He wished he had turned back for a word. He wished his mother might know he was well and happy. He began to feel that he could go no further without making his peace with her. So one day he left his employer with the promise to return the following week, "ef the Lord spares me an' nuthin' happens," as the cautious rural formula has it, and set out for his home.
The mists had lifted from it, but the snow had fallen deep. Poor Valley lay white and drear—it seemed to him that he had never before known how drear—between the grim mountain with its great black crags, its chasms, its gaunt, naked trees, and the long line of flinty hills, whose stunted pines bent with the weight of the snow.
There was no smoke from the chimney of the blacksmith's shop. There were no footprints about the door. An atmosphere charged with calamity seemed to hang over the dwelling. Somehow he knew that a dreadful thing had happened even before he opened the door and saw his mother's mournful white face.
She sprang up at the sight of him with a wild, sobbing cry that was half grief, half joy. He had only a glimpse of the interior,—of Jube, looking anxious and unnaturally grave; of the listless children, grouped about the fire; of the big, burly blacksmith, with a strange, deep pallor upon his face, and as he shifted his position—why, how was that?
The boy's mother had thrust him out of the door, and closed it behind her. The jar brought down from the low eaves a few feathery flakes of snow, which fell upon her hair as she stood there with him.
"Don't say nuthin' 'bout'n it," she implored. "He can't abide ter hear it spoke of."
"What ails dad's hand?" he asked, bewildered.
"It's gone!" she sobbed. "He war over ter the sawmill the day ye lef'—somehow 'nuther the saw cotched it—the doctor tuk it off."
"His right hand!" cried Ike, appalled.
The blacksmith would never lift a hammer again. And there the forge stood, silent and smokeless.