repair, as far as she knew how, the damage her unbridled tongue had wrought.
Thus it was that when Uncle Shade made his appearance that night he found the cook nodding by the chimney corner, while his wife was mending some old clothes. A covered skillet sat near the fire, and a little mound of ashes in one corner showed where the ash-cake was baking or the sweet potatoes roasting. Uncle Shade said nothing. He came in silently, placed his tin bucket in the hearth, and seated himself on a wooden stool. There was no greeting on the part of his wife. She laid aside her mending, and fixed his supper on a rude table close at hand.
"I speck you mus' be tired," she said when everything was ready—"tired and hongry too."
Uncle Shade made no response. He sat gazing steadily into the pine-knot flame in the fireplace that gave the only light in the room.
"De Lord knows I 'd quit hidin' out in de woods ef I wuz you," said his wife. "I would n't be gwine 'roun' like some wil' varmint—dat I would n't!—I 'd let um come git me an' do what dey gwine ter do. Dey can't kill you."
