Dear Miss Dunham: I've got to quit comin' to see you and I can't say why, except it's best.Then I haven't got the old reason, for to-night it's come to me the way to make Pennyroyal not treat you so bad. Can't you give out that you're sick, for if only the Pennyroyal ladies can get the chance to take care of you they'll be real pleased. Seems like letting people do good things for you is the surest way to make them quit doing mean; it's kind of human nature.And there is one other thing I'd like to say to you: It's about Miner; he's a whole lot bigger than he looks and there can't no man on earth beat him at loving if you'll only help him a little at the start.Yours truly,Ambrose Thompson, Esq.
Dear Miss Dunham: I've got to quit comin' to see you and I can't say why, except it's best.
Then I haven't got the old reason, for to-night it's come to me the way to make Pennyroyal not treat you so bad. Can't you give out that you're sick, for if only the Pennyroyal ladies can get the chance to take care of you they'll be real pleased. Seems like letting people do good things for you is the surest way to make them quit doing mean; it's kind of human nature.
And there is one other thing I'd like to say to you: It's about Miner; he's a whole lot bigger than he looks and there can't no man on earth beat him at loving if you'll only help him a little at the start.
Yours truly,Ambrose Thompson, Esq.
It was an odd, stiff letter, and yet that afternoon when Emily had received it she laughed and placed it inside the folds of her primrose dress; although a moment afterward she sighed with the thought of the lonely hour before sunset.
FOLLOWING HIS ADVICE
No furtherreference was made to the difference between the two friends, but Ambrose had reason to believe a few days later that Miss Dunham was following his advice; for coming out in his yard before breakfast, after a restless night, he was just in time to spy Mrs. Barrows climbing into the gig with Doctor Webb, carrying a basket on her arm and wearing so glorified an expression that it could come of nothing but the opportunity of ministering to the sick. For the care of the sick gave to Susan the same glow of pleasure that the act of creation gives to the artist or the command of his army gives the born general. Once stationed by the bedside of a patient, was she not the main source from which news of the illness must flow as well as the basin into which all inquiries must be poured? Certainly Ambrose had so considered her.
Moreover, that afternoon his suspicion was justified by Miner's growling at him over the opening of a new hogshead of molasses: "Miss Dunham's powerful poorly," and then going on furiously with his work as though he had never spoken.
And Ambrose did not dare ask questions nor prolong the subject of their conversation, though wistful to hear that Miner as well as Emily approved his plan. However, there was little doubt of its success, for the turning of the tide in favour of the Yankee schoolmistress soon could be seen, heard, and felt. Rivers of soup were made to flow toward the once anathematized cabin, and mountains of sponge cake and jelly were dumped at its door.
Since the day of the first visit there had always been in Pennyroyal a small number of women headed by Mrs. Dr. Webb who were not so manifestly unfavourable to Emily, but according to report they had lately been most unmercifully snubbed and put down by Mrs. Barrows, who would allow no one else inside the cabin and actually barred other ministering angels from the door.
Hearing word of the approach of these ladies one morning through Emily's coloured maid, Susan came forth into the clearing to meet them and stood waiting as usual with one hand resting on each sharp hip. Then before any other mouth could be opened hers was at work.
"I am powerful glad, Maria Webb, that you have had a change of heart toward the poor young girl," she commenced, "but you needn't try now to be gettin' inside her home after havin' so long kep' her out of your own. Besides, she's too sick to see no one 'cept the doctor and me. Doctor Webb says she's real ill with chills and fever 'cause papaw trees won't flourish 'ceptin' where it's damp, but I call it human ague the child's got. Talkin' about millstones hung about your neck, they're necklaces compared to the way women tries to drag down other women when they start in to do something a mite different."
And this intense irritation of Mrs. Barrows showing itself thus to her female friends even extended to her comparatively favoured next door neighbour, although Ambrose could not understand the cause. Emily of course had takenSusan into her confidence and she was a natural dramatist and yet why should she positively glare at him one evening as he stood snipping the dead stalks from the rose bushes in his yard?
Indeed her disapproval was so evident that Ambrose straightening up asked in amazement: "Whatever have I done, Susan?"
"Ain't it about time you was inquirin' concernin' Miss Dunham?" Susan demanded; "you're 'most the only person now in Pennyrile that ain't, and ef there's one thing I more'n another nacherally despise it's folks proppin' up a thing when it's standin' firm and don't need help, and then beginnin' to ease off when mebbe it's likely to fall."
