I stopped in, on the way up, and he says so."
"I reckon he don't know everything," the old woman persisted: "I've been
runnin' down ever since we left Moffitt, and I didn't feel any too well
there, even. It's a very strange thing, Jacob, that the richer you git,
the less you ain't able to stay where you want to, dead or alive."
"It's for the children we do it," said Dryfoos. "We got to give them
their chance in the world."
"Oh, the world! They ought to bear the yoke in their youth, like we done.
I know it's what Coonrod would like to do."
Dryfoos got upon his feet. "If Coonrod 'll mind his own business, and do
what I want him to, he'll have yoke enough to bear." He moved from his
wife, without further effort to comfort her, and pottered heavily out
into the dining-room. Beyond its obscurity stretched the glitter of the
deep drawing-room. His feet, in their broad; flat slippers, made no sound
on the dense carpet, and he came unseen upon the little group there near
the piano. Mela perched upon the stool with her back to the keys, and
Beaton bent over Christine, who sat with a banjo in her lap, letting him
take her hands and put them in the right place on the instrument. Her
face was radiant with happiness, and Mela was watching her with foolish,
unselfish pleasure in her bliss.
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