"and I reckon you saw a jay bird on a tree, or a squirrel on the fence,
and either of 'em was more important to you than your own brother."

"Steve didn't come by the stage, and didn't send any message," continued
the young girl, with the same coldly resigned manner. "No one had any
news of him, and, as I told you before, I didn't expect any."

"Why don't you say right out you didn't WANT any?" said the old man,
sneeringly. "Much you inquired! No; I orter hev gone myself, and I would
if I was master here, instead of me and your mother bein' the dust of
the yearth beneath your feet."

The young girl entered the house, followed by the old man, passing an
old woman seated by the window, who seemed to be nursing her resentment
and a large Bible which she held clasped against her shawled bosom
at the same moment. Going to the wall, she hung up her large hat
and slightly shook the red dust from her skirts as she continued her
explanation, in the same deep voice, with a certain monotony of logic
and possibly of purpose and practice also.

"You and mother know as well as I do, father, that Stephen is no more to
be depended upon than the wind that blows. It's three years since he has
been promising to come, and even getting money to come, and yet he has
never showed his face, though he has been a dozen times within five
miles of this house. He doesn't come because he doesn't want to come. As
to YOUR going over to the stage-office, I went there myself at the last
moment to save you the mortification of asking questions of strangers
that they know have been a dozen times answered already."

There was such a ring of absolute truthfulness, albeit worn by