"How is Miss Dunham?" Ambrose queried, and the older woman gave him a curious look. "She ain't dyin' sick yet, Doctor Webb says, but it's worse 'n he thought, 'cause it ain't plain chills and fever; mebbe it's the typhoids."
At this information Ambrose paled slightly, but when his neighbour had disappeared into her house for fresh clothes and supplies his expression grew more peaceful.
"Em'ly's turnin' out a lot better actress 'n Ithought," he said to himself. "I wasn't figurin' on her play actin' so long."
He was leaning on his rake, having suddenly lost every atom of energy, when Susan, passing out again, dealt him another blow.
"Ain't you never goin' to stop mopin', Ambrose Thompson? I'm sick of lookin' at you," she said. "Seems like there's nothin' on this earth more tryin' than the way some folks act dead 'cause some one they love is. Ef the Lord hadn't wanted you to live, man, I reckon He'd 'a' took you with Sarah. 'Tain't likely He wants dead folks on His livin' earth!" And then Mrs. Barrows hurried away to her charge, having left behind her sufficient inspiration to persuade Ambrose to finish the task of tidying up his yard.
"Ain't you never goin' to stop mopin', Ambrose Thompson? I'm sick of lookin' at you""Ain't you never goin' to stop mopin', Ambrose Thompson? I'm sick of lookin' at you"
And so another week went by, Ambrose and Miner in the meanwhile having less to say to each other than at any time in their lives since they had learned to speak, and never meeting any more outside of working hours. Nevertheless when they were together, although Miner's manner continued surly and unapproachable, his eyes constantly watched the face of his formerfriend, while Ambrose never altered in his old attitude of affection toward him.
Yet on Sunday morning, as Ambrose stood dressing for church in front of his yellow pine bureau, without warning his bedroom door suddenly opened and in stalked Miner. Grave and silent he waited, until when the meeting bell sounded, he started forth to church, leaning as of old on the arm of his friend, and entering his pew sat down beside him.
Ambrose did not pay a great deal of attention to the beginning of the service that day; on coming in he noticed that Susan and Doctor Webb were not in their accustomed places, but afterward he seemed always to have been listening to the August hum of the bees just outside the raised window on his side of the pew. Through it he could also see the deep rose of the ripening pink clover fields, smell their almost overpowering sweetness, till with the weight on his chest which he never shook off these days he wondered if Emily, who loved the outdoors as he did, was not by this time weary of feigning illness.
Then Brother Bibbs so changed the order ofthe usual Sunday routine that it must have startled Ambrose into consciousness. The elderly man had finished his sermon, but instead of at once announcing the closing hymn to be followed by the benediction, he stood clearing his throat, his little worn face paling with emotion.
"Brether'n and sister'n," he began slowly, "there be faith, hope and charity, these three things, but the greatest of these is charity. I want you now to fall on your knees with me and pray for the life of the young woman lately come into our midst whom we, like the Pharisees of old, have tried to cast out. I want you to pray for that young Yankee school teacher, Miss Emily Dunham, because she is powerful sick, and if the good Lord takes her to Him, I don't see just how we are coming out with the greatest of these three things."
While the rest of the congregation were falling upon their knees Ambrose somehow got himself out of the church, nor did he realize during the moment of his leaving that Miner was there hanging on to his arm. After a time, however, when both men were walking toward the log cabin, he turned to his friend, whispering brokenly:
"I didn't know she was sick really, Miner. I thought she was just play actin' same as I asked her to."
And Miner nodded. "My fault. I suspicioned your ignorance, but I ain't been able to break it. Em'ly told me of your letter soon as it come. She hadn't been feelin' any too well before then, though she'd sort 'er been hidin' it, and afterward she kep' a-gettin' worse and worse."
When finally they had come near the cabin, Ambrose sat down on the selfsame stump where he had waited so long for Emily on the afternoon of their first meeting, and since he would not go inside the house Miner went in without him, promising to bring back news. However, several hours passed and Miner did not return; Ambrose saw Doctor Webb leave the house, stay away half an hour and then go back into it and remain there. Then afterward Brother Bibbs followed him in, and Mrs. Webb and a dozen or more Pennyroyal townsfolk appeared clustering in a hushed group near the little schoolhouse door.
Nevertheless the waiting time did not seem long to Ambrose Thompson, since he was livingover every moment he had ever spent with Emily, hearing the sound of her laughter, feeling the touch of her hand over his, and then remembering how he had wondered in the days since his surrender whether it would not have been easier for him to have given her up through death.
It was dusk when Miner laid his hand on Ambrose's arm; he had not seen the little man's approach.
