XXXVIIINat’s exhibition at the time of ’Melie’s wedding had satisfied him. Twice he returned briefly and without ostentation, only then because of business in a not too distant city. He preferred to have his mother visit him each year. Ase insisted on paying her fare, allowing Nat to do as he chose about decking her out in made-to-order ruffles of an earlier era. He refused stubbornly to go west with her. The trip would have to be in his own way and time and that had never seemed to come.
’Melie came home alone several times in the years after her marriage.
Nat, Arent and ’Melie arrived for a quiet celebration of Ase’s and Nellie’s fiftieth wedding anniversary in February. It was more and more apparent that Crockett was less ’Melie’s consort than the chief of Nat’s cohorts. He had stayed
