"I know you, you snake!" she cried. "You 're from the Society. You took my Susie, and you want Buddy. I'll kill you first. Come here, Buddy!"
The boy went to her obediently, and she drew him on to the bunk and ran her hand through his white kinks of hair. It seemed to quiet her to feel him in her arm.
"Now, ma'am," said Peter, "you see nobody's going to take Buddy at all, and you can take my word I won't let anybody take him whilst I'm around. You can depend on that, I'm going to town, now, and I guess I'd better leave Buddy right here, for you'll be more comfortable knowing where he is. Don't you worry about nothing at all until I get back, and if you find the door locked it's just so nobody can't get in and bother you."
He looked about the cabin. It was comfortably warm, and he poured water on the fire. He wished to take no chances with the woman in her present state. He even took his shot-gun and the heavy poker as he went out. Buddy watched him with interest.
"No, son," said Peter gravely. "Nobody's stealing anything. You want to get that idea out of your head. Nobody in this cabin--you, nor me, nor your ma, would steal anything. Your ma's sick and don't know what she's doing, but she don't mean no real harm. I guess she ain't been treated right, and she feels upset about it, but a boy don't want, ever, to say anything bad about his ma."
He went out and closed and locked the door. Involuntarily he glanced at Widow Potter's chimneys. No smoke came from any of them.
"Now, I just bet that woman has gone and got sick, just when I've got my hands plumb full!" he said disgustedly. "I've got to go up and see what's the matter with her, or she might lie there and die and nobody know a thing about it."
The cold had frozen the slush into hardness, and Peter cut across the corn-field. He tried Mrs. Potter's doors and found them all locked--which was a bad sign, unless she had gone to town while he was in the shanty-boat--but he knocked on the kitchen door noisily, and was rewarded after a reasonable wait, by hearing the widow dragging her feet across the kitchen.
"Well, it's time you come, I must say," said the widow, between groans. "You the only man anywheres near, and you'd leave me die here as soon as not. You got to feed the cows and the horse and give the chickens some grain and then hitch up and fetch a doctor as fast as he can be fetched. I might have laid here for weeks, you 're that unreliable. I'll put the barn key on the kitchen table, and when the doctor comes I'll be in my bed, if the Lord lets me live that long. I'll be in it anyway, I dare say, dead or alive, if I can manage to get to it. And don't you come in until I get out of the way, for I ain't got a stitch on but my night-gown."