"It's past, the crisis," Miner said huskily; "she's better and has been askin' for you."
Then Ambrose rose, but he didn't move in the direction of the cabin; instead, he began running toward home, Miner having difficulty in keeping up with him. And it was hearing Miner's hard breathing behind that finally made him slow up.
"I couldn't 'a' gone to her, Miner," he explained. "Can't you see, ef I should 'a' seen her lyin' there so white and helpless I couldn't 'a' helped takin' her in my arms and tellin' her I loved her. No man kin bear it when it looks like the woman he loves is needin' him."
A LIGHT IN DARKNESS
Afterward, when the two men had parted for the night, Miner went directly to his home, and there in his usual methodical fashion undressed and got himself into bed, although all the time his dark face was twisting and working, his mouth dry, while the mind of the man had no knowledge of what his hands were doing. For Miner, without understanding it, was alone on his high mountain where every man must stand who knows what it is to desire and to surrender. So what does it matter that his mountain was the attic bedroom of a cottage and that the little man who wrestled with the devil stood but five feet two in his stocking feet and weighed only a hundred and five pounds, or even that his "Get thee behind me, Satan," was so differently put?
Because when Miner's fight was over he merelysaid: "I ain't never been at all certain in my mind that I could love a woman, so more'n likely I've all along been mistaken 'bout Em'ly. Seems like there ain't but one mortal thing on this earth I am sure on and that's—Ambrose!"
And yet the little man recalled nothing of the story of David and Jonathan, and, even if he had, could never have appreciated how their story touched his.
Nevertheless, it was one thing to decide to make a sacrifice of himself and his love to his friend, and quite a different thing to persuade that friend to accept it. For some time poor Miner puzzled; Ambrose would not even go out to the log cabin during the period of Emily's convalescence, though getting daily reports of her condition through him and through Doctor Webb. Susan Barrows, for some unexplainable reason, absolutely declined to speak to her next door neighbour when, after the period of her nursing was over, she had once more returned home.
There were harassed hours when unwittingly Miner came near to laying the case before Ambrose, being so accustomed, in all other mattersrequiring imagination, to relying on that of his friend. It is all very well to think that he might just have plainly stated his own change of mind and heart, but measuring the extent of the renunciation by what it would have meant to him, so surely Ambrose would never have accepted his sacrifice.
No, some more ingenious method must be devised, and Hamlet did not devote more agony to discovering a plan for avenging his father's death than Miner to finding a way of new life for Ambrose.
One afternoon the little man was limping slowly along the dusty August turnpike leading out from Pennyroyal with Moses, who, feeling his need, had accompanied him, yet, now too stiff to walk far, was being carried in his arms, when the attention of both the man and dog were arrested by the spectacle of an old darky trying to drive a mule, hitched to a wagonload of green-corn, into Pennyroyal, the mule having at this point positively declined to go farther.
It was inspiration in a strange guise, and yet inspiration must necessarily come to us in the character of the events that make up our lives.
The darky coaxed and threatened and beat his willow switch bare of leaves; the mule, spreading her legs to the four corners of the globe, remained firm. By and by the negro got down from his seat and with Miner's aid gathered a small pile of chips, which, with a piece of paper, were placed under the mule and set fire to. Then an instant later, when the mule started trotting amiably off toward Pennyroyal, Miner's heart began singing its own peculiar anthem of thankfulness, and immediately afterward he hurried off for a visit to Emily at the log cabin.
On coming back to the shop so changed was his expression and so cleared his look of doubt that Ambrose, feeling sure Emily had just accepted him, wished to God Miner would confide in him and so let his darkest hour be lived through.
But Miner said nothing then. However, when his regular hour came around once more he appeared taking his accustomed chair next his friend's under the apple tree in his yard. And yet here Miner still continued mute, although moving about far more restlessly than usual, while Ambrose, patiently waiting for himto speak, felt the sharpness of his earlier desire succeeded by a kind of apathy. Finally at some little distance off a clock in a church tower struck eight.
"My foot itches to-night, Ambrose," Miner announced suddenly.
"Shake it," advised his listener, whose mind was certainly on a far different line of thought.
But Miner, only squirming and twisting about the more, complained:
"Seems like it's one of them things that can't be shook off. I was just a-thinkin' it might be better to go for a walk than to sit here so eternal."
And here Ambrose, feeling that the little man would never get out his confession to-night, sighed: "Suit yourself, ef you like walking better. I reckon I kin make out the rest of the evening alone."
