“Marty has been a-lookin’ after the grave,” said Lucinda, in the suppressed tone peculiar to people who desire to disown deep emotion. She turned her face toward the house. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about yore bein’ neglected down thar, Dick. The Lord knows I’ve laid awake many an’ many a cold night a-wonderin’ ef they give you-uns enough cover, an’ ef they tuk them cold chains off ’n you at night. An’ I reckon Marty did, too, fer she used to roll an’ tumble as ef ’er mind wasn’t at ease.” Wakeman took off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. “I’m itchin’ to set in to farm-work ag’in,” he said. “Let me salt fer you, an’ you run up thar an’ tell ’er I’m back. Maybe she ’ll come down heer.” Lucinda gave him her place at the table, a troubled expression taking hold of her features. “The great drawback is Jeff Goardley,” she said. “It really does look like him an’ Marty will come to a understandin’. I don’t know railly but what she may have promised him; he has seemed mighty confident heer lately.” Wakeman shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. He filled his hands with the salt from a pail and began to rub it on the pork. Lingeringly the woman left him and turned up the slight incline toward the house. His eyes did not follow her. He was scrutinizing the pile of pork she had salted. “Goodness gracious!” he grunted. “Lu-cindy has wasted fifteen pound o’ salt. Ef I’d ‘a’ done that Marty’d ‘a’ tuk the top o’ my head off. I wonder ef Marty could ‘a’ got careless sence she’s had all the work to look after.” He had salted the last piece of meat when, looking up, he saw Lucinda standing near him. “She wouldn’t come a step,” she announced, with some awkwardness of delivery. “When I told ’er you wuz down heer she jest come to the door an’ looked down at you a-workin’ an’ grunted an’ went back to ‘er cracklin’s. But that’s Marty.” The convict dipped his hands into a tub of hot water and wiped them on an empty salt-bag. “I wonder,” he began, “ef I’d better--” But he proceeded no further. “I think I would,” said the angular mind-reader, sympathetically. “Well, you come on up thar, too,” Wake-man proposed. “I’ve always noticed that when you are about handy she never has as much to say as she does commonly.” “I ’ll have to go,” said Lucinda. “Ef Marty gits to talkin’ to you she ‘ll let the cracklin’s burn, an’ then--then she’d marry Goardley out o’ pure spite.” As the pair reached the steps of the back porch the convict caught a glimpse of a gingham skirt within, and its stiff flounce as it vanished behind the half-closed door-shutter suddenly flung an aspect of seriousness into his countenance. He paused, his foot on the lowest step, and peered into the sitting-room. Seeing it empty, he smiled. “I ’ll go in thar an’ take a cheer. Tell ’er I want to see ‘er.” His air of returning self-confidence provoked a faint laugh from his well-wisher.