“Them’s all old offenses, ennyhows,” argued the woman. “But this hyar, what ye men air a-layin’ off ter do”—
“‘Ye men’!” sneered her husband. “Ye war the bouncin’est one o’ the whole lay-out fur doin’ of it.”
“But, Lord A’mighty,” she protested, “who’d ever hev thunk o’ sech a smart thing ez markin’ his trail ter the very door? He mus’ be the devil. Smart enough, ennyways!”
She clashed her pots and pans once more, and moved about heavily across the floor.
“I ain’t misdoubtin’ but what he air a big man whar he hails from, an’ they sets store by him, an’ they’d be mighty apt ter stir round powerful arter him ef he was los’. An’ this would be a new offense,—sure ter git fund out. An’ Lord knows, we-uns hev been runned mighty nigh ter the jumpin’-off place from the face o’ the yearth, an’ I want ter be let ter set down, an’ ketch my breath, an’ see Philetus grow an’ git hearty, an’ let me hev a chance ter die in peace.”
Once more Jeb’s rumbling voice rose along the stairway.
“Shet up, Jeb!” she cried. “Ye hev jes’ been a-settin’ thar all the night a-shakin’ yer head, an’ a-lowin’ ye wisht he hed done suthin’ mean ter ye, so ez in gittin’ rid o’ him yer feelins wouldn’t be hurt. Now yer feelins air safe, an’ ye ain’t got no mo’ thankfulness ’n that thar cross-eyed, mangy hound fur the loan o’ a pipe.”
The mystery of cerebration; the strange, unmeasured force which works in uncomprehended methods to unforeseen results; the subtle process now formulating, and now erasing, an idea, like the characters of a palimpsest, was never so potently present to Harshaw as in contemplating the inspiration, the lucky thought, that had given him back to life, to hope, to sheer identity. He took himself to task, knowing that the obvious, the natural, the simple suggestion had lain all the evening in his mind, waiting the effective moment. He reproached himself that he should have suffered the agony of fright which he had endured. “I might have known,” he argued within himself, in his bluff vanity, “that I’d come out all right.”
He fell asleep, presently, and when he was roused he rose with so genuine a reluctance that the last lurking doubt which Marvin and “hongry Jeb” had entertained vanished, as he went yawning down the ladder.