For a long while she waited patiently, now and then glancing down the unkempt street to see if her father had yet come in sight; then she stood up in the cart and looked. It was growing late. The sun was slipping down behind the mountains and a cooler breath crept through the valley.
"Well, Ben, hit air no use er stayin' yer any longer, I 'spec' at pap he air drunk. Git erp ther', Ben!"
She had gathered up the rope guiding line and the gad that lay in the box, and as she finished speaking she tapped the ox and drove away, heading for the road that led homeward. The thought that her father was drunk seemed not to affect her in any way. She soon resumed her singing, and her aimless, wistful gazing at the splendid Southern sky.
It was long after night-fall, but the moon was shining brightly, when Milly drove up to the little front gate at home, and freeing Ben from his yoke and shafts, turned him loose to browse on the mountain-side. Her mother met her at the door.
"Wher' air yer pap?" was the laconic inquiry.
"An' er playin' of keerds," suggested Mrs. White.
"Well, ef hit air seving up 'at he air a playin' ther' air sense to hit, fer he gin'rally wa'ms their low down gam'lin' hides fer 'em, w'en hit air seving up 'at he plays; but ef he goes in on ter any er them tother games, he'll come home 'ithout ary cent inter his pockets, mind what I tell ye."
"I wush John 'd come home, that's what I wush," murmured Milly, opening the door of Reynolds' room and going in to wander listlessly about among his things. She touched his books, his pencils, his brushes, his pen, and lingered about the easel upon which the dog sketch still rested unfinished.
It was nearly midnight when White came in good-humoredly drunk, boasting of another victory at "seving up with them air gam'lers." His wife had gone to bed, but Milly met him with her usual quiet welcome and the formula expressing her predominant "wush."
"Ye needn't er be 'spectin' the Colonel home for a week, Milly," he said, as he lighted his pipe for a sobering smoke before retiring; "fer he's gone away down on the Al'bam' River to Gen'l DeKay's to a huntin' frolic with banker Noble an' his darter."
Nothing save the very unusual amount of whisky he had been taking could have induced White to say that and in such a tone. Milly looked at him in a dazed, stupid way, her cherry underlip falling as if from the weight of the information she had received.