"Yes, I'll try – " Ann promised absently, for she was thinking of something else. "Aunt Sue, does father hate the Westmores too?"
Sue's start was perceptible. She stared at the girl. "Why are you askin'?" she demanded sharply.
Ann grew crimson, and there was a touch of defiance in her answer. "You and grandpa hate them – I wondered if he did."
"Have any of them spoken to you?" Sue asked. In all her knowledge of Sue, Ann had never heard her speak so sharply.
It frightened her, though it did not alter the sense of injustice to the Westmores which Ann had been cherishing. She gave her version of what had happened that morning, and Sue listened intently. When Ann had finished, she bent suddenly and smoothed the bed, averting her face.
"Just like him!" she said in a voice that was not steady. "Just like every Westmore I've ever known. 'Do-as-I-please' and 'what-do-I-care!' They've heart neither for woman nor beast. It's brought them to what they are. Edward Westmore may think his wife's money'll build up the family, but it won't. Coats will do more with his little twenty thousand than Edward with his big fortune." She lifted and brushed the fallen hair from her face, a gesture expressive of exasperation. "And to think they dare ride over our land!" She looked at Ann as Ann had never seen her look before. "The next time a Westmore tries to break his neck, just you drive on, and if any one of them ever speaks to you, turn your back on him."
"But what have they done to us?" Ann persisted.
Sue quieted, a drop to her usual patient manner. "Never mind what they have done," she said wearily. "There never was a Westmore who was friend to a Penniman. But I don't want to think about them – least of all to-day… Just you go on and talk to Ben – that'll be helping me, Ann. There's a world of things to be done before to-morrow… And go quietly – your grandpa's lying down in the parlor."
Ann went, still flushed and unconvinced. What was the sense of hating like that, just because one's father hated before you? And it was plain that her father shared in the family enmity.
Then defiance slipped from Ann. Her father was coming! Would he be nice to her? It was not natural for a father to be cold to his child. And she was grown up now, and pretty. This recently discovered asset of hers meant a great deal to Ann. And if her father was bringing money with him to the farm everything would be changed. To Ann, anticipation was one of the wonderful things in life.
IV
BUT IF HE FAILED HER?
Ann had learned early that with every one except her grandfather smiles won far more for her than argument. When she put her head into Ben Brokaw's room she was smiling, though her eyes were observant enough. The basement was the "wash-room" and the "churning-room," with one corner partitioned off for the combination of boarder and hired man that, for the last four years, her grandfather's disabilities had made necessary. As was customary on the Ridge, the negroes lived in their cabins, "taking out" their rent in work. Ann had tiptoed in and studied Ben and his surroundings through the half-open door.
There was no furniture in the little room. Ben's bed was a canvas hammock, and the decorations of the place were of his own design: several dozen mole-skins neatly tacked to the walls; coon-skins and opossum-skins, a fox-skin and a beautifully striped wild-cat-skin were all stretched in the same fashion. A gun, a pistol and fishing tackle hung above the hammock, sharing the space with a wide-winged, dried bat. The hide of a Jersey cow, its soft yellow stained by marks of muddy feet, carpeted the floor, so much of it as was not occupied by traps, bird's nests and other woodland litter, and the entire place smelled of animals.
On the hammock, feet firmly planted on the floor, sat a phenomenally long-armed, broad-chested, squat man who rolled his huge head and shoulders gently from side to side, while his hands deftly whittled the figure-four intended for the box-trap at his feet. His heavy face, circled by a shock of rough brown hair, suggested the hereditary drunkard, it was so reddened and ridged and snout-nosed. It was his appearance that had earned him the sobriquet, "Bear Brokaw." He rolled like an inebriate when he walked, yet never in his forty years on the Ridge had Bear Brokaw been known to "take a drink." He knew and was known by every soul on the Ridge, and by many in the adjoining counties, for he had worked, in intermittent fashion, on almost every farm and estate on the Ridge, more that he might be free to shoot and snare than for the wages he earned. Ben knew the intimate habits of every wild thing, and the family secrets of mankind as well, and plied a thrifty trade in skins. He was adored by the children on the Ridge, and in spite of his queer personality was respected by their elders.
"What are you doin', Ben?" Ann asked.
The small brown eyes he raised to Ann were as bright as a squirrel's and at the same time shrewdly intelligent. Just now they were reddened by an angry light and he looked as morose as the lumbering animal he resembled.
"Fixin' this here trap." His voice was a growling base; his manner indicated that he wished to be let alone.
Ann selected the cleanest spot on the cowhide and seated herself with arms embracing her knees. Ever since she could remember Ann had conversed with Bear Brokaw seated in this fashion, at his feet, and many had been the secrets each had told the other. For Ben had worked on the Penniman farm, or, rather, had shot and trapped there, as the desire took him, for thirty years. He and Ann were fast friends; both were of the open country.
Ann had cast about in her mind for a topic that would be arresting. "Ben, Garvin Westmore's sorrel is dead," she announced dramatically.
Ben stopped both his work and his rolling motion. "What you sayin'?"
"He broke his leg, Ben."
"Whee – ee – " he whistled, through his teeth. "How, now?"
Ann told him the story, as she had told it to Sue.
"An' Garvin up an' shot him – I can jest see him at it," Ben muttered, more to himself than to Ann.
"It was better than having the poor thing suffer," Ann declared with some warmth.
Ben shook his head in a non-committal way. But he did not take up his work. He looked down, still shaking his head.
Bear Brokaw had solved many problems for Ann; he had reasons for most things. She changed her tone. "Why did he do like that, Ben? I wondered why?"
"'Cause he couldn't help it."
"You don't mean – because he liked doing it?" Ann asked; Baird's remark had clung to her memory.
Ben looked up quickly. "Why you askin' that, Ann?"
Ann was silenced. She would have to tell too much if she explained. She was usually quick-witted. "Why, you spoke like that."
"Don't you be seein' meanings where there ain't none," he growled.
Ann knew that he did not mean to explain. But she had succeeded in drawing him from his grievance, and that had been her first object. He did not take up the figure-four again; instead, he was meditative.
"That there sorrel was the best hunter in the county," he said regretfully. "He was great grandson to ole Colonel Westmo's white Nimrod. That was one horse, Ann! A regular fightin' devil! He jest naturally loved the smell o' powder. The colonel took him to the war when he was a colt, an' fifteen years after the colonel was still ridin' ole Nimrod – ridin' him to the hounds, too. The colonel jest lived on his back, an' Nimrod were faithfuller than a dog. When there weren't no huntin', the colonel were in the habit of takin' in every half-way house fo' miles, an' Nimrod always there to tote him back to Westmo', whether the colonel was laid acrost his back like a sack o' oats, or sittin' shoulders square like he always did when not soaked through an' through. Nimrod knew when to go careful… I mind one night – that was the year I was huntin' on Westmo' an' helpin'