She had an air of almost oracular
profundity but she was merely in the quiescent state of the woman whose
faculties and strength are concentrated upon the coming child. Her
sister called her Bella and the people in the train addressed her as
Mrs. McMurdo.
Lucy was beside her also knitting a stocking, and the husband, Glen
McMurdo, sat in the front driving, his legs in the rain, his upper half
leaning back under the shelter of the roof. He looked sleepy, gave a
grunt of greeting to Susan, and then lapsed against the saddle propped
behind him, his hat pulled low on his forehead hiding his eyes. In
this position, without moving or evincing any sign of life, he now and
then appeared to be roused to the obligations of his position and
shouted a drowsy "Gee Haw," at the oxen.
He did not interfere with the women and they broke into the talk of
their sex, how they cooked, which of their clothes had worn best, what
was the right way of jerking buffalo meat. And then on to personal
matters: where they came from, what they were at home, whither they
were bound. The two sisters were Scotch girls, had come from Scotland
twenty years ago when Lucy was a baby.
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