The gleam of the fire in Mrs. Stanley's little house
could be seen all night from the door of the Mills cabin,
as the candle by which Mrs. Mills complained while she and Vashti sewed,
could be faintly seen from Little Darby's house. The two Mills boys slept
stretched out on the one bed in the little centre-room.
While the women sewed and talked fitfully by the single tallow candle,
and old Cove dozed in a chair with his long legs stretched out toward the fire
and the two shining barrels of his sons' muskets resting against his knees,
where they had slipped from his hands when he had finished rubbing them.
The younger woman did most of the sewing. Her fingers were suppler
than her mother's, and she scarcely spoke except to answer the latter's
querulous questions. Presently a rooster crowed somewhere in the distance,
and almost immediately another crowed in answer closer at hand.
"Thar's the second rooster-crow, it's gittin' erlong toward the mornin',"
said the elder woman.
The young girl made no answer, but a moment later rose and, laying aside
the thing she was sewing, walked to the low door and stepped out
into the night. When she returned and picked up her sewing again,
her mother said:
"I de-clar, Vashti, you drinks mo' water than anybody I ever see.
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