"I never have had a home," she said. "I never had no idee how folk that
have got things lived--till I went over--over to that--that hell-hole
there!" And she waved her hand over toward Blue-grass Manor. I was
startled at her fierce manner and words.
"Your folks come along here the other day," I said, to turn the subject,
I guess.
"Did they?" she asked, with a little gasp. "What did they say?"
"They said they were headed for Pike's Peak."
"The old story," she said. "Huntin' f'r the place where the hawgs run
around ready baked, with knives an' forks stuck in 'em. I wish to God I
was with 'em!"
Here she stopped for a while and sat with her hands twisted together in
her lap. Finally, "Did they say anything about me, Jacob?"
"I thought," said I, "that they talked as if you'd had a fuss."
"Yes," she said. "They're all I've got. They hain't much, I reckon, but
they're as good as I be, I s'pose. Yes, a lot better. They're my father
an' my mother, an' my brothers. In their way--in our way--they was
always, as good to me as they knowed how. I remember when ma used to
kiss me, and pa held me on his lap. Do you remember he's got one finger
off? I used to play with his fingers, an' try to build 'em up into a
house, while he set an' told about new places he was goin' to to git
rich. I wonder if the time'll ever come ag'in when I can set on any
one's lap an' be kissed without any harm in it!"
There was no false gaiety in her face now, as she sat and looked off
over the marsh from the brow of the hill-slope.
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