He had her in his arms when she spoke and she could feel him tremble at her words, but before he could reply they heard Black Joe grumble at Pauguk as he came around the corner of the house.
Joe came up the steps and gave his curt little bob.
"Say, Helen, will you tell her that th' boys at th' mill found a bee tree and if she wants any honey I cattalate she'd better send the kids down with a bucket."
"Yes, Joe; I will tell her."
The woodsman went and she moved close to Taylor again.
"It's funny, but it's heart breaking," she said. "That is what misunderstanding will do. For twenty years they haven't spoken, and they loved twenty years ago. A misunderstanding came, and probably they've both forgotten what it was now. Stubbornness has kept them apart and made them both sour. My father said that Aunty May used to be the gayest girl on the Blueberry and that Black Joe always sang at his work. Their quarrel came and they have not spoken since. Each is only holding out for the other to break the silence and growing more bitter and older, Aunty May trying to make another woman's children ease her heartache, Joe hiding the hurt under his crustiness and living only for the nursery.
"We can't ever risk a misunderstanding, can we?"
She looked at him closely.
"Why, John, what is it?" startled.
"What is what?"
"You look so—so strange!"
He was conscious that he was flushing; flushing because the thing he kept from Helen for her own peace of mind was a splendid nucleus for misunderstanding. But she was on her way to Pancake, even then, to learn more of the
