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.