This was plain talk, but it seemed to produce a satisfactory effect upon Jehoiada. He unwound his comforter enough to liberate his straggling sandy beard and took off his mittens. After a moment or two he seated himself in the chair, with a murmured "I'm jest about tuckered out," in apology for the action. He did, in truth, present a woeful picture of fatigue and physical feebleness, now that we saw him in repose. The bones seemed ready to start through the parchment-like skin on his gaunt cheeks, and his eyes glowed with an unhealthy fire, as he sat, breathing hard and staring at the jumbled heaps of furniture on the floor.
Esther had put the lantern again on the box and drawn forward a chair for Abner, but the farmer declined it with a wave of the hand and continued to stand in the background, looking his ancient enemy over from head to foot with a meditative gaze. Jehoiada grew visibly nervous under this inspection; he fidgeted on his chair and then fell to coughing--a dry, rasping cough which had an evil sound, and which he seemed to make the worse by fumbling aimlessly at the button that held the overcoat collar round his throat.
At last Abner walked slowly over to the shadowed masses of piled-up household things and lifted out one of the drawers that had been taken from the framework of the bureau and brought over with their contents. Apparently it was not the right one, for he dragged aside a good many objects to get at another, and rummaged about in this for several minutes. Then he came out again into the small segment of the lantern's radiance with a pair of long thick woolen stockings of his own in his hand.
"You better pull off them wet boots an' draw these on," he said, addressing Hagadorn, but looking fixedly just over his head. "It won't do that cough o' yours no good, settin' around with wet feet."
The cooper looked in a puzzled way at the huge butternut-yarn stockings held out under his nose, but he seemed too much taken aback to speak or to offer to touch them.
"Yes, father!" said Esther, with quite an air of command. "You know what that cough means," and straightway Hagadorn lifted one of his feet to his knee and started tugging at the boot-heel in a desultory way. He desisted after a few half-hearted attempts, and began coughing again, this time more distressingly than ever.