CHAPTER X
THE REVELATION
After this it was extraordinary the number of absolutely unassailable reasons that kept Ambrose so frequently on his way back and forth from the village to the school-house. Certainly twenty-four hours rarely passed without his getting up a wholly new idea to assist Miss Dunham, and therefore Miner, about which it was necessary to ask her advice. And possibly Emily encouraged him in this, for often she had postponed or put aside a perfectly good suggestion with the proposition that they talk the question over later, and that Ambrose come out again to the log cabin to see if they were of the same mind.
Of course Ambrose was extremely particular not to permit the hours of his visits to conflict with those of his partner, but as Miner no longer spent his evenings with him, naturally he concluded that these evenings were devoted to Emily, and therefore his appearances were usually made during the long summer twilight. And this not with any idea of hiding or of disloyalty, but simply that he should not be in his friend's way; for Ambrose's heart was singularly light these days and the sun shone with its old glory. Why, even the one little cloud that had troubled him for a while had been with laughter pushed away. On his mind during the first of his two or three visits had been the thought that Miss Dunham could not know of his presence in the midnight raid.
They were in the woods together one evening, a little beyond the papaw thicket, when Ambrose, thrusting his hand into his pocket, drew forth a carefully wrapped up package. "It ain't a present; it's yours already," he announced, pushing it toward Emily with his face crimsoning, and digging his toes into the earth like a big, awkward boy.
Slowly the girl unfolded her lost hairbrush, and, though her eyes immediately shone with laughter, womanlike she kept her lids down, asking with a kind of over-emphasized wonder, "How on earth, Mr. Ambrose Thompson, could you ever have come upon my hairbrush?"
And in another moment Ambrose had confessed everything of his own part in the raid, told his story miserably and without extenuating circumstances, and ending with the statement that he couldn't endure to have her friendship until she knew the full extent of his unmanliness.
Then Emily allowed herself to look straight at him and her laughter brimmed over. "Why, I've known all along," she whispered, putting her hand for just the briefest, comforting second over the top of his. "Don't you suppose that I recognized the voice coming from the longest shadow I ever saw as soon as I saw the longest man in Pennyroyal?"
Two weeks afterward it happened as usual that Miner and Ambrose were both in their shop closing up for the night, but, what was most remarkable, Miner was allowing Ambrose to do the greater part of the work, and for fifteen minutes had been sitting on the top of a vinegar barrel idly whittling at a stick and every once in a while clearing his throat as though he were getting ready to speak, notwithstanding he kept his face turned from the sight of his partner.
"Looks like Miss Dunham's gettin' more cheerfuller lately," he blurted at last, not glancing up, but whittling so briskly that the chips about him on the floor looked like the shorn curls of a lamb.
Ambrose lifted his face from the depth of a large ledger where he had been laboriously writing down the day's accounts. "Yes, ain't she?" he returned happily; "seems like she's sorter too big to be hurt by other folk's meannesses." Then walking across the shop he laid his hand on his friend's shoulder with a gesture that was almost a caress.
"You been goin' out to see her yourself considerable lately, ain't you? So mebbe she ain't needin' much other comp'ny," Miner suggested, raising his eyes and then lowering them quickly before the other man could catch his glance.
Ambrose hesitated. "Why, mebbe I have," he confessed slowly; "funny I ain't ever thought of it in that light! You see I've been a-tryin' to do what you asked and hatch up some scheme to make 'Pennyrile' understand and like Miss Dunham better, but Em'ly and me ain't come to any conclusion yet that's good enough, so I reckon that's why I keep on a-goin'."
"Em'ly!" Miner sprung off his barrel top like he had been struck. "So it's come to that, has it?" And by this time his sneer and anger were so unmistakable that his companion, whose expression had been perfectly frank a moment before, turned a dull red and for the first time in his life his eyes dropped before those of his friend.
