Melody | Page 8

I was sure you was all right, Mel'dy. How d'you know't was me comin', I'd like to know? I never said a word, nor so much as whistled, since I come in sight of ye." The man, a wiry, yellow-haired Yankee, bent down as he spoke, and taking the child's hand, swung her lightly up to the seat beside him.
Melody laughed joyously. "I should know your wagon if I heard it in Russia, Eben," she said. "Besides, poor old Jerry knocks his hind feet together so, I heard him clicking along even before I heard the wagon squeak. How's Mandy, Eben?"
"Mandy, she ain't very well," replied the countryman. "She's ben havin' them weakly spells right along lately. Seems though she was failin' up sometimes, but I dono."
"Oh, no, she isn't, Eben," answered Melody, cheerfully. "You said that six years ago, do you know it? and Mandy isn't a bit worse than she was then."
"Well, that's so," assented the man, after a thoughtful pause. "That is so, Mel'dy, though how you come to-know it is a myst'ry to me. Come to think of it, I dono but she's a leetle mite better than she was six years ago. Wal! now it's surprising ain't it, that you should know that, you child, without the use of your eyes, and I shouldn't, seein' her every day and all day? How do you account for that, now, hey?" He turned on his seat, and looked keenly at the child, as if half expecting her to meet his gaze.
"It's easy enough!" said Melody, with her quiet smile. "It's just because you see her so much, Eben. that you can't tell. Besides, I can tell from Mandy's voice. Her voice used to go down when she stopped speaking, like this, 'How do you _do_?' [with a falling inflection which was the very essence of melancholy]; and now her voice goes up cheerfully, at the end, 'How do you do?' Don't you see the difference, Eben?--so of course I know she must be a great deal better."
"I swan!" replied Eben Loomis, simply. "'How do you _do_?' 'How do you do?' so that's the way you find out things, is it, Mel'dy? Well, you're a curus child, that's what's the matter with you.--Where d'you say you was goin'?" he added, after a pause.
"I didn't say," said Melody. "But I'm going to Mrs. Jackson's, to see Neddy."
"Want to know," said her companion. "Goin'--Hevin' some kind o' trouble with his eyes, ain't he?" He stopped short, with a glance at the child's clear eyes. It was impossible not to expect to find some answering look in them.
"They thought he was going blind," said Melody; "but it is all right now. I do wish people wouldn't tell Mrs. Jackson to keep putting things in his eyes. Why can't they let her do what the doctor tells her, and not keep wanting her to try all kinds of nonsense?"
"Wal, that's so," assented Eben,--"that's so, every time. I was down there a spell back, and I says, 'Phoebe,' I says, 'don't you do a thing folks tells you,' says I. 'Dr. Brown knows what he's about, and don't you do a thing but what he says, unless it's jest to wet his eyes up with a drop o' tobacco-juice,' says I. 'There's nothin' like tobacco-juice for weakly eyes, that's sure;' and of course I knew Doctor would ha' said so himself ef he'd ha' been there. Wal, here we be to Jackson's now," added the good man, pulling up his horse. "Hold on a minute, and I'll help ye down. Wal, there!" as Melody sprang lightly from the wagon, just touching his hand by way of greeting as she went, "if you ain't the spryest ever I see!"
"Good-by, Eben, and thank you ever so much," said the child. "Good-by, Jerry."
"Come down an' see us, Mel'dy!" Eben called after her, as she turned toward-the house with unfaltering step. "T'would do Mandy a sight o' good. Come down and stop to supper. You ain't took a meal o' victuals with us I don't know when."
Melody promised to come soon, and took her way up the grassy path, while the countryman gazed after her with a look of wondering admiration.
"That child knows more than most folks that hev their sight!" he soliloquized. "What's she doin' now? Oh, stoppin' to pick a posy, for the child, likely. Now they'll all swaller her alive. Yes; thar they come. Look at the way she takes that child up, now, will ye? He's e'en a'most as big as she is; but you'd say she was his mother ten times over, from the way she handles him. Look at her set down on the doorstep, tellin' him a story, I'll bet. I tell ye! hear that little feller laugh, and he