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.
"You kin manage me now all you've a mind to; I ain't worryin'"
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."