"I ain't callin' her Em'ly to her face, Miner, at least not more'n once or twice," he answered painfully, feeling himself turn hot and cold in the same instant, and an awful weight settle itself upon his chest. Then a relieved light broke over him. "Mebbe now I'm thinkin' upon her as Em'ly because some day you and she – "
"Liar!" The little man, blinded with passion, struck out somewhere into the region of his friend's chest and, when Ambrose caught his hands and held them, twisted and growled like a little dog in the grasp of a big one, repeating over and over in a thick voice, "Liar, liar, you know you want her for yourself, you know you love her, so what damn use is there in you pretendin' before me?" until his rage had partly spent itself.
Ambrose had made no sort of answer or defence; indeed, his big hands had seemed to cling to Miner rather than to restrain him, besides which there was something in his appearance that would have made it hard to continue angry with him even if you had not loved him.
"I didn't know, Miner," he said at last, hushed and frightened, "I didn't know until you spoke it. I reckon I do love her, but now I know I won't see or speak with her no more."
Then when Miner had banged his way out of the store the tall man, sitting down on the deserted barrel, began to shake, and there was shame on his face and the look of a man who has suddenly heard that the ship on which he is sailing must go down. For several hours he remained in his shop, sometimes walking up and down and then reseating himself on the barrel, but wherever he went and whatever he did old Moses dragged his rheumatic legs after him. Two or three times the man patted the dog, whispering reassuringly, "It's all right; don't you be worryin' none about me, old fellow."
It was so dark in the shop that when Mrs. Barrows, carrying a lantern, opened the door she could not at first find Ambrose. And afterward, when he did come toward her and her light fell full upon his face, to Susan's eternal credit let it be set down that she turned away her eyes.
"You come along home, Ambrose Thompson," she began sternly; "ain't I been watchin' and waitin' for you to go by to your supper these past two hours? It's mighty nigh time I was gittin' to bed and I ain't able to sleep less'n my mind's easy."
Taking the man by the arm she led him toward home, talking in a tone that few persons had ever heard from Susan. "Whatever's happened to you to-day, Ambrose Thompson, don't you be scaired," she said once. "I tell you it's the folks that things never happen to that ought to be scaired, 'cause you're livin' and they ain't." And then when Ambrose would have left her at her gate, climbing up the few steps that led into her yard she was able thus to place her hands on his shoulders.
"Ambrose," she said then, "there was a neighbour remarked to me the other day, 'Ain't Ambrose Thompson changed a lot since his wife died?' I told her, 'No, folks don't change none in what I calls their fundamentals. They alter some; of course learnin' life don't mean to make no exception of them with troubles, but leopards don't stripe, nor zebras spot, nor human bein's get made over by experiences. You been livin' lately thinkin' you was changed entirely inside by Sarah's death, but you ain't changed – you've just been restin'. You've seen other folks git over things that hit 'em as hard as Sarah's dyin' done you, but course you thought you were differ'nt." Leaning over, Susan gave Ambrose a peck certainly intended as a kiss. "It's awful hard, boy, to wake up sometimes, after one has been adreamin', but I reckon you're wakin' up."
Susan was correct, Ambrose's dream had passed and by morning no mists of it remained. Since the revelation of Miner's accusation in the shop he had made no effort at self-deception, understanding now why since his meeting with the Yankee school teacher his world had been again so strangely vivid, so full of adventure, that even his trips back and forth to the shop had been filled with delightful impressions, ideas that might some day be confided to her. For, after all, is there not so much of life in the smallest place in this world when you are fully alive in it, and so little in the biggest when you are not?
Then the bitterest part of Ambrose's fight was that he knew Emily to be his real mate, knew that Sarah had been a boy's spring fancy, but that the summer had now set the seal of her warmth and fruition upon his second love. Moreover, he also knew that Emily might be made to care for him, since love like his is rarely without its answer.
Nevertheless when dawn came he had written this letter and taken it out to the post:
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.
CHAPTER XI
FOLLOWING HIS ADVICE
No further reference 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 taken Susan 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 I thought," 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.
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 former friend, 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 of the 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 living over 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."
CHAPTER XII
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 merely said: "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 matters requiring 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 him to 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 Ambrose checked 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."