“The pritties’ yearthly human ever you see!”
“Bigges’ gray eyes!” cried Mrs. Guyther, “an’ black lashes!”
“An’ yaller hair—yaller ez gold an’ haffen a yard long,” exclaimed aunt
Jemima.
“Fine bleached skin, white ez milk,” said Mrs. Guyther.
“An’ yit she’s all pink—special when she laughs,” cried aunt Jemima,
“jes’ like these hyar wild roses—ye ’member ’em, don’t ye, Ab, growin’ in
the fence corner in the June weather”—
—“Sech a many of ’em over yander by Keedon Bluffs,” put in Mrs. Guyther.
“I ’member ’em,” said Ab.
“Jes’ the color of ’em when she laughs—jes’ like they be, a-blowin’ about
in the wind,” declared aunt Jemima.
“She’s named right—Rosy; she’s like ’em,” said Mrs. Guyther.
The red glow of the embers was full on the blind man’s face, encircled by
shadows. It seemed half smiling, or perhaps that was some illusion of the
fire-light, for it was pensive too, and wistful. He pondered for a while;
then—“I’d like ter see her,” he said, simply. “I would.”
Every word was distinctly audible in the roof-room. Jerry Binwell sat
in a rickety chair amongst the shadows, his head attentively bent down,
his hands on his knees, his hat drooping half over his face. The rifts
between the puncheons of the flooring admitted a red glow from the
fire-lit room below, and illumined the dusky loft with longitudinal
shafts of light. A triumphant smile played over his face as the women
talked of the beauty of the little Rosamond—a smile that might have
expressed only paternal pride and satisfaction in the comfortable results
of the evening. But when the blind man’s rich low voice sounded, “I’d
like ter see her—I would,” the listener’s face changed. The narrow
gleam of light from the cracks in the floor played upon the mocking
animosity in his eyes, the sneer on his lips as they parted. He stood
suddenly erect, in a tense soldierly position—among the shadows, and the
bags of “yerbs,” and the old clothes, and the peltry hanging from the
ridge-pole—brought his heels together with a swift precision, and then
the deserter mockingly carried his hand to his hat in a military salute.
“I would,” dreamily reiterated the blind soldier in the room below.
The deserter, relaxing his martial attitude to his normal slouch,
noiselessly smote his thigh with his right hand, and burst into silent
laughter.