"That is like enough," he returned gravely; "but I want you to remember my words, foolish or not. Don't let me stand in your light—not for one minute; and don't forgit this: that Joe Chillis is happy when he sees the White Rose bloomin' and bright."
Contrary to his command, Mrs. Smiley did endeavor to forget these words in the weeks following, when the old mountain-man came no more to her rose-embowered cottage, and when Captain Rumway invented many ingenious schemes for getting the pale school-teacher to take more recreation and fresh air. She endeavored to forget them, but she could not, though her resolve to ignore them was as strong as it ever had been when her burdens had seemed lighter! But in spite of her resolve, and in spite of the fact that it could not be said that any encouragement had been given to repeat his addresses, Rumway continued to work at his house and grounds steadily, and, to all appearance, hopefully. And although he never consulted Mrs. Smiley now concerning the arrangement of either, he showed that he remembered her suggestions of the year before, by following them out without deviation.
Thus quietly, without incident, the June days slipped away, and the perfect July weather returned once more, when there was always a chair or two out on the sunset porch at evening. At last Chillis re-appeared, and took a seat in one of them, quite in the usual way. He had been away, he said, attending to some business.
"An' I have fixed that matter all right about the boy's schoolin'," he added. "The papers are made out in the clerk's office, an' will be sent to you as soon as they are recorded. There are five hundred and forty acres, which you will know how to manage better than I can tell you. You can sell by and by, ef you can't yet the money out of it any other way. The taxes won't be much, the land being unimproved."
"You do not mean that you have deeded all your land to Willie?" asked Mrs. Smiley. "I protest against it: he must not have it! Would you let us rob you," she asked wonderingly. "What are you to do, by and by, as you say?"
"Me? I shall do well enough. Money is o' no use to me. But ef I should want a meal or a blanket that I couldn't get, the boy wouldn't see me want them long. Ef he forgot old Joe Chillis, his mother wouldn't, I reckon."
"You pay too high a price for our remembrance, Mr. Chillis; we are not worth it. But why do you talk of forgetting? You are not going away from us?"
"Yes; I am goin' to start to-morrow for my old stampin' ground, east o' the mountains. My only livin' son is over there, somewhar. He don't amount to much—the Indian in him is too strong; but, like enough, he will be glad to see his father afore I die. An' I want to git away from here."
"You will come back? Promise me you will come back?" For something in his voice, and his settled expression of melancholy and renunciation, made her fear he was taking this step for a reason that could not be named between them.
"It is likely," he said; "but ef I come or no, don't fret about me. Just remember this that I am tellin' you now. The day I first saw you was the most fortunate day of my life. Ef I hadn't a-met you, I should have died as I had lived—like a creature without a soul. An' now I have a soul, in you. An' when I come to die, as I shall before many years, I shall die happy, thinkin' how my old hands had served the sweetest woman under heaven, and how they had been touched by hers so kindly, many a time, when she condescended to serve me."