CHAPTER XVI
THE ETERNAL FIRE
Uncle Ambrose poured the grace of forgiveness upon the pile of buckwheat cakes on his guest's plate next morning in the form of an over-supply of maple syrup, saying kindly: "Eat well, sonnie; we ain't goin' to talk over the events of last evening till you are feeling a little stronger in the stomach."
And though the boy crimsoned and looked sullen, he proved his recovery by his application to the cakes.
"I was an awful fool last night," he mumbled apologetically a few moments later.
"You were," Uncle Ambrose replied, "but then being a young fool ain't so bad; it's bein' an old one that's serious," and his faded blue eyes twinkled self-accusingly, while the boy went on talking into his plate.
"Course I didn't know what I was doin' when I bust into that social. Not that it matters; nobody kires fer me about here, and I'll pretty soon be clearin' out. The widow won't want me back to the farm."
Uncle Ambrose leaned on his table, facing the young man so squarely that the boy was obliged to raise his bloodshot blue eyes to his.
"Nobody don't kire fer you in Pennyroyal? That ain't the important thing; don't you kire fer somebody, Sam? That's what keeps a man straight. If we was stone images now set up in a desert, why, we might hope to have people come a-worshippin' of us, but bein's as we are just ordinary – sometimes very ordinary – human bein's, seems like we might do the lovin' end ourselves." The older man searched the face opposite him keenly. "How old are you?" he inquired suddenly.
"'Bout twenty," was the answer. "I wasn't more'n eight or ten when Farmer Tarwater brought me to his farm and give me my schoolin' till I was a good sized boy. He was more of a friend to me than anybody's ever been."
Uncle Ambrose waved the last statement aside. "Mebbe he was your friend and mebbe he wasn't, but the thing that worries me about you most, Sam, ain't last night's scrape nor the rest of the foolishnesses you been gettin' into in this village. It's you settin' right here at my table and you more'n twenty, been raised in Kentucky and got eyes in your head, and yet tellin' me you don't kire fer nobody! The Widow Tarwater told me I could bring you back to the farm this evenin' ef you was feelin' yourself, but mebbe you'd better stay along with me 'till I kin kind of find something to prop up under you."
But the boy's tanned face grew redder than usual. "I didn't say I didn't kire fer no one; I said there was no one kired fer me. There's a girl – "
Now the tall man's hand struck the breakfast table until the plates on it fairly danced.
"Glory, I knowed you'd more sense 'n you showed!" he announced triumphantly, and coming around to refill his visitor's plate put his arm affectionately around his shoulder. "You got the best thing on earth, boy, to keep you goin'; you got to learn a girl to love you." Uncle Ambrose's emotional old face quivered with the glory of the chase. "Course your girl don't kire fer you now, you ain't worth it, but you up and show her what lovin' her has done fer you. And mebbe I'll keep right 'longside of you, Sam."
This confidence was by no means finished, but at this moment a thin, brown shadow, faithful as the rising and setting of the sun, appearing at the dining-room window, Uncle Ambrose's further remarks were choked off. Returning from the kitchen a moment later he put down more cakes on the table and then shook his guest's hand in farewell. "I got to leave you now fer the day; Miner's come to git me to start fer the store, but there's one thing I want you to recollect while you're waitin' here fer me, sonnie, and that's that the good Lord sends a new day once in every twenty-four hours just to show folks they kin begin agen."
It was a long day in the shop both to Miner and Ambrose. Inevitably the little man had grown more morose and bitter as the years went by. For in spite of Emily's and Ambrose's pleading he had gone but seldom to his old place under the apple tree after their marriage, and when his six sisters made homes of their own he had lived entirely alone. Indeed old Moses had seemed the only companion he had ever cared for except Ambrose, and on the day of Ambrose's second marriage the dog had moved himself and his allegiance from the tall man's house to the little one's and had never gone home again except to be buried.
Ambrose kept surreptitiously watching the clock from the noon hour on until his partner removed it clean out of sight in the back of the shop: however, an hour before closing time Ambrose began putting away his share of the stock, remarking airily, "I thought I'd git away a little sooner than usual this evenin', Miner, ef you don't mind."
