Newt dropped into the seat, and inquired:
Clem Rawlins answered in a deep, drawling voice:
"He failed tol'able fast-like after ye left, Newt. He had the weak treemers, an' died erbout cawn-plantin' time a-follerin' of yore goin' down below."
The boy said nothing. He sat mutely scowling into the fire.
A constrained silence fell on the gathering, which was at last broken by the boy's mother in a tone of dubious embarrassment.
"With yore old gran-pap on my hands, Newt, an' yore pap daid an' Little Luk kind of puny-like, I couldn't hardly git along withouten some man on the place an' so--" She paused again, then added with a note half-apology, half-defiance: "An' so I married Clem. I was plumb driv ter hit."
She knew that the boy had never liked his kinsman, Clem Rawlins, but now Newt sat with his brow drawn and his gaze fixed on the embers, making no response. Clem waited stolidly, puffing at his pipe, though he, too, would be glad when the moment of explanation was ended. At last, the boy dismissed the topic with the curt comment:
After a while, he rose and went to the corner of the room where once his few belongings had been kept. He evidently failed to find that for which he sought, for he came back to the fire and demanded:
His mother was still sitting on the edge of the bed. She had filled her clay pipe and lighted it with a coal from the fire. Once more her voice carried the note of anxious embarrassment, and she tried to give it also an ingratiating quality, as she replied.
"Well, ye see, Newty, atter yore pappy died we had a heap of trouble. 'Peared like the good Lord hed done plumb forgot us in his provi-_dence_. The hail kilt all the cawn, an' the hawgs died off like es ef they was blighted, an' so--" She paused, and the boy finished for her in a voice very metallic, though not reproachful.
"So ye went an' sold my rifle-gun. Is thet what ye war a-tryin' ter say?"
"Thet's hit," she acknowledged. Then in exculpation she went on: "Ye see, Newt, I wouldn't 'a' done hit, only I didn't reckon ye'd want hit no more. We didn't hardly 'low ye'd ever come back hyar noways."
Newt Spooner rose from his chair and stood facing them. His fists were tight-clenched at his sides. The spurting blaze of the slowly dying fire sent his shadow wavering out across the semicircle of light.