Hitch heard her chopping kindling wood and rattling the stove-lids. He heard the roar of the fire as the flame from the rich pine-knots soared up the chimney.
Ten minutes later Dainty entered and sat down with Hitch again, her eyes gleaming with wifely resolution.
“Dar he comes now!” Hitch snickered, pointing through the window. “Look at him--wet as a b’iled owl an’ walkin’ lame in bofe behime legs like a stringhalt mule. Lawd, Lawd!”
The gate opened and Dude Blackum stumbled in, walking to the door with every manifestation of suffering his imagination could devise.
Hitch, standing behind Dainty so she could not see, encouraged Dude’s painful progress by waving the other silk purple-and-yellow sock at him.
“My Lawd, Dainty,” Dude wailed, “whut you reckin dat ole bull went an’ done to me?”
“Butted you in de bayou!” Dainty answered promptly.
“Yes’m, dat’s it! I’s cripple in bofe behime legs fer life!” Dude told her as he clasped his back with both hands and groaned. “I couldn’t swim a lick because I couldn’t kick. Ef I hadn’t paddled out wid my hands I’d ’a’ been drownded.”
He looked appealingly toward Hitch Diamond, waiting for the bogus elder to suggest the booze. But Hitch merely wiped his hand across his mouth and grinned.
“Dainty, honey,” Dude said pleadingly, “I’s powerful hurted, an’ I feel like I’s gwine hab a rigger. Ain’t you got a leetle----”
“I shore has,” Dainty replied eagerly, without waiting for the question. “Git in de yuther room an’ take off dem wet clothes, an’ by dat time I’ll hab you a good dram ready.”
With a beatific grin at Hitch Diamond, to which Hitch responded, Dude retired to change his clothes. A moment later he came out and said to Hitch:
“A trade am a trade,” Hitch grinned as he handed it over. “Ain’t one sock wet?”
“Naw!” Dude whispered. “I laid it on de groun’ till I jumped in de bayou, an’ I fotch it home under my hat.”
When Dude reappeared he was clothed in his best suit and wore the gaudiest socks he had ever owned.
“Set down by dis table, Dude,” Dainty said.
She went to the kitchen, and returned carrying a bowl, the rank odor of its contents permeating the room.
“My gawsh, Dainty!” Dude howled as she set the bowl of steaming liquid before him. “Whut is dis mess--a b’iled rat?”