Nevertheless, Miner did not stir. Instead, taking another bite at a fresh plug of tobacco, he chewed on it fiercely for a moment longer. "I was aimin' for you to come with me," he said, "bein's as you know I ain't able to git on too well with this lame leg."
The soft summer night stirred in Ambrose no inclination for movement, and indeed far rather would he have been alone and undisturbed, yet now getting up slowly, lifting his great height in sections, he offered his arm to his friend.
Then the two men started off together, walking far more rapidly than usual on a summer night's stroll, for Miner seemed to have forgotten his lameness, and the fury of his spirit rushed them both ahead. Every now and then, furtively, he kept feeling in his back pocket, but the tall man did not notice him nor was he for some time aware in what direction he was being led.
A half moon shone in the sky, and the night was clear and still.
Then suddenly at a turn in a country road Ambrose abruptly halted, letting his companion's arm slide from his own. For at this turn in the road to the end of his life must Ambrose Thompson wake to consciousness, since from here in the daylight could be seen the first glimpse of the log schoolhouse, and though not visible by night its spiritual presence was the plainer.
"I ain't goin' with you to Em'ly's to-night, Miner," Ambrose declared quietly; "it's more'n I kin stand and more'n you've the right to ask. I wasn't countin' on you tryin' to outwit me." The words were spoken with only reasonable reproach, and yet the little man turned on the speaker fiercely.
"You jist wait here, Ambrose Thompson, till I git back, and keep on waitin' in the same place, for ef you don't I'll never forgive you, God knows." And off trotted Miner toward the cabin, until his small form was lost in the darkness.
Of course Ambrose waited, it having always been his custom to give way to Miner in small things, and, as he had grown unaccountably weary, stretched himself full length on the ground, and there a moment later the man felt himself in the grip of the primal instinct that all big men and some big women know. His will kept his long clean body still, yet everything else in him called out the strong man's right over the weak. The earth that mothered him proved it in all her moods. And yet there only a few paces ahead of him Miner was holding Emily in his arms. One swift rush and—here Ambrosechecked his vision, for he would not stir one foot.
Therefore, at first, the slight crackling noise at some little distance off made no impression upon him, but almost at once and without his own volition his long, sensitive nose sniffed the odour of smoke somewhere in the woods. The next instant a flame shot up in the air and Ambrose with it, for the flame came directly from the neighbourhood of Emily's cottage.
"Lord!" murmured Ambrose as he ran, "Em'ly's house is afire, and she hasn't no one but a little runt like Miner to look after her."
THE SURPRISE PARTY
He Ranstraight on into—Emily.
The girl, having been attracted by the light back of her cabin, had just come out into her yard and so saw the impossible figure flying toward her, and in all the world there was never but one other man so homely and so beautiful.
"I—I thought your house was afire," Ambrose announced huskily.
He had stopped so close to the girl that she caught both his hands in hers, pressing one for an instant against her cheek.
"Somethingisburning in the woods; it doesn't matter," she answered; "but, oh, Ambrose, you have been such a long time in coming to me!"
The girl's eyes were shining, her figure perfectly distinct, and she wore the primrose dress, yet Ambrose knowing this did not believe he had dared look at her.
"I haven't come to you now," he defended stoutly; "I was just afeard to trust you to Miner in a fire."
Then Emily laughed the low understanding laugh that was her greatest charm, and all the while drawing her companion with her toward their bench in front of her door, she sat down beside him, still keeping one hand in his gently resisting fingers; there seemed to be no fear and no shyness about Emily to-night; she was too exquisitely a thing of love.
"Yet you were willing to trust my life and soul and everything there is about me to Miner," she said slowly. "Ah, isn't that like a man! But, dear, Miner hasn't been near me since early this afternoon," she continued, "and then he came for such a funny Miner reason. He wanted to tell me that if ever I'd thought he had any leaning toward me, it wasn't in no ways true. Because so far ashecould see there wasn't nothin' a woman could be or do that could make up for her troublesomeness."
With this Emily quietly withdrew her hand and sitting still wondered if Ambrose had even heard her, for he did not speak at first, yet whenturning he looked at her, the light of the fire making his face quite clear, the girl's eyes filled with tears. "Has it been so bad as that?" she whispered.
Ambrose nodded. "I ain't ever goin' to be able to tell you how I love you, honey, but it seems like everything that has gone before in my life and is comin' after is done made up fer by to-night."
Then after a little, when they had talked for a while and been silent a while longer, Emily put her head down on Ambrose's shoulder so that he might not see her face.
"I am thinking about Sarah; every woman thinks about the other woman some time," she confessed.
