pipe for a moment.
”You're a good boy, Dave, a mighty good boy. I don't know what your ma would do without you. I hed to leave school when I wa'n't as old as you, and git out and hustle so the younger children could git eddicated. By the time I wuz foot-loose from farm work, I wuz too old to git any larnin'. You'd orter manage someway, though, to git eddicated.”
”Mother's taught me to read and write and spell. When I get old enough to work for good wages I can go into town to the night school.”
In a short time M'ri had cooked a dinner that would have tempted less hearty appet.i.tes than those possessed by her brother and David.
”You ain't what might be called a delikit feeder, Dave,” remarked Barnabas, as he replenished the boy's plate for the third time.
”You're so lean I don't see where you put it all.”
David might have responded that the vacuum was due to the fact that his breakfast had consisted of a piece of bread and his last night's supper of a dish of soup, but the Dunne pride inclined to reservation on family and personal matters. He speared another small potato and paused, with fork suspended between mouth and plate.
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