"DON'T YE, LOUISIANNY?"
As he said it, Louisiana was at home in the house-room, sitting on a low chair at her father's knee and looking into the fire. She had not gone to bed. When he returned to the house her father had found her sitting here, and she had not left her place since. A wood fire had been lighted because the mountain air was cool after the rains, and she seemed to like to sit and watch it and think.
Mr. Rogers himself was in a thoughtful mood. After leaving his departing guests he had settled down with some deliberation. He had closed the doors and brought forward his favorite wooden-backed, split-seated chair. Then he had seated himself, and drawing forth his twist of tobacco had cut off a goodly "chaw." He moved slowly and wore a serious and somewhat abstracted air. Afterward he tilted backward a little, crossed his legs, and proceeded to ruminate.
"Louisianny," he said, "Louisianny, I'd like to hear the rights of it."
She answered him in a low voice.
"It is not worth telling," she said. "It was a very poor joke, after all."
He gave her a quick side glance, rubbing his crossed legs slowly.
"Was it?" he remarked. "A poor one, after all? Why, thet's bad."
The quiet patience of his face was a study. He went on rubbing his leg even more slowly than before.
"Thet's bad," he said again. "Now, what d'ye think was the trouble, Louisianny?"
"I made a mistake," she answered. "That was all."
Suddenly she turned to him and laid her folded arms on his knee and her face upon them, sobbing.
"I oughtn't to have gone," she cried. "I ought to have stayed at home with you, father."
His face flushed, and he was obliged to relieve his feelings by expectorating into the fire.
"Louisianny," he said, "I'd like to ask ye one question. Was thar anybody thar as didn't—well, as didn't show ye respect—as was slighty or free or—or onconsiderate? Fur instants, any littery man—jest for instants, now?"
"No, no!" she answered. "They were very kind to me always."
"Don't be afeared to tell me, Louisianny," he put it to her. "I only said 'fur instants,' havin' heern as littery men was sometimes—now an' again—thataway—now an' ag'in."
"They were very good to me," she repeated, "always."
"If they was," he returned, "I'm glad of it. I'm a-gittin' old, Louisianny, an' I haint much health—dispepsy's what tells on a man," he went on deliberately. "But if thar'd a bin any one as hed done it, I'd hev hed to settle it with him—I'd hev hed to hev settled it with him—liver or no liver."
He put his hand on her head and gave it a slow little rub, the wrong way, but tenderly.
"I aint goin' to ask ye no more questions," he said, "exceptin' one. Is thar anything ye'd like to hev done in the house—in the parlor, for instants, now—s'posin' we was to say in the parlor."
"No, no," she cried. "Let it stay as it is! Let it all stay as it is!"
"Wa-al," he said, meditatively, "ye know thar aint no reason why it should, Louisianny, if ye'd like to hev it fixed up more or different. If ye'd like a new paper—say a floweryer one—or a new set of cheers an' things. Up to Lawyer Hoskin's I seen 'em with red seats to 'em, an' seemed like they did set things off sorter. If ye'd like to hev some, thar aint no reason why ye shouldn't. Things has gone purty well with me, an'—an' thar aint none left but you, honey. Lord!" he added, in a queer burst of tenderness. "Why shouldn't ye hev things if ye want 'em?"
"I don't want them," she protested. "I want nothing but you."
For a moment there was a dead silence. He kept his eyes fixed on the fire. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. But at last he spoke:
"Don't ye, Louisianny?" he said.
"No," she answered. "Nothing."
And she drew his hand under her cheek and kissed it.
He took it very quietly.
"Ye've got a kind heart, Louisianny," he said. "Young folks gin'rally has, I think. It's sorter nat'ral, but Lord! thar's other things besides us old folks, an' it's nat'ral as ye'd want 'em. Thar's things as kin be altered, an' thar's things as cayn't. Let's alter them as kin. If ye'd like a cupoly put on the house, or, say a coat of yaller-buff paint—Sawyer's new house is yaller buff, an' it's mighty showy; or a organ or a pianny, or more dressin', ye shall have 'em. Them's things as it aint too late to set right, an' ye shall hev 'em."
But she only cried the more in a soft, hushed way.
"Oh, don't be so good to me," she said. "Don't be so good and kind."
He went on as quietly as before.
"If—fur instants—it was me as was to be altered, Louisianny, I'm afeared—I'm afeared we couldn't do it. I'm afeared as I've been let run too long—jest to put it that way. We mought hev done it if we'd hev begun airlier—say forty or fifty year back—but I'm afeared we couldn't do it now. Not as I wouldn't be willin'—I wouldn't hev a thing agin it, an' I'd try my best—but it's late. Thar's whar it is. If it was me as hed to be altered—made more moderner, an' to know more, an' to hev more style—I'm afeared thar'd be a heap o' trouble. Style didn't never seem to come nat'ral to me, somehow. I'm one o' them things as cayn't be altered. Let's alter them as kin."
"I don't want you altered," she protested. "Oh! why should I, when you are such a good father—such a dear father!"
And there was a little silence again, and at the end of it he said, in a gentle, forbearing voice, just as he had said before:
"Don't ye, Louisianny?"
They sat silent again for some time afterward—indeed, but little more was said until they separated for the night. Then, when she kissed him and clung for a moment round his neck, he suddenly roused himself from his prolonged reverie.
"Lord!" he said, quite cheerfully, "it caynt last long, at the longest, arter all—an' you're young yet, you're young."
"What can't last long?" she asked, timidly.
He looked into her eyes and smiled.
"Nothin'," he answered, "nothin' caynt. Nothin' don't—an' you're young."
And he was so far moved by his secret thought that he smoothed her hair from her forehead the wrong way again with a light touch, before he let her go.