To this the little man at first returned nothing, but seeing his friend step over to their assortment of new neckties and laying aside his old lavender one begin to match a bright red one to the shade of his own complexion, he sighed. "I reckon you feel it comin' on agen, Ambrose?"
Ambrose nodded. "It started last night at the social," he replied truthfully, "and then those other two men's actions kind er sicked me on. Peachy has done ripened and sweetened considerable; mebbe you noticed it, Miner?" he ended hopefully.
But Miner only scowled. "She's fat and old, but t'aint nothin' to you, Ambrose Thompson, once you're started. I was kind er hopin' you'd be faithful to Em'ly."
However, in the midst of his reproach his partner had vanished; nevertheless, ten minutes later, he came back into the shop and seating himself on the counter appeared lost in thought for some little time.
"Miner," he confessed finally, "I am a-settin' here tryin' to git a little light on the subject of myself. I ain't feelin' unfaithful to Em'ly 'cause I'm noticin' the widow; I never felt unfaithful to Sarah when I married Em'ly. I tell you, Miner Hobbs, that what's workin' in me now is that I ain't able to git old and give up 'thout makin' a fight. It ain't gray hair and wrinkles that make folks hate gettin' old, it's dryin' up, losin' their spark, so to speak. Now there's nothin' that makes a man feel such an all fired lot younger as fallin' in love over agen." He laughed. "'Course I ain't recommendin' dynamite, Miner, which is fallin' in love with a new woman when you got an old one. That's my way, 'cause fate's done sent it so fer me, and we got to make our lives out of what we git. But why can't a man just start in ever so often fallin' in love agen and recourtin' his wife till he gits himself and her all woke up as in the old days? I ain't sayin' it's as easy with a stale girl as with a fresh one, but, Lord!" – and here the shadows chased each other across the luminous elderly face – "I could 'a' kep' on courtin' Em'ly till kingdom come and thanked God fer the chance, ef He had but seen fit to spare her to me so long."
And then Uncle Ambrose slipped off the counter and went away and drove Sam out to the Widow Tarwater's Red Farm, which was now twice the size it had been in her youth, since Peachy had married the young man owning the place adjoining hers.
Yet somehow Uncle Ambrose's anticipated visit proved a disappointment.
In the first place, both of his rivals were there before him, and there was something in their attitude and in the widow's manner that made him hot with the desire to get the representatives of the law and the gospel out behind a fence and have everybody roll up their sleeves. However, since no open accusations were made and a woman was present, what was there for him to do but to make a short stay and then return slowly home? – home, to live through what was perhaps the most extraordinary experience of Ambrose Thompson's entire lifetime. For nearly sixty years he had lived in the village of Pennyroyal, been a friend to all its people, his life had been there for them to see and interpret, and yet with the first breathings of calumny the record of his whole career was smirched. Still he made no protest, for what does denial count if a man's character cannot save him? His visits to the widow were continued, however, and always he found her in a flutter between affection and fear. Nevertheless, Uncle Ambrose was merely biding his time, but in the meanwhile Miner's silence and devotion were more healing than any ointment.
CHAPTER XVII
THE REVIVAL SERVICE
Ambrose was raking the dead leaves in his front yard two weeks after the oyster supper when Susan Barrows summoned him across to her with a wave of her ear trumpet. All day she sat outdoors in her wheeled chair, huddled in rugs, until the snow came, with her eager old eyes fastened on the street, her curiosity hungry after eighty years.
Ambrose knelt beside her with his lips to her trumpet.
"They're sayin' ugly things about you," she whispered. Then seeing the hurt in the man's face that even Miner had not fully understood, she rested her trembling hand on his gray head. "Talkin' but not believin', Ambrose Thompson. I ain't sayin' that some people don't agree to this ugly story, since whatever's ugly naturally pleases 'em, but the most of Pennyroyal is just rollin' this bit of scandal 'bout you under their tongues like a sweet morsel and then spittin' it out, knowin' it ain't fitten to swallow. But what worries me is that I'm afeard you'll be losin' the widow. Here's Brother Tupper startin' in with a series of revival services to-night at his new church, and the legislator neglectin' the welfare of his State to keep close to the widow! Not that it's the law I am so much scared of as the preacher. Peachy's plump and jelly-like and kin be easy shook, and I ain't been a female eighty years 'thout knowin' how easy 'tis to work on our religious feelin's. You goin' to the revivin'?"
