Hollow, small though it was, was full of work, and she must lay hold. And so she rose once more, and joined hands with joyless duty. Ben Doaks sojourned with them for a time, and went hunting with Jessup, and brought back game, and made Mrs. Sayles presents of the peltry. As he sat by the fire at night he told the news from the cove in great detail, and discussed it freely with Mrs. Jessup, and developed remarkable capacities for acquiescence. Old Griff, he said, was having a mighty hard winter. His mill had proved a sore loss, for he was bereft of his tolls, and he had planted little corn. “He mought make out, though. His meat looks thrivin’; he hain’t killed yit.” Ben spoke of the miller’s hogs afoot as if they held their fat in trust and were stewards of their own bacon. The old man seemed failing, and talked much about Tad; sometimes as if he had already returned, sometimes as if he momently expected him. The children, too, “’peared thrivin’,” though Ben didn’t believe Sophy would ever be good for much except to look at, and the little ones “all ’peared ragged ez ef she didn’t study ’bout them much.” “Too many peart, spry boys in the cove fur her ter study ’bout, stiddier them,” said Mrs. Sayles, with a scornful toss of the head, histrionically seeing the situation from Sophy’s standpoint. “Jerry Price ’pears ter set a heap o’ store by Sophy’s looks,” submitted Ben, with the implication of the remark. “Waal, ’twould be a jedgmint on Dely Purvine fur all her onwholesome vanity an’ slack-twisted sort o’ religion, ef that thar Jerry Price, ez she hev brung up ez ef he war her own son,—though his looks air enough ter tarrify a mole,—war ter marry Sophy Griff.” “Waal, sir, one thing,—her housekeepin’ couldn’t ’stonish him none arter Mis’ Purvine’s,” remarked Mrs. Jessup, with an elaborate semblance of seeing the brighter side of things. “Shucks!” Mrs. Sayles commented. “He’d miss mightily the show and the shine he hev been used ter along o’ Mis’ Purvine.” “Waal,” said Ben, “I don’t b’lieve ez Mis’ Purvine would mind much who Jerry marries, so long ez he keeps clar o’ Elviry Crosby. Mis’ Purvine air mightily outdone with her. She hev been mournin’ fur Peter Rood same ez ef she war a widder-woman. An’ ye know she wouldn’t speak ter him ez long ez Mink war out’n the grip o’ the sher’ff. She tried ter toll Pete back arterwards. I hearn him ’low sech when they war drawin’ the jury. I dunno how she made out.” Mrs. Sayles gazed at the fire solemnly from under her pink sun-bonnet. “Death tolled him,” she said lugubriously. “I’d jes’ ez lief Death as Elviry Crosby,” said Mrs. Jessup, in calm superiority to the wiles of feminine fascination. Old man Sayles shook his head in negation. “Mighty dark under the ground,” he said, with terror of the termination of life; which for him signified so little that a sponge with a vocable or two might have seemed his correlative.