"I calc'late it's jest talk," said Scattergood. "Nobody knows where he
is."

"He'll come sometime," she said.

"And you calc'late to keep on waitin' fer him to come?"

"Until I'm dead--and after that, if it's allowed."

"I wisht," said Scattergood, "there was suthin' I could do to mend it
all."

"Nobody kin ever do anythin'," she said.... "But if he should venture
back, calc'latin' it had all blown over and been forgot!... His father'd
see him put in prison--and I--I couldn't bear that, it seems as though."

"There's a bad thing about borrowin' trouble," said Scattergood. "No
matter how hard you try, you can't ever pay it back. Wait till he
croaks, and then do your worryin'."

"I've got a feelin' he's goin' to come," she said, and turned away
wearily. "I thought maybe you'd know. That's why I came in, Mr. Baines."

"G'-by, Mattie. G'-by. Come ag'in when you feel that way, and you
needn't to buy no tack hammer for an excuse."

Scattergood slumped down in his chair on the store's piazza, and began
pulling his round cheeks as if he had taken up with some new method of
massage. It was a sign of inward disturbance. Presently a hand stole
downward to the laces of his shoes--a gesture purely automatic--and in a