"Little Sarah?" Ambrose waited. "Was you wantin' me to say I didn't love her, honey? 'cause I can't. Would it 'a' been fairer to you, I wonder, ef I hadn't had a heart big enough fer lovin' some one before ever I set eyes on you? Sarah was young and needed me, and I reckon I loved her all I was able tothen, but there wasn't so much of me to love her with as there is now. You see, Em'ly darlin', the dark waters has sort'er passed over me, and I ain't in my springtime no more. Then lovin' and losin' does learn us a lot: but I ain't never goin' to care fer nobody as I do fer you, 'cause nobody else'll ever understand me and match up to me same as you do." But here Ambrose, sighing, pushed back his faded straw-coloured hair with the old puzzled gesture. "Still, honey, ef anything ever happens, I feel just obleeged to tell you, I reckon I'm the kind that plumb couldn't live on this earth without lovin' some one."
For a troubled instant Emily hesitated, and then with a sympathy so perfect that it was to last for ever and ever, and with another understanding laugh, she lifted up her head and kissed her truthful lover.
So that by and by when the fire in the woods back of them had died down they were both so happy that they neither saw nor heard the figure in the papaw grove stealing along a few yards to one side of them, though in the darkness of the tangled thicket it stumbled several times and for want of a helping arm limped painfully along.
Nevertheless five minutes later Ambrose and Emily both jumped hurriedly to their feet. Forunexpectedly there sounded a noise as of many persons approaching the log cabin along the route which Ambrose had just taken. In another moment a procession came into sight and at the head and front walked Mrs. Barrows in her best purple linsey petticoat and scoop bonnet and carrying a basket on her arm. Following her were ten, twenty, thirty or more of the leading citizens of Pennyroyal, male and female, attired in their Sunday clothes and bearing packages.
"It's some kind of a forgiveness party," Ambrose whispered nervously; "seems like I'd better hide," and once again he attempted to flatten his thin body against the wall of the cabin.
Susan Barrows took Emily in her arms. "We're surprisin' you, child, and I hope we're pleasant," she explained. "Fer my own part I ain't never had nothin' happen to me suddint in my life that ain't been plumb distasteful, so I argued some with the folks to let you know we was comin'. But there's people in villages that finds things so slow and samewise it appears they think any kind of a start's better then nothin' happenin', so here we are!"
Susan's speech having been somewhat longer than her neighbours cared to listen to, the men and women of the party in the meanwhile had come crowding up around Emily until she had the sensation of shaking hands with a dozen persons at once, and all of them were smiling at her and saying how glad they were to know she was well again and wouldn't she live always in Pennyroyal, until Mrs. Barrows was actually thrust to one side. However, in that instant she managed to unearth Ambrose, who, appreciating what was taking place, had thought it best to step forth out of the shadow. Sheepishly he extended his hand to his neighbour and in the moonlight Susan got a good view of his face.
Her eyes snapped. "Good Lord! what a turn you've done give me!" she exclaimed, and then taking a closer survey: "Ambrose Thompson, I ain't more'n halfway suspicioned 'bout you and Em'ly Dunham before this night, but ef ever there's a surprise party in this village when you don't get there first, why I'd like to know!"
HIS THIRD WIFE
"Is there no ending of mirth?Will time former unloosenFresh fonts clear, bubbling, and brightFrom the drainless youth of the earth?"
THIRTY YEARS
Pennyroyalbore witness to the permanence of material things untroubled by spirit. Thirty years had passed since Ambrose Thompson's last honeymoon, and yet the little town had not greatly changed.
One afternoon in October, when from the same double row of linden trees, with only here and there a fallen comrade, a shower of wrinkled golden leaves was filling the ruts in the same road that once held the blossoms of an earlier spring, the door of a cottage opened and an elderly man stepped forth, humming a tune and began walking slowly down toward the front gate. He was dressed in gala attire and, observing a bed of purple asters that were growing near his path, stooped to gather one of the flowers. Getting up with a groan, he placed a hand on the small of his back, remarking testily: "Looks like I wasgettin' powerful onlimber these days," and then jigging stiffly about to disprove his assertion he placed the aster in his buttonhole.
Pennyroyal was unusually stirred up over something, for at five o'clock her streets were filling with people in their best clothes, all moving toward the same spot—the new red brick Baptist church, with a cupola, which stood where Brother Bibbs's old frame meeting house had once held place.