Not at once did Uncle Ambrose reply; instead he seemed to be considering.
"I'm not at all sure, Miss Susan; seems like I've felt kind of lonesome in church since we lost Brother Bills, but I've more'n half way promised Peachy; she seemed so dead set on my attendin'."
Susan grinned. "Ef she's worryin' about you needin' religious instruction, Ambrose, don't you lose hope. It's a powerful wifely sign."
And so Uncle Ambrose went on back to his work, vaguely comforted though not yet certain whether or not to obey the widow's request. To tell the truth, he had comparatively little faith in his own chance with Peachy, since his befriending the boy Sam had brought with it so unfortunate a result. And yet the thought of the possession of the Widow Tarwater had daily grown more and more alluring as his rivals' claims progressed, and she seemed so much less ready for his picking than in past times.
Late that evening when the first of the present series of revival services was in full swing, a tall man cautiously entered an open door. He had never yet been inside the church itself, and to-night found it crowded to the doors with men and even women standing in the aisles. Uncle Ambrose felt annoyed, for having made a special effort to be subservient he certainly desired that the widow should know of it, and, moreover, though he preferred not having the matter discussed, frequent rheumatic twinges in his right leg made standing for any length of time an impossibility.
Now he shoved himself forward, politely edging his way between saints and sinners alike, hoping that Mrs. Tarwater would at least get a passing glimpse of him, when at the front of the church, to his immense surprise, he discovered an entirely empty pew.
There was no time for thought, and almost immediately the newcomer dropped down upon the seat, observing at the same instant that the widow and her escort, the Honorable Calvin, were in an opposite pew just across the aisle, though why their pew should be so jammed and his own exactly under the chancel entirely unoccupied he did not then consider. Obeying his first impulse Uncle Ambrose turned a smile upon the widow. It was tremendously gratifying to observe her large bosom heave with emotion, but puzzling when soon after large tears coursed down her quivering face.
Moreover, the persons in Uncle Ambrose's immediate vicinity were also beginning to behave queerly.
"The Lord be praised that one more sinner is called to repentance!" he heard a sister's shrill voice cry out just back of him, and then loud "Amens" boomed all about. But even more alarming – the Rev. Elias Tupper's expressionless eyes were apparently glued upon him, while his face wore an exaggerated edition of that smile of heavenly forgiveness so irritating to the other man's soul.
With a shudder of horror it was now borne in upon Uncle Ambrose Thompson that by misadventure he had placed himself upon the mourners' bench – the seat at revival services specially set apart for sinners overcome with remorse who desired to make open confession.
With a hunted look the unhappy man searched about for some way of escape; there was none, for the congregation had come crowding closer toward the front of the church until every foot of room was occupied.
Folding his arms across his lean chest and lifting his head Uncle Ambrose waited. During the first moments of his discovery his face had grown extraordinarily red, but now was paler than any man or woman had ever seen it before.
Lifting his right hand the Rev. Elias Tupper commanded an intense and awed silence. "Ambrose Thompson is before us to-night openly to confess his sins," he announced in a loud voice.
Still the tall man did not move and not even a muscle of his set face pulsated. A moment of waiting or longer must have gone by – nobody could have guessed the exact passage of time – and yet Uncle Ambrose appeared insensible.
The minister cleared his throat. "If Ambrose Thompson is unable to speak for himself, then I will do my best to speak for him."
But at this the presumably repentant sinner rose up slowly, very slowly, almost it would seem by inches, until he stood taller than any other person in the new red brick church.
