A deep sigh, like the passing of cave winds, came from the old woman's throat.
"Praise de Lawd," she murmured. "I see now you'se not, honey; but jest why is too much fer me. Run 'long befoh Aunt Timmie make a fool of herse'f. Dat man's oudacious wickedness is got to be stopped—but you leave dat to me! Some day I'se gwine send fer you, an' you'se comin' widout axin' why. Heah dat? Run 'long, now; an' Gawd bress de li'l lamb!"
There was a riot of confusion in her mind as she climbed back into the buggy and scolded the old mule until he awoke—or pretended to awake. The universe as she had arranged it, as she had fitted it together into a mosaic picture before her cabin hearth-stone, was wrong. The little cubes were all askew. The technique was false. This girl, whom she had put into the pile of relics strewn along Brent's path, was no relic at all, and did not belong there. Dale, whom she had staged to rival that other gaunt nobleman of Nature—the product of Kentucky who began life not more than half a hundred miles from the very soil over which she now was driving, who had likewise toiled and endured much for an education; who had emancipated her race; whom, with latter day pride, she declared she had seen in his boyhood;—had now ruined his chances of being President by killing a man. She rocked slowly and pitifully to and fro, as the old mule ambled on, bemoaning the mess of pied cubes that now stood only for destroyed symmetry—a recalcitrant universe. She may have derived some comfort from the anticipation of rearranging Nancy to a nicer part, but this was vastly overshadowed by grief at Dale's untimely act.
She was not guiding the mule, and it turned of its own accord into the winding woodland road to Flat Rock. She probably did not realize home was so near until a gentle voice called her name.
Jane was on the lawn, beneath a low spreading, rambling maple tree whose summer shade had not for years been pierced by a single shaft of sunlight. A rustic table and some rustic chairs were there. It was a spot she chose for the examination of Dale's papers.
Aunt Timmie went on and tied the mule, but tarried not to change her freshly starched calico dress. This was no day whereon to spare clothes. Atop her red bandanna a sunbonnet perched neglected. A small, aggressive tuft of white wool had squeezed below this head-kerchief and was being held in check by ponderous silver-rimmed spectacles, absently pushed up on her forehead. Such an excess of head gear seemed excuse enough for the perspiration trickling down her face as she now looked sorrowfully at the girl.
"Is dem sums?" she asked.
With the pencil end between her teeth, Jane looked up and nodded.
"Well," Aunt Timmie sighed, "he's done done a sum now dat beats 'em all holler! I got to set down, honey; mah bones is jest cussin' wid misery."
Aunt Timmie, as may have been mentioned, never betrayed a secret except to the one confidant she implicitly trusted. This was Jane. And Jane would not breathe her trust but to the one person with whom she knew all things were safe. This was Ann. And Ann would have gone smilingly and willingly to the rack rather than whisper a word, except to Bob. And thus it was that, in the last resort, the stream from Uncle Zack's spring of secrets trickled through many silent places to pour itself into Bob's casual reservoirs.