A carriage advanced slowly, an open Victoria drawn by a pair of handsome Kentucky horses and containing besides the coachman two other persons, a man and a woman. The man was a product of an oratorical period in Kentucky; he had the beak nose, the rolling black eyes, long hair and heavy forensic shoulders that had already landed the Hon. Calvin Breckenridge Jones as representative of the Pennyroyal district in the State Capitol at Frankfort, while it was a common supposition that only a lack of money had kept him from climbing higher. His companion, the Widow Tarwater, was the richest widow in the county.
Now as the carriage drew near the man at thegate, the bow with which he greeted the widow had in it the dignity and devotion of a benediction.
"Lord, what a woman!" he exclaimed a moment later in a deliciously rich and reasonable voice. "Looks like there's some people same as fruits, they don't noways mellow till age gets 'em."
Then once more lifting his hat, the speaker, Ambrose Thompson, now a man of almost sixty, attempted pushing back the hair from his forehead, apparently forgetting that his hair had retreated so far backward over his high dome that the few remaining locks tastefully arranged in front suggested the ripples left by a receding wave along a shore. Also his face was deeply lined and his shoulders stooped considerably, and yet in spite of these and other signs of age in some indefinable way Ambrose Thompson had kept his boyishness. Not having travelled more than a hundred miles out of Pennyroyal, nevertheless he had the eternal youthfulness of spirit which belongs to all life's true adventurers.
"Ambrose Thompson's lookin' powerful spruce this evenin', ain't he?" A woman of aboutforty, with quick birdlike movements, shrieked this remark into an ear trumpet which was being held up by a shrivelled figure in a wheeled chair that had just been projected forth from the house next door with such suddenness that it seemed likely to spill out its feeble occupant.
The old woman's head nodded helplessly, and yet out of her withered face her black eyes still shone with an unquenchable fire. At this instant Ambrose, catching sight of Mrs. Barrows, blew a kiss across his dividing fence to her, so that she laughed, before replying, the pleased monotonous laugh of deafness and old age.
"Ef it's an evergreen spruce you're meanin', Susan Jr., then you're more'n right, for it seems Ambrose Thompson's leaves are forever green and the sap runnin' in him same as spring. But hurry me along, I don't want to miss nothin' of this oyster party, and mebbe ef you kin set me right about in the middle of the new Sunday-school room, I kin sort er reckon on what's goin' on."
The two women then moved so rapidly down the street that they almost ran into a man whowas hobbling in the opposite direction leaning on a cane; his face as dry of any human emotion as though it had been a squeezed-out dishcloth. He was attempting to move past the wheeled chair without speaking, when a claw hand reached out after him. "Scared of a female past eighty, Miner Hobbs," the old voice cheered. "Ain't it a God's blessing no woman has run off with you—yet?"
Still at the gate the smile that greeted the approach of this dried-up little man was as radiant as the love of a woman.
"It's mortal good of you, Miner, to be goin' to the oyster show with me to-night, bein's as how you hate gatherin's," Ambrose began affectionately; "you've done give up a heap of tastes fer me first and last, ain't you, old friend? Now ef you'll wait here for me a few moments longer I'll be wholly ready to join you, for I kinder thought I'd like to speak with a few friends before the supper begins."
Ambrose started hastily back toward his front door with such an unmistakably jaunty air, such a forgetting of his rheumatic joints, that Miner's ferret eyes gleamed upon him suspiciously. Besides,was he not wearing an historic long coat, a strangely rusty stovepipe hat, and a white starched shirt over which his large lavender silk tie was crossed like a breastplate, and was he not also revealing yards of newly gray trousered legs?
"You wasn't aimin' to speak to no one in particular, was ye?" Miner inquired.
The long man stopped, noticeably blushing, and then, although the rest of his face remained grave, his eyes twinkled. "S'pose you don't know, Miner, how hard it is sometimes not to lie to the folks you love just because you love 'em? The Widow Tarwater druv past here a few minutes agone, she that was Peachy Williams, and though I ain't had more'n a bowin' acquaintance with her fer nigh forty years, knowin' that the Honourable Jones and our new Baptist preacher the Rev. Elias Tupper, are both after her, I kinder thought I'd like to see which one she favours the most."
Then Ambrose went quickly inside his cottage while Miner patiently waited on the outside, understanding that this moment of withdrawal to his own bedroom before finally leaving hishome had become his friend's invariable custom since the death of his second wife, Emily, five years before.
In his bedroom the elderly man was standing before his bureau, where to one side hung the daguerreotype of a young woman.
