"I will wait until she returns," said Babcock. He had come to discover something more definite about this woman who worked like a steam-engine, crooned over a cripple, and broke a plank with her fist, and he did not intend to leave until he knew. "Your daughter must have had great experience. I have never seen any one man handle work better," he continued, extending his hand.
Then, noticing that Mullins was still standing, "Don't let me take your seat."
Mullins hesitated, glanced at Jennie, and, moving another chair from the window, drew it nearer, and settled slowly beside Babcock.
The room was as clean as bare arms and scrubbing-brushes could make it. Near the fireplace was a cast-iron stove, and opposite this stood a parlor organ, its top littered with photographs. A few chromos hung on the walls. There were also a big plush sofa and two haircloth rocking-chairs, of walnut, covered with cotton tidies. The carpet on the floor was new, and in the window, where the old man had been sitting, some pots of nasturtiums were blooming, their tendrils reaching up both sides of the sash.
Opening from this room was the kitchen, resplendent in bright pans and a shining copper wash-boiler. The girl passed constantly in and out the open door, spreading the cloth and bringing dishes for the table.
Her girlish figure was clothed in a blue calico frock and white apron, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, showing some faint traces of flour clinging to her wrists, as if she had been suddenly summoned from the bread-bowl. She was fresh and sweet, strong and healthy, with a certain grace of manner about her that pleased Babcock instantly. He saw now that she had her mother's eyes and color, but not her air of fearlessness and self-reliance--that kind of self-reliance which comes only of many nights of anxiety and many days of success. He noticed, too, that when she spoke to the old man her voice was tempered with a peculiar tenderness, as if his infirmities were more to be pitied than complained of. This pleased him most of all.
"You live with your daughter, Mrs. Grogan?" Babcock asked in a friendly way, turning to the old man.
"Yis, sor. Whin Tom got sick, she sint fer me to come over an' hilp her. I feeds the horses whin Oi'm able, an' looks after the garden, but Oi'm not much good."
"Is Mr. Thomas Grogan living?" asked Babcock cautiously, and with a certain tone of respect, hoping to get closer to the facts, and yet not to seem intrusive.
"Oh, yis, sor: an' moight be dead fer all the good he does. He's in New Yorruk some'er's, on a farm"--lowering his voice to a whisper and looking anxiously toward Jennie--"belongin' to the State, I think, sor. He's hurted pretty bad, an' p'haps he's a leetle off--I dunno. Mary has niver tould me."
Before Babcock could pursue the inquiry further there was a firm tread on the porch steps, and the old man rose from the chair, his face brightening.
"Here she is, Gran'pop," said Jennie, laying down her dish and springing to the door.
"Hold tight, darlint," came a voice from the outside, and the next instant Tom Grogan strode in, her face aglow with laughter, her hood awry, her eyes beaming. Patsy was perched on her shoulder, his little crutch fast in one hand, the other tightly wound about her neck. "Let go, darlint; ye're a-chokin' the wind out of me."
"Oh, it's ye a-waitin', Mr. Babcock--me man Carl thought ye'd gone. Mr. Crane I met outside told me you'd been here. Jennie'll get the tally- sheet of the last load for ye. I've been to the fort since daylight, and pretty much all night, to tell ye God's truth. Oh, Gran'pop, but I smashed 'em!" she exclaimed as she gently removed Patsy's arm and laid him in the old man's lap. She had picked the little cripple up at the garden gate, where he always waited for her. "That's the last job that sneakin' Duffy and Dan McGaw'll ever put up on me. Oh, but ye should'a' minded the face on him, Gran'pop!"--untying her hood and breaking into a laugh so contagious in its mirth that even Babcock joined in without knowing what it was all about.
As she spoke, Tom stood facing her father, hood and ulster off, the light of the windows silhouetting the splendid lines of her well-rounded figure, with its deep chest, firm bust, broad back, and full throat, her arms swinging loose and free.
