There was always a
choice of occupation in these breathing spells. On the first afternoon
everybody had sat on the grass at the tent doors mending. To-day the
men had revolted and wandered off but Susan continued industriously
intent over patches and darns. She sat on a log, her spools and
scissors beside her, billows of homespun and calico about her feet.
As she sewed she sung in a low undervoice, not looking up. Beyond her
in the shade Daddy John mended a piece of harness. Daddy John was not
a garrulous person and when she paused in her sewing to speak to him,
he answered with a monosyllable. It was one of the old man's
self-appointed duties to watch over her when the others were absent.
If he did not talk much to his "Missy" he kept a vigilant eye upon her,
and to-day he squatted in the shade beside her because the doctor and
David had gone after antelope and Leff was off somewhere on an
excursion of his own.
Susan, sewing, her face grave above her work, was not as pretty as
Susan smiling. She drew her eyebrows, thick and black, low over her
eyes with her habitual concentration in the occupation of the moment,
and her lips, pressed together, pouted, but not the disarming baby pout
which, when she was angry, made one forget the sullenness of her brows.
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