"It's mortal queer, honey," he said aloud, "how I ain't ever able to go places or to do things 'thout expectin' you to come along, yet there's times when it feels like you'd been gone from me forever and then agen when it don't seem more'n a few weeks."
He was afterward leaving the room with his head bent and his eyes misty with tears when suddenly a smile twitched the end of his nose and the corners of his mouth lifted as he turned once more toward his picture.
"Lord, Em'ly darlin', wouldn't you laugh if three old codgers was to get into the race after the widow instid of two? I would admire to see them sure winners beaten by a dark horse!"
Five minutes later, Uncle Ambrose Thompson as he was now called by almost everybody in Pennyroyal, with every trace of lamentation removed clean from his face, was walking towardthe new red brick church, having Miner's arm through his after their custom of more than thirty years. Moses could no longer accompany them, but was resting somewhat deeper under the apple tree than had been his habit in life.
While in the course of their walk Miner never once lifted his hat, Ambrose's was seldom allowed to rest for a moment on his head, for women of all ages smiled upon him and children breaking away from grown up hands came to be tossed in the air by his long arms. Uncle Ambrose had grown very popular with the children of Pennyroyal since the death of his and Emily's only child twenty years before, since it was then that he began bringing home to Emily for repairs all the crying babies he could steal, the boys who had stumped their toes and the girls with torn frocks and feelings.
In the Sunday-school room he immediately sailed up to the widow as gallantly as though his ship had not failed to enter her port in nearly forty years, and this when she was sheltered between the law and the gospel. But before Uncle Ambrose could speak a large soft hand grasped his lean and vital one.
"Welcome!" said the minister with unction.
Three years before, the Rev. Elias Tupper had entered Pennyroyal and with this same soft hand had since patted and soothed his congregation into following where their shepherd led. Indeed, the building of the brick church had been a tribute to his powers and to-night's oyster supper a kind of harvest festival to celebrate the last payment of the church's debt.
Nevertheless an unspoken antagonism had always existed between the Reverend Tupper and Ambrose Thompson, and indeed this was the first appearance of the tall man within the new church's domains.
Brother Tupper was a man of only medium height, but of considerable breadth, with cheeks as smooth and clean as a woman's. And while his lips were thin and his eyes expressionless his face managed to give the impression of a permanent smile, the kind of smile that can come from but one source, having nothing to do with amusement over people or things, nor even contentment in God's plan for His universe, but manifests only a supreme and personal self-satisfaction.
Now for the life of him Ambrose could not refrain from frowning, because, while his lips said, "Thank you," to himself he protested: "I ain't able to bear it; this man actin' toward me as thoughhewas forgivin' me some mortal sin every time we meet."
Neither was the widow's greeting of him cheering, since forty years had not completely wiped away a certain never-explained retreat.
The promised plenitude of Peachy Williams' girlhood had been nobly fulfilled in the Widow Tarwater, for now she suggested an abundant harvest. A handsome black silk gown folded over her more than ample bosom, a double chin rippled from under the soft fulness of her broad face, her skin was white and crimson as a child's, her auburn hair without a thread of gray in it, and her huge brown eyes never having looked deep down into the waters of life showed none of its troubled reflections.
Uncle Ambrose nodded approvingly at her appearance the while she looked at him coldly, saying: "I ain't seen you to talk to in a long time, Ambrose Thompson."
His reply flatteringly included the member ofthe Kentucky legislature on the widow's right. "'Course you ain't, Peachy," he answered gallantly, "for when big stars is shinin' so close to a planet, t'ain't to be expected that the planet kin notice the little ones twitterin' about in her neighbourhood."
And yet when supper was served the widow found herself placed at a table for four whose other occupants were three men instead of the two whom she had expected.
ORIGINAL SIN
TheWidow Tarwater was in truth a pleasing vision.
Not once had Ambrose Thompson left her side, yet he had been uncommonly silent. Thoughts, rose coloured as a boy's dream of a holiday, were floating before his mind's eye; he had been but dimly conscious that two plates of warm soup had lately flowed into him the while the conversation around him flowed on unceasingly. For the spirit of romance, which is an eternal though elusive thing, was surely taking fresh hold on him this evening as his pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and only Miner Hobbs, the little wooden figure of a man seated several tables off, was yet aware of his friend's exalted state.
At the present moment the Rev. Elias Tupper was talking to the widow. He had but latelytraversed the room crowded with tables and resplendent with decorations of harvest apples, pumpkins, goldenrod and tall tasselled stalks of corn, dispensing pleasantries as one would lollipops; and now amid much joking, laughter, and nudging had been allowed to take his place next the widow, only the legislator, who was making but a few weeks' visit in Pennyroyal, appearing disquieted.
