THE LEATHERWOOD GOD. William Dean Howells
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certainly, Joey—"
"He's just behind the house; I wanted to ask first—"
"You know you can always bring Benny. There's plenty of room for both of you in your bed. But now when you go back with him be careful of the lamp. I put a fresh piece of rag in and there's plenty of grease. You can blow up a coal on the hearth. I covered the fire; only be careful."
"Oh, we'll be careful. Benny's about the carefullest boy the' is in Leatherwood. Oh, I do like being in the mill with Mr. Hingston." He laughed out his joy again, and then he asked doubtfully, "Mom?"
"Yes, Joey."
"Benny and me was wonderin'—we'd go straight back home, and not light any lamp at all—if you'd let us go to the Temple. There's a big meetin' there to-night." The mother hesitated, and the boy urged, "They say that strange man—well, some calls him the Snorter and some the Exhorter—is goin' to preach." The mother was still silent, and the boy faltered on: "He dresses like the people do Over-the-Mountains, and he wears his hair down his back—"
The mother gasped. "I don't like your being out late, Joey. I'd feel better if you and Benny was safe in bed."
"Oh, well." The boy's voice sank to the level of his disappointment; but after a silent interval he caught it up again cheerily. "Oh, well, I reckon Benny won't care much. We'll go right back home. We can have a piece before we go to bed?"
"Yes—"
"Benny thinks our apple-butter is the best they is. Can we have some on bread, with sugar on top?"
His mother did not answer at once, and he said again, as if relinquishing another ideal, "Oh, well."
Nancy rose up and kissed him. "Yes, go to the Temple. You might as well."
"Truly, mom? Oh, Benny, hurrah! She's let me! Come along!"
He ran round the cabin to his comrade, and she heard them shouting and laughing together, and then the muted scamper of their bare feet on the soft road toward the settlement.
The mother said to herself, "He'd get to see him sooner or later." She drew her breath in a long sigh, and went into the cabin. "What a day, what a day! It seems a thousand years," she said aloud.
"Are you talking to me, Nancy?" her brother asked from somewhere in the dark.
"No, no. Only to myself, David. Where did I put the baby? Oh! I know.
I've let Joey go to the Temple to hear his father preach. Lord have mercy!"
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