“Did you use the blood warm?” asked Small, with a solemnity most edifying.
These were almost the only words he had uttered since he entered the cabin.
“Laws, yes; I jest let it run right out of the cat’s tail onto the breakin’-out. And fer airesipelus, I don’t know nothin’ so good as the blood of a black hen.”
“How old?” asked the doctor.
“There you showed yer science, doctor! They’s no power in a pullet. The older the black hen the better. And you know the cure fer rheumatiz?” And here the old woman got down a bottle of grease. “That’s ile from a black dog. Ef it’s rendered right, it’ll knock the hind sights off of any rheumatiz you ever see. But it must be rendered in the dark of the moon. Else a black dog’s ile a’n’t worth no more nor a white one’s.”
And all this time Small was smelling of the uncorked bottle, taking a little on his finger and feeling of it, and thus feeling his way to the heart—drier than her herbs—of the old witch. And then he went round the cabin gravely, lifting each separate bunch of dried yarbs from its nail, smelling of it, and then, by making an interrogation-point of his silent face, he managed to get a lecture from her on each article in her materia medica with the most marvelous stories illustrative of their virtues. When the Granny had got her fill of his silent flattery, he was ready to carry forward his main purpose.
There was something weird about this silent man’s ability to turn the conversation as he chose to have it go. Sitting by the Granny’s tea-table, nibbling cornbread while he drank his glass of water, having declined even her sassafras, he ceased to stimulate her medical talk and opened the vein of gossip. Once started, Granny Sanders was sure to allude to the robbery. And once on the robbery the doctor’s course was clear.
“I ’low somebody not fur away is in this ’ere business!”
Not by a word, nor even by a nod, but by some motion of the eyelids, perhaps, Small indicated that he agreed with her.
“Who d’ye s’pose ’tis?”
But Dr. Small was not in the habit of supposing. He moved his head in a quiet way, just the least perceptible bit, but so that the old creature understood that he could give light if he wanted to.
“I dunno anybody that’s been ’bout here long as could be suspected.”
Another motion of the eyelids indicated Small’s agreement with this remark.
“They a’n’t nobody come in here lately ’ceppin’ the master.”
Small looked vacantly at the wall.
“But I ’low he’s allers bore a tip-top character.”
The doctor was too busy looking at his cornbread to answer this remark even by a look.
“But I think these oversmart young men’ll bear looking arter, I do.”
Dr. Small raised his eyes and let them shine an assent. That was all.
“Shouldn’t wonder ef our master was overly fond of gals.”
Doctor looks down at his plate.
“Had plenty of sweethearts afore he walked home with Hanner Thomson t’other night, I’ll bet.”
Did Dr. Small shrug his shoulder? Granny thought she detected a faint motion of the sort, but she could not be sure.
“And I think as how that a feller what trifles with gals’ hearts and then runs off ten miles, maybe a’n’t no better’n he had orter be. That’s what I says, says I.”
To this general remark Dr. Small assented in his invisible—shall I say intangible?—way.
“I allers think, maybe, that some folks has found it best to leave home and go away. You can’t never tell. But when people is a-bein’ robbed it’s well to lookout. Hey?”
“I think so,” said Small quietly, and, having taken his hat and bowed a solemn and respectful adieu, he departed.
He had not spoken twenty words, but he had satisfied the newsmonger of Flat Creek that Ralph was a bad character at home and worthy of suspicion of burglary.
XI
Miss Martha Hawkins
“It’s very good for the health to dig in the elements. I was quite emaciated last year at the East, and the doctor told me to dig in the elements. I got me a florial hoe and dug, and it’s been most excellent for me.”18 Time, the Saturday following the Friday on which Ralph kept Shocky company as far as the “forks” near Granny Sanders’s house. Scene, the Squire’s garden. Ralph helping that worthy magistrate perform sundry little jobs such as a warm winter day suggests to the farmer. Miss Martha Hawkins, the Squire’s niece, and his housekeeper in his present bereaved condition, leaning over the palings—pickets she called them—of the garden fence, talking to the master. Miss Hawkins was recently from Massachusetts. How many people there are in the most cultivated communities whose education is partial!
“It’s very common for schoolmaster to dig in the elements at the East,” proceeded Miss Martha. Like many other people born in the celestial empires (of which there are three—China, Virginia, Massachusetts), Miss Martha was not averse to reminding outside barbarians of her good fortune in this regard. It did her good to speak of the East.
Now Ralph was amused with Miss Martha. She really had a good deal of intelligence despite her affectation, and conversation with her was both interesting and diverting. It helped him to forget Hannah, and Bud, and the robbery, and all the rest, and she was so delighted to find somebody to make an impression on that she had come out to talk while Ralph was at work. But just at this moment the schoolmaster was not so much interested in her interesting remarks, nor so much amused by her amusing remarks, as he should have been. He saw a man coming down the road riding one horse and leading another, and he recognized the horses at a distance. It must be Bud who was riding Means’s bay mare and
