FullReads

“Oh, all right, all right!” said the visitor, shutting his knife with a snap, and getting briskly on his feet. “I don’t care much about buying. That ain’t a particularly good style of clock, anyway. But I like old things. I may drop in again, just to take a look at ’em. I suppose you’re always at home?” he said to Amanda, with his hand on the door.

“Yes; but sometimes I go to Sudleigh with butter. I go Monday afternoons most always, after washin’.”

With a cheerful good-day he was gone, and Amanda drew a long breath of relief.

“Well, some folks have got enough brass to line a kittle,” said Aunt Melissa, carefully folding her knitting-work in a large silk handkerchief. “‘Mandy, you’ll have to git supper a little earlier’n common for me. I told Hiram to come by half arter six. Do you s’pose Kelup’ll be round by that time? I’ll wait all night afore I’ll give up seein’ him.”

“I don’t know, Aunt Melissa,” said Amanda, nervously clearing the table of its pile of snowy cloth, and taking a flying glance from the window. She looked like a harassed animal, hunted beyond its endurance; but suddenly a strange light of determination flashed into her face. “Should you just as lieves set the table,” she asked, in a tone of guilty consciousness, “while I start the kitchen fire? You know where things are.” Hardly waiting for an assent, she fled from the room, and once in the kitchen, laid the fire in haste, with a glance from the window to accompany every movement. Presently, by a little path through the field, came a stocky man in blue overalls and the upper garment known as a jumper. He was bound for the pigpen in the rear of the barn; and there Amanda flew to meet him, stopping only to throw an apron over her head. They met at the door. He was a fresh-colored man, with honest brown eyes and a ring of whiskers under the chin. He had a way of blushing, and when Amanda came upon him thus unannounced, he colored to the eyes.

“Why, you’re all out o’ breath!” he said, in slow alarms.

“O Caleb!” she cried, looking at him with imploring eyes. “I’ll feed the pigs to-night.”

Caleb regarded her in dull wonderment. Then he set down the pail he had taken.

“Ain’t there any taters to bile?” he asked, solving the difficulty in his own way; “or ‘ain’t you skimmed the milk? I’d jest as soon wait.”

“You better not wait,” answered Amanda, almost passionately, her thin hair blowing about her temples. “You better go right back. I’d ruther do it myself; I’d a good deal ruther.”

Caleb turned about. He took a few steps, then stopped, and called hesitatingly over his shoulder, “I thought maybe I’d come an’ set a spell to-night.”

Then, indeed, Amanda felt her resolution, crack and quiver. “I guess you better come some other night,” she said, in a steady voice, though her face was wet with tears. And Caleb walked away, never once looking back. Amanda stayed only to wipe her eyes, saying meanwhile to her sorry self, “Oh, I dunno how I can get along! I dunno!” Then she hurried back to the house, to find the kettle merrily singing, and Aunt Melissa standing at the kitchen cupboard, looking critically up and down the shelves.

“If you’ve got two sets o’ them little gem-pans, you might lend me one,” she remarked; and Amanda agreed, not knowing what she gave.

The supper was eaten and the dishes were washed, Aunt Melissa meantime keeping a strict watch from the window.

“Is it time for Kelup?” she asked, again and again; and finally she confronted the guilty Amanda with the challenge, “Do you think Kelup ain’t comin’?”

“I–guess not,” quavered Amanda, her cheeks scarlet, and her small, pathetic hands trembling. She was not more used to finesse than to heroic action.

“Do you s’pose there’s any on ’em sick down to young Nat’s?” asked Aunt Melissa; and Amanda was obliged to take recourse again to her shielding “I guess not.” But at length Uncle Hiram drove up in the comfortable carry-all; and though his determined spouse detained him more than three-quarters of an hour, sitting beside him like a portly Rhadamanthus, and scanning the horizon for the Caleb who never came, he finally rebelled, shook the reins, and drove off, Aunt Melissa meantime screaming over her shoulder certain vigorous declarations, which evidently began with the phrase, “You tell Kelup–“