"It ain't my way to pray before a audience," he began quietly and with his gray head bowed, although his words could be distinctly heard, "and I don't know as I feel called to do any special repentin' this evenin', seein' as I got up on this here mourning bench by accident and with no idea but to set and listen fer a while. Still I reckon I got sins enough to be sorry 'bout most any time the chance comes." Ambrose then seemed to be reflecting for a moment, and it is just possible that during this pause the thin ghost of a smile played like heat lightning about the end of his sensitive nose, although his expression continued perfectly reverent.
"I wouldn't be a mite surprised though, Lord," he went on in almost a conversational tone, "ef my neighbours wasn't better able to confess my sins fer me than I am fer myself, bein's as we've all got such special talents fer our neighbours' motes. The trouble is I'm none too sure one man can precisely understand another man's, Heavenly Father, you've so many and various ways of revealin' yourself to your children. Course I know, Lord, I've loved fine apparel too dear and smokin' and the outdoors when mebbe I should 'a' been workin' in, and mebbe I've laughed now and then over things folks think should 'a' been cried over. And I've had my hours of distrustin' and repinin' and forgettin' it's God's privilege to run His world 'cordin' to His idees, not mine. But, O Lord, what's the use mentionin' things that ain't cheerful even to you? I'm plumb sorry fer all I've done that's bad 'thout goin' into further details."
And here again Uncle Ambrose paused; however, not one of his strained and over-eager listeners had any delusion that his prayer was finished. He simply had been forgetting them and now remembered. Then he lifted his head and straightened his shoulders, and what he saw through the shining oak ceiling of the new brick church no one shall ever know.
"Ef any one here present is waitin' to hear me say I'm sorry fer any lovin' I've ever done of man – or woman (course I know you ain't expectin' it, Lord) – then I am obleeged to state he or she'll be disappointed. Women is the nearest things I've known on this earth to the angels, and I ain't been disobedient to the heavenly vision."
Up to this moment Uncle Ambrose's voice had been low and evenly modulated, but now it changed like the deeper tones of an organ until it came to be the most wonderful music in the world – a voice that was able perfectly to express the richest things of the spirit. "But, Lord, ef ever I'd wronged a woman, I'd not be askin' forgiveness of you; I'd just ask that it be meted out to me in like proportion as it has been meted out to the woman, forever and ever. Amen."
And then not waiting for the closing of the service, and forgetting his hat, Uncle Ambrose passed on down the church aisle, where room was instantly made for him, out into the white stillness of the autumn night, away from calumny and human irritation, and the little congregation seeing him go with a look of added dignity and peace, whatever their former ill-founded suspicions, after to-night believed nothing against him.
CHAPTER XVIII
INDIAN SUMMER
Truth is immortal, and one truth is that there cannot be two pursuers in the game of love.
After the night of the first revival service Uncle Ambrose, making no further visits to the Red Farm, it was the woman who set herself to lure him back again.
In the first place, he had by then convinced her that her mistrust had been unjust and that she had listened to suggestion that was not evidence. So there was but one way by which the widow felt she could make reparation and restore peace between herself and Ambrose Thompson. She must find out the name of Sam's father, for necessarily the boy had to have two parents, and the mother she had known as she had come frequently to the farm on visits to her son up to the time of her death.
The original informant mentioned in the Bible was a female: "And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother's house these things."
Therefore after a certain period of effort the boy Sam himself drove one afternoon into Pennyroyal bearing three perfumed notes written by the widow which he was to carefully deliver at the post-office.
The next afternoon, along about four o'clock, three men appearing in the village street at almost the same time were seen to start off in the direction of the Widow Tarwater's farm. Not that they were together, certainly not; for some little time they were even unconscious of each other's destination. Ambrose, however, made the discovery first, since owing to the enfeebled condition of his livery-stable horse and the disabled state of his prehistoric gig he was compelled to be in the rear of the procession, which was headed by the Honorable Calvin on a high black charger and seconded by the Rev. Mr. Tupper in a neat phaeton drawn by a fat pony.
The tall man could have vowed that the best parlour at the Red Farm had not been changed in more than three decades, except that a criminal looking portrait done in crayons of the Widow Tarwater's late husband, who had been an uncommonly handsome man, hung over the mantel, for there in the same dark corner and on the identical sofa sat Peachy, but a far more flushed and emotional Peachy than her former admirer recalled.
