Lonely, isolated as the place itself, was Sam Rowland that afternoon of
late August. Silent as a mute was he as to what he had seen; elaborately
careful likewise to carry out the family programme as usual.
"Sleepy, kid?" he queried when dinner was over.
Baby Bess, taciturn, sun-browned autocrat, nodded silent corroboration.
"Come, then," and, willing horse, the big man got clumsily to all fours
and, prancing ponderously, drew up at her side.
"Hang tight," he admonished and, his wife smiling from the doorway as
only a mother can smile, ambled away through the sun and the dust;
climbed slowly, the tiny brown arms clasped tightly about his neck, down
the ladder to the retreat, adjusted the pillow and the patchwork quilt
with a deftness born of experience.
"Go to sleepy, kid," he directed.
"Sing me to sleep, daddy," commanded the autocrat.
"Sing! I can't sing, kid."
"Yes, you can. Sing 'Nellie Gray.'"
"Too hot, girlie. My breath's all gone. Go to sleep."
"Please, papa; pretty please!"
The man succumbed, as he knew from the first he would do, braced himself
in the aperture, and sang the one verse that he knew of the song again
and again--his voice rough and unmusical as that of a crow, echoing and
re-echoing in the narrow space--bent over at last, touched his bearded
lips softly to the winsome, motionless brown face, climbed, an
irresistible catch in his breath, silently to the surface, sent one
swift glance sweeping the bare earth around him, and returned to the
cabin.
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