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"Our'n, Screechy. Weren't ye here lookin' for him?" Through the darkness Lem could not see the crazed expression that flashed over Scraggy's face. She thrust her fingers in her hair and shivered. The blow of Everett's fist had banished all memory of the boy from her mind; but Lem lived there as vividly as in the olden days. "We ain't got no boy, Lem," she said mournfully.
Only when Scraggy's name was mentioned to him did he remember. But the woman's words awoke a new feeling in his heart, and mentally he counted back the years to the date of his son's birth. Scraggy was still looking at him in bewilderment, scarcely realizing that her story had been told to the enemy of her child.
For the second time that day Scraggy's face shaded to the color of ashes, and her gaze dropped before the fierce eyes directed upon her. "Ye said more'n once, Scraggy," began Lem, "that I wasn't to drink no more whisky. Whose money pays for what I drink? That's what I want ye to tell me!" "Yer money, Lem dear." "And ye say as how I couldn't drink what I pay for?"
You say you're my mother but, if you ever breathe it to anyone, or come round here again, I shall certainly kill you!" The thoughts began to scurry wildly in Scraggy's head. Everett's threat to kill her had not penetrated the demented brain, and his rough handling had been her only fright. She could think of nothing but that Lem was waiting for them at the scow.
Be the bats a runnin' in yer head?" "Yep, child," the woman answered mournfully. "The fagots be given out, too, and I'm a huntin' of 'em. The night's cold." "I was lookin' for ye this afternoon, Screechy," said Flea. "Set down." The lean, half-starved woman dropped beside the girl. Flea put out her hand and smoothed down the rough hair on Scraggy's black cat.
The three had worked for many hours with scarcely a word spoken, with scarcely a recognition of one another. Of a sudden Eli Cronk raised his head and said, "Lem, Scraggy was to Mammy's t'other day." "I didn't know ye'd been to Ithacy?" Lem made the statement a question. "Yep, I went to see Mammy, and she says as how Scraggy's pappy were dead, and as how the gal's teched in here."
"Lemmy, Lemmy," she gasped between hard-coming breaths, "I'm comin' after ye and our pretty boy! Wherever ye both be I come " A film gathered over Scraggy's eyes, and her words were cut short by the pain of the intermittent flutterings of her heart. She fell lower, and with a last weak effort drew the heads closer together.
The presence of Screech Owl surprised him so that he did not move for a moment, and she spoke first: "I hain't seed ye in such a long time, Lem, that I thought I'd come and let ye see my new kitty. He ain't but two years old." Lem took a long breath. At first he thought that this must be Scraggy's wraith come to haunt him after some horrible lonely death.
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