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Updated: June 15, 2025
And whether they schemed to burn the Kittredge cabin, or to arm themselves, burst in upon their enemies, shooting and killing all who resisted, Evelina said nothing, but stared into the fire with unnaturally dilated eyes, her white lined face all drawn and somehow unrecognizable. "Never mind," her father said at intervals, taking her cold hand, "we-uns 'll git him back, Eveliny.
An' I went on, a-whistlin' ter make him 'low ez I never s'picioned nuthin'. An' I kem inter the house an' tole dad ez he'd better be a-lookin' arter Eveliny, fur I b'lieved she war a-settin' her head ter run away an' marry Abs'lom Kittredge." "Waal, I ain't right up an' down sati'fied we oughter done what we done," exclaimed Stephen, fretfully.
And indeed it might have seemed that the Quimbeys must have long sought a choice Kittredge infant for adoption, so far did their bewailings discount Rachel's mourning. "Don't cry, Eveliny," they said, ever and anon. "We-uns 'll git him back fur ye." But she had not shed a tear. She sat speechless, motionless, as if turned to stone.
"Eveliny," he quavered, at once flattered and furious, "dad-burned ef Abs'lom hain't gone an' got out a habeas corpus fur the baby!"
Once, roused by Absalom's reproaches, she made some effort to defend and exculpate herself, speaking from behind the enveloping apron. "I ain't born no Kittredge nohow," she irrelevantly asseverated, "an' I never war. An' when Eveliny axed me how I'd hev liked ter hev another 'oman take Abs'lom whenst he war a baby, I couldn't hold out no longer."
"Ye air a powerful fool, Eveliny." The girl laughed a little, too. "I dunno ez I want ter be no wiser," she said. But one was his wife, and the other was his mother, and as they talked of him daily and long, the bond between them was complete.
"I hearn him call yer talk onchristian, cussed sentiments, ez he put out." "Ye mus' keep up a Christian sperit, boys; that's the main thing," said the old man, who was esteemed very religious, and a pious Mentor in his own family. He gazed meditatively into the fire. "What ailed Eveliny ter git so tuk up with this hyar Abs'-lom? What made her like him?" he propounded.
"Why, Eveliny an' the baby oughtn't ter be out in this hyar rain they'll be drenched," said the old woman, when they were all safely housed except the two. "Whar be she?" "A-foolin' in the gyarden spot a-getherin' seed an' sech, like she always be," said the sister-in-law, tartly. Absalom ran out into the rain without his hat, his heart in the clutch of a prescient terror.
Don't cry, Eveliny; it's jes' the same." A sudden babbling intruded upon the conversation. The youthful Kittredge, as he sat upon the wide flat stones of the hearth, was as unwelcome here in the Cove as a Quimbey had been in the cabin on the mountain. The great hickory fire called for his unmixed approval, coming in, as he had done, from the gray wet day.
This was the square-faced, black-bearded, thick-set young fellow who took the candle from the window, and now advanced with it toward the hearth, holding it at an angle that caused the flame to swiftly melt the tallow, which dripped generously upon the floor. "I hev seen Eveliny do it," he said, excitedly justifying himself.
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