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As soon as the sick men were a little revived from the exhaustion of their journey, tubs of water were provided in the shed, and they washed themselves all over, Elnathan and Perez assisting in the repulsive task. Then, their filthy prison garments being thrown away, they were dressed in old clothing of Elnathan's, and their hair and matted beards were shorn off with scissors.
I shouldn't wonder if he'd had an offer, or a hint, or somethin'. But Elnathan's mouth shuts tighter than a muskrat trap and I couldn't get nothin' out of him. He just looked knowin' and that was all. But, if it's so, it may mean a heap to Denboro." I was considering the news when he spoke again. "It might mean a lot to you, Ros," he whispered. "How so?"
Immediately, however, the white girl reappeared in the doorway, her rosy face pale, her eyes dilated, and beckoned to Perez, who in a good deal of wonderment at once obeyed the gesture. The two girls were standing by a corner of the house, out of earshot from the window of Elnathan's bedroom.
She bore in her hands a pail of milk and a fowl neatly dressed, which she gave to Elnathan's mother, and, seeing strangers by his bedside, was about to go out, when he called to her and besought her to stay. As she came up and spoke to him, I knew her to be the maid we had met at the spring.
All through the interview, even when she had overheard Elnathan's confidences to Perez, at the door, her cheeks had not betrayed her by a trace of unusual color, but now as she hurried home across the fields, they burned with shame, and she fairly choked to think of the vulgar familiarity to which she had submitted, and the abject attitude she had assumed to this farmer's son.
She bore in her hands a pail of milk and a fowl neatly dressed, which she gave to Elnathan's mother, and, seeing strangers by his bedside, was about to go out, when he called to her and besought her to stay. As she came up and spoke to him, I knew her to be the maid we had met at the spring.
"Why don't you tell him you're Miss Morton," coached Willie, in a loud whisper. But the man on the steps had heard. "You're not Miss Morton, are you?" he essayed, "Miss Celestina Morton?" "I expect I am," owned Celestina nervously. "I'm your brother Elnathan's boy, Bob." Celestina crumpled weakly against the door frame. "Nate's boy!" she repeated. "Bless my soul! Bless my soul an' body!"
The world looked further off to him, the woes, and wants, and crimes of our poor humanity seemed quite a considerable distance away from him. Onclouded prosperity had hardened Elnathan's heart it will sometimes hard as Pharo's. But he wuz a visitor and one of the relations on his side, and I done well by him, killed a duck and made quite a fuss.
And the blue too wuz jest the color of Katy's eyes when she last see them, full of tears at partin' from her. She thought of Elnathan's sharp orders not to go down into the city, and not to let The Little Maid out of her sight. Wall, she thought it over, and thought that mebby if she kep one of her promises good, she would be forgive the other.
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