For indeed the widow's cheeks were burning, her mouth tremulous like a worried child's, and after her first greeting of her three visitors, she continued twisting her handkerchief in and out of her fingers, trying to speak and yet plainly not finding courage. So conspicuously was she needing consolation that Uncle Ambrose's long arm fairly ached to accommodate its length to her large waist, nevertheless the presence of his rivals, who may or may not have been suffering from the same pressure, deterred him.
"Ambrose," so much the widow did get out, turning her eyes away from the encouragement she might have received from the ardour of two other glances, to rest them on her older friend, "I feel it my duty, having lately acted kind of suspicious to you, to tell you that I now know who the boy Sam's father is, was – " And Peachy fell to sobbing now in such earnest that she was compelled to bury her flushed face in her handkerchief.
Two of the men stared; many hopeful things had each of them anticipated in this hasty summons from the widow, but not this confession. However, the third man, hopping up, began striding rather irritably about the room.
"If his father was, then fer the land sakes, Peachy, keep it to yourself; 'taint a mortal bit er use startin' things on a dead man."
But whether the widow belonged to the large group of females with a passion for martyrdom or whether she was less a martyr in telling her secret than in keeping it, who shall say? For in reply she shook her head, removing her handkerchief, though permitting her tears to flow faster than ever.
"My late husband was this boy Sam's father," she went on quickly, once she had fairly started. "I might have guessed it years agone if I'd ever thought on it; seems like I can recall now numbers of times when he tried to tell me this himself, and as he was so often askin' me to be kind to Sam and give him a chance I more'n half took a dislike to the lad. Lately I've been goin' through some old papers and, well, there ain't no more to be said 'ceptin' as I've no children of my own I'm goin' to make this Sam my heir; I've already writ out the papers."
With the ending of this speech Uncle Ambrose enjoyed one of the most exquisite moments of his later years. Not that he was so transfigured by the proof of his own innocence, since the annoyance that the scandal had caused had passed that evening in church, and most certainly not because he enjoyed hearing the reputation of Peachy's former husband damaged, but because the expressions on the faces of his rivals proved what his wits had already discovered, that the two men were not after the widow for herself, but because of the abundance and fruitfulness of her fields.
What the widow herself saw it was impossible to tell, for almost immediately after, with her face still buried in her handkerchief, she left the room, and the three men could see her through the window hurrying across the front lawn.
Left alone, the Honorable Calvin was the first to speak. Drawing out a delicately scented white handkerchief he wiped a slight dampness from about his lips. "I suppose the widow does not fully understand this boy has no legal claim on her," he said thoughtfully.
The minister sighed, waving a fat hand. "A little remembrance, say a thousand dollars or so, as a start in life would be quite sufficient."
Uncle Ambrose smiled. "I reckon you gentlemen had better talk this matter over with Mrs. Tarwater. Women have such foolish, softhearted ways of tryin' to save the innocent and help the guilty when they're able; 'taint law and 'taint gospel, mebbe, but it's woman."
Then seeing that the legislator had risen to his feet with the first understanding of his suggestion the tall man laid a firm hand on him. "Better let Brother Elias have the first show, Mr. Jones," he drawled; "seems no more'n proper respect to pay the gospel."
So both men waited ten minutes or more, the Honorable Calvin glowering and fidgeting, while Uncle Ambrose, whatever his inner stirrings, remained imperturbably calm until, seeing a stout figure returning to unhitch his pony, with his face wearing an expression more of sorrow than of anger, Mr. Jones waited for no further advice.
Left alone, Uncle Ambrose betrayed his real feelings. First, he looked at himself in a small triple mirror on the mantel, carefully combing with a little pocket comb the thin hairs well to the front of his head over his increasing bald spot, and afterward he walked restlessly about the great room, finally arriving at the window. It was always Calvin Jones he had feared. "Good looks and a silver tongue! Lord, what a combination!"
