Joe got up from the table and moved his chair away with his foot. As he was thus occupied he saw Ollie's shadow on the wall repeat a gesture of caution which she made to Morgan, a lifting of the hand, a shaking of the head. Even the shadow betrayed the intimate understanding between them. Joe went over and stood in the door.
"No use for you to try to be a fool, Morgan; that's been attended to for you already," said he.
There wasn't much heart in Morgan's laugh, but it would pass for one on account of the volume of sound.
"Oh, let a feller have his joke, won't you, Joe?" said he.
"Go ahead," granted Joe, leaning his shoulder against the jamb, facing out toward the dark.
Morgan went over and put his hand on the great lad's shoulder, with a show of friendly condescension.
"What would the world be without its jokes?" he asked. And then, before anybody could answer: "It'd be like home without a mother."
Joe faced him, a slow grin spreading back to his ears.
"Joe, you've missed your callin'," said he. "You've got no business foolin' away your time on a farm. With that solemn, long-hungry look of yours you ought to be sellin' consumption cure and ringbone ointment from the end of a wagon on the square in Kansas City."
"No-o-o," said Morgan thoughtfully, "I wouldn't just say you're up to the level of books. But you might rise even to books if you'd cultivate your mind and brain. Well, I think I'll fly up to roost. I've got to take an early start in the morning and clean up on this neck of the woods tomorrow. Good night, folks."
"I don't suppose Isom'll be home tonight," Ollie ventured, as Morgan's feet sounded on the stairs.
"No, I guess not," Joe agreed, staring thoughtfully at the black oblong of the door.
"If he does come, I don't suppose it'll hurt him to eat something cold," she said.
"I'll wait up a while longer. If he comes I can warm up the coffee for him," Joe offered.
"Then I'll go to bed, too," she yawned wearily.
Ollie's room, which was Isom's also when he was there, was in the front of the house, upstairs. Joe heard her feet along the hall, and her door close after her. Morgan was still tramping about in the room next to Joe's, where he slept. It was the best room in the house, better than the one shared by Isom and his wife, and in the end of the house opposite to it. Joe sat quietly at the table until Morgan's complaining bed-springs told him that the guest had retired. Then he mounted the narrow kitchen stairs to his own chamber.