... I
mean the control meant. It wasn't him at all.... I mean I don't believe
'twas. Oh, dear! I WISH you'd stop askin' questions, Abe Hardin'. CAN'T
you stop?"
Galusha and Primmie set out for the Phipps' homestead ahead of its
owner, but she caught up with them at the gate.
"He's goin' right up to bed," she said. "Zach will look out for the
light to-night."
"And--" asked Galusha, with significant emphasis.
Martha did not reply. She waited until they were in the sitting room and
alone, Primmie having been sentenced to go to her own room and to bed.
Miss Cash had no desire for bed; her dearest wish was to remain with her
mistress and their lodger and unload her burden of conversation.
"My savin' soul!" she began. "My savin' soul! Did you ever in your born
days! When that Marietta Hoag--or that Chinee critter--or Cap'n
Jeth's ghost's wife--or whoever 'twas talkin' that spirit jabber--when
she--them, I mean--give out that a small, dark man was right there in
that house, I thought--"
"Primmie, go to bed."
"Yes'm. And when I remembered that Nelse Howard was--"
"Go to bed this minute!"
"Yes'm. But how do you 'spose he's goin' to--"
Miss Phipps conducted her to the foot of the back stairs and, returning,
closed each door she passed through behind her. Then she answered her
lodger's unspoken question.
"Lulie will go with her father and help him up to his room," she said.
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