The sun was now going down at the edge of the Kentucky landscape, in the fields the grain had been cut and stacked and golden pumpkins were lying between the piled up mounds of hay and corn. Over the tips of the grass, which still showed green, autumn leaves were swirling, and hovering above, and through it all a fine, thin mist which might be the coming blight of winter or the lingering spirit of the summer's warmth.
Crossing a meadow and moving toward a big red barn, Uncle Ambrose soon spied Sam driving a long line of cows toward home. With a leap his long legs carried him out the window and swiftly across the yard. "Hullo!" he cried while still some distance away.
The boy's face reddened, but this time from sheer pleasure. "Hullo!" he cried, all his sullenness and resentment gone. And in a few moments the older man's lean, strong fingers held the boy's short stocky hand in a hard clasp. "I am glad fer you clean through," he said simply.
The boy's head jerked toward the house. "Has she told you?" he asked. "It's powerful kind of her when she ain't even liked me."
"Kind?" Uncle Ambrose frowned. "Why, boy, she's plumb magnificent!" And here he curveted a few steps to the side. "Lord! ain't it splendid – life so full of good things happenin' every minute!" Stopping, he gazed steadily and curiously into the eyes of the young man near him, while the cows wondering at the delay pressed their sweet smelling bodies against each other and muzzled their soft noses. The boy's eyes were no longer bloodshot nor ashamed.
"'Bout that other thing, sonnie, your girl?" Uncle Ambrose hesitated. "Don't you tell me nothin' ef you ain't a mind to. Lord! don't I remember how a young fellow hates bein' pried into."
"You ain't pryin'," the boy defended, "and it's comin' on great. I took your advice. I just let myself do all the lovin' I could 'thout stewin' over her feelin's fer me, and then all of a sudden she up and told me she always had loved me, only she was afeard I didn't kire fer her."
Uncle Ambrose's face shone. "A'ire you worth her now, sonnie?"
"Lord, no," the boy answered; "but I kep' straight since that night and I'll keep on. It's lovin' that done it."
Uncle Ambrose raised his rusty stovepipe hat. "Lovin', that's it," he answered.
And then across his wrinkled face there marched a host of memories, while keeping his eyes on the sky among whose soft clouds there might easily have been floating any number of angels, he repeated the toast made immortal by Kentuckians: "The ladies, God bless 'em!"
Suddenly hearing the noise of a horse's hoofs trotting away from the neighbourhood of the farmhouse, Ambrose whirled, and before his companion could guess what ailed him, started running back across the lawn.
But this time Peachy was not to be so easily found. Uncle Ambrose searched for her in the yard and in the garden, in the place where the old summer house, now a ruin, had once stood, and then when the sun had disappeared and only an afterglow remained, found her leaning over a turnstile facing an orchard.
"I hope I ain't kept you waitin', Peachy," he remarked, a trifle breathlessly.
The woman smiled and slipped her arm through his that they might both lean together on the turnstile. "Most forty years, Ambrose," she returned with a finer enjoyment than she could have felt in her youth.
And her sixty-year-old suitor blushed. "I know more'n I did then, Peachy; I was frightened of your managin' ways." He was feeling a considerable anxiety, for the woman beside him was like a piece of fruit, no longer in her summer time, but reaching her perfection in late autumn.
Very quietly then Peachy withdrew her arm.
"I'm managin' now, Ambrose," she confessed. "Seems like growin' old don't lose us our faults; it kind er makes 'em set deeper. I should be sorry to try you, but I'm some past fifty and ain't able to change."
However, Uncle Ambrose simply put his arm around her, drawing her closer to him. "Lord, Peachy, ef that's all, don't you fret. You kin manage me now all you've a mind to; I ain't worryin'. I was young and didn't understand then that no man kin git on comfortable in this world 'thout bein' managed by a good woman." And he laughed and kissed her with an ardour that was in its way as good a thing as the springtime.
A minute later, the light dying quickly down, the autumn moon rose up above the orchard, and with the disappearance of the day the warmth ended so abruptly that, with a little shiver, the two middle-aged figures moved away, the woman watching the man anxiously. "It ain't moonlight we're needin', Ambrose Thompson," she whispered; "I'm thinkin' it's the light of the fireside."