Almost before he had composed his
body in comfort he was asleep, one arm thrown over his head, his sinewy
neck outstretched, his chest rising and falling in even breaths.
At noon Daddy John in broaching the cask discovered the deficit in the
water supply. She came upon the old man with the half-filled
coffee-pot in his hand staring down at its contents with a puzzled
face. She stood watching him, guilty as a thievish child, the color
mounting to her forehead. He looked up and in his eyes she read the
shock of his suspicions. Delicacy kept him silent, and as he rinsed
the water round in the pot his own face reddened in a blush for the
girl he had thought strong in honor and self-denial as he was.
"I took it," she said slowly.
He had to make allowances, not only to her, but to himself. He felt
that he must reassure her, keep her from feeling shame for the first
underhand act he had ever known her commit. So he spoke with all the
cheeriness he could command:
"I guess you needed it pretty bad. Turning out as it has I'm glad you
done it."
She saw he thought she had taken it for herself, and experienced relief
in the consciousness of unjust punishment.
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