“I used to know him. All of us did for a few years, a long time ago. He was quality, the same as your pa—but he wasn’t steady like your pa.”
“That’s what he’d ought to been, anyhow—but I reckon the woods up French River, and one thing and another, were too much for his gentility. Ssh! Here they come!”
Mrs. O’Dell and little Marion Sherwood entered the kitchen hand in hand. The eyes of both wore a suggestion of recent tears and hasty bathing with cold water, but both were smiling, though the little girl’s smile was tremulous and uncertain.
“Jim, this is Dick Sherwood’s daughter,” said the woman. “You and Dick were great friends in the old days, weren’t you?”
“We sure was,” returned McAllister awkwardly but cordially. “He was as smart a man in the water as ever I saw. Could dive and swim like an otter. And a master hand with a gun! He could shoot birds a-flying easier’n I could hit ’em on the ground. John was a good shot, too, but he wasn’t a match for your pa, little girl. I hope he keeps in good health.”
“Marion’s pa has left French River for a little while on business, and Marion will make her home with us until he returns,” said Mrs. O’Dell.
There was bacon for breakfast as well as buckwheat pancakes, and there were hot biscuits and strawberry preserves and cream to top off with. The elders did most of the talking. Marion sat beside Jim McAllister, on his left. Jim, having taken his cue from his sister, racked his memory for nice things to say of Richard Sherwood. He sang Sherwood’s prowess in field and stream. At last, spooning his preserves with his right hand, he let his left hand rest on his knee beneath the edge of the table.
“And brave!” he said. “You couldn’t scare him! I never knew any man so brave as Dick Sherwood except only John O’Dell.”
Then a queer change of expression came over his face. Young Ben, who was watching his uncle from the other side of the table, noticed it instantly. The blue eyes widened; the drooping mustache twitched; the lower jaw sagged and a vivid flush ascended throat and chin and cheek beneath the tough tan of wind and sun. Ben wondered.
Breakfast over, the man and youth went outside, for there were potatoes to be hilled and turnips to be thinned.