The wind was quite cool, and blew full on Caleb as he sat there.
Barney kept glancing at him. At length he spoke. "You'll get cold if
you sit there in that wind, father," he sang out, and there was a
rude kindliness in his tone.
Caleb jumped up with alacrity. "I dunno but I shall. I guess you're
right. I wa'n't goin' to set here but a minute," he answered,
eagerly. Then he went over to Barney again, and stood near watching
him. Barney's hoe clinked on a stone, and he stooped and picked it
out of the loam, and threw it away. "There's a good many stone in
this field," said the old man.
"There's some."
"It was a heap of work clearin' of it in the first place. You wa'n't
more'n two year old when I cleared it. My brother Simeon helped me.
It was five year before he got the fever an' died." Caleb looked at
his son with anxious pleading which was out of proportion to his
words, and seemed to apply to something behind them in his own mind.
Barney worked on silently.
"I don't believe but what--if you was--to go over there--you could
get her back again now, away from that Payne fellar," Caleb blurted
out, suddenly; then he shrank back as if from an anticipated blow.
Barney threw a hoeful of earth high in air and faced his father.
"Once for all, father," said he, "I don't want to hear another word
about this."
"I shouldn't have said nothin', Barney, but I kinder thought--"
"I don't care what you thought.
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