“I reckon that ain’t news to you, is it?” asked Blatch, making as though to come in and take his place at the table.
For a moment the loyalty of the tribal head, the hospitality of the mountaineer, warred in old Jephthah’s heart with deep, strong resentment against this man. Then he said without rising,
“Yes, hit’s news. But you may take it that hit’s news I ain’t heard. I reckon we’ll just leave it that you air dead. The lease on the ground over thar runs tell next spring. I’ll not rue my bargain, but no son of mine sets his foot on yo’ land and stays my son, and you don’t put yo’ foot in this house again. You give it out that you was dead—stay dead.”
“Oh, I see,” said Blatch. “Yo’ a-blamin’ the whole business on me, air ye? Well, that’s handy. What about them fine fellers that’s settin’ at meat with ye now? I reckon the tale goes that I led ’em into all their meanness.”
Jim Cal dropped his head and stared at the bit of cornbread in his pudgy fingers; Wade glanced up angrily; the twins stirred like young hounds in leash; but Jephthah quieted them all with a look.
“Blatch,” began the head of the house temperately, even sadly, “yo’ my brother’s son. Sam and me was chaps together, and I set a heap of store by him. Sam’s been gone more than ten year, and in that time I’ve aimed to do by you as I would by a son of my own. I felt that hit was something I owed to Sam. But ef I owed hit hit’s been paid out. Yo’ Sam’s son, but also yo’ a Blatchley, and I reckon the Blatchley blood had to show up in ye. My boys is neither better nor worse than others, but when I say that I don’t aim to have you walk with ’em, I say what is my right. What I owed yo’ daddy, and my dead brother, has been paid out—hit’s been paid plumb out.”
Now that it was made plain, Blatch took the dismissal hardily. Perhaps he had been more or less prepared for it, knowing as he would have phrased it that his uncle wanted but half a chance to break with him. He was aware, too, that the secret of his illicit traffic was safe in the old man’s hands, and that indeed Jephthah would strain a point to defend him for the name’s sake if for nothing else.
“All right,” he said, “ef them’s yo’ ruthers, hit suits me. What do you-all boys say?—I reckon Unc’ Jep’ll let ye speak for yo’selves—this one time.”
“I say what pap says,” came promptly from Wade. And, “Jeff an’ me thinks it’s about time pap’s word went with his boys,” put in the younger and more emotional Andy.
“All right, all right,” agreed Blatch in some haste, finding the battle to go thus sweepingly against him. “I wont expect no opinions from you, podner, tell you’ve had time to run home an’ ax Iley what air they. Ye ain’t named Judith, Unc’ Jep,” he went on, glancing to where the girl knelt on the hearthstone dishing up corn pones from the Dutch oven. “Cain’t she come over and visit me when she has a mind?”