It was past seven o'clock and assuredly the new Baptist Sunday-school room was now the centre of Pennyroyal's social activities, when unexpectedly the tall figure of a boy lurched into the room—Pennyroyal's black sheep, a boy taller than any man in the village save Ambrose Thompson.
There was a dismayed flutter and then an uncomfortable silence.
Now there are black sheep and black sheep with extenuating circumstances, but this boy had none of the extenuating circumstances—a respectable family, money in the bank, or a line of distinguished but self-indulgent ancestors; no, he was simply a sandy-haired, loose-jointed boy of about twenty-one who worked about theWidow Tarwater's stables—one of nature's curious anomalies, a boy without a father.
He looked about the homely, cheerful company at first with defiance, and then, feeling the weight of his loneliness and degradation, fell to crying foolishly. "I don't see why I ain't a right to your church social; if I ain't no name of my own, I got to be the son of some man in this town!"
It was such a sudden, unlooked for accusation piercing the holy covering of every hard-shelled Baptist brother in the new Sunday-school room that for the moment the little group of men were staggered. Then while they were making up their minds as to which one should have the privilege of throwing out the intruder, a familiar tall figure was seen crossing the floor, and putting his arm about the lubbering, drunken boy.
"Come along, sonnie; steady now," he whispered, leading him quickly away.
Half an hour later, sauntering back to the church social, Uncle Ambrose found that supper time was past and that the tables having been cleared away there was more and more room for conversation. Once again he soughtthe Widow Tarwater's side, but this time was received more graciously, for, putting out a trembling hand, she clasped Uncle Ambrose's with gratitude. "I'm obliged to you, Ambrose Thompson," she said. "That boy's ever been a thorn in my flesh. I have kept him at the farm because my late husband was good to him, but after to-night I don't feel called to have him stay on."
The Rev. Elias Tupper's voice thereafter was sufficiently loud to reach the ears of a number of the members of his congregation who were grouped about nearby.
"That boy," he announced, folding his short arms across his chest and sighing deeply, "is a painful example of original sin."
Since his return to the room up to this time Uncle Ambrose had made no remark, but now clearing his throat he eyed the last speaker for so long in silence that a little clacking noise was heard close by him and an old, old woman with an ear trumpet held to her ear leaned so far out of her wheeled chair that only her daughter's restraining hand kept her from falling.
"Original sin, Brother Elias?" The tall mandrawled his question thoughtfully. "I wonder now why you speak of this boy's weaknesses asoriginalsin? I've done lived in Pennyrile a right smart number of years and I ain't been witness to a single original sin. Seems like every fault a human crittur commits is just a plain copy of some fault that has gone before him. And I reckon it's more'n likely there's a good many original sinners among us men here to-night that has been original along pretty much the same lines as this here boy."
There was an unspoken yet moving appeal in thesympathetictones of the well-known voice, softening some of the women listeners and a few of the men, but the Hon. Calvin Jones had still to be heard from.
There are men in this world to whom even the simplest exchange of words is a chance for oratory. So the Honorable Calvin, frowning and with one finger thrust in his coat, by his dramatic silence held his audience for a moment spellbound.
"May I inquire," he thundered, "if this lad whom Mr. Ambrose Thompson has just rescued and—er—defended, is any relation of his?"
In the interrogation itself there was no offence, but to every grown-up person who heard, the insinuation was plain enough.
To the tips of his big ears Uncle Ambrose flushed. "No, sir, he's not my son," he answered the man, who was a stranger to him before this evening, "and maybe I'm glad and maybe I'm sorry. For I won't say since my daughter and Em'ly's died that I ain't thought most any kind of a child's better than no child at all." He hesitated and then went on in pretty much his same old fashion of talking to himself: "Come to think of it now, mebbe in a way this boy is a son of mine, for I kind er think that every young man that plays the fool is the son of every man that's played the fool before him."
And then with a friendly smile he turned again toward the widow.
"Ambrose," she faltered, with two round tears rolling down her plump cheeks, "Brother Elias and Mr. Jones advise against it, but maybe you are thinkin' I ought to give that boy another chance."
The tall man pressed the soft hand and shook his head.
"No, Peachy, I ain't never felt in my life that I knowed what another personoughtto do, but ef I've studied 'em long enough and close enough I know pretty well what theywilldo. I took that boy home to spend the night with me, but I'll be drivin' out to your place with him to-morrow toward sundown. I'm more'n anxious fer a little old-time chat with you."