Ike had postponed his disclosures too long. There was little good, he thought, as he swung his axe at the wood-pile—as wide awake as though he had participated in no coon-hunt—to tell his mother; she had cares enough—and what could she do? And truly he had nothing to tell except to put into words vague suspicions; nay, his thoughts were not so well defined; to canvass actions and accents and looks that displeased him. They all knew—at least they would not be surprised to learn that Jerry Binwell had not outlived the malice of his youth. Aunt Jemima would regard the slightest word against him as an effort to bereave her of this late-blooming pleasure and joy of her life, the little Rosamond. Ike hopefully considered for a time the blind man’s aversion to Binwell. Abner would never hear nor reply when he spoke—and since the first night, he had not spoken to Binwell, except indeed one day when he chanced to stumble against the sprawling loafer before the fire. Abner struck at him fiercely and called out imperiously—“Get out of my way—or I will kick you out!” Jerry had moved, but there was an odd glancing expression from his half-closed lids that alarmed Ike, so malignant it seemed. The little girl had run gayly up, caught Abner by the hand, and guided him to his place by the fire. For she it was who had superseded all the others, and had made the blind artillery-man her special charge. All day she was laughing beside him. Any time the oddly assorted couple could be met, she leading him carefully, holding two of his bronzed fingers, as they strolled down the sunset road, or they might be seen sitting on the wood-pile while he told her stories or sang. And she sang also, loud and clear—gayly too, whatever might have been the humble poet’s mood—in no wise dismayed or hindered by the infantile disability of not being able to carry a tune. She had a thousand quirks and conceits, incredibly entertaining to him in his enforced idleness. She had watched wide-eyed when Hiram Guyther read from an old and tattered Testament, for the accomplishment of reading was rare in the region, and had not before been brought to her observation. Often thereafter she equipped herself with a chip, held sturdily before her dancing eyes, and from this unique book she droned forth, in imitation of Hiram’s gruff voice, strange stories of beasts and birds, and the human beings about her, pausing only to scream with laughter at her own wit, and then gruffly droned on once more. She fell ill once for a day or so—a red and a swollen throat, and a flushing, dull-eyed fever. Aunt Jemima and Ike’s mother exhausted their skill and simple remedies, and went about haggard and nervous; and the blind man, breaking a long silence, said suddenly, “Ef ennything war ter happen ter that thar child I’d ’low the Lord hed fursook me.”