It was a lambent evening in the final week of August when Garvin carried the fever-wasted convalescent to the door of the cabin and propped him in a rustic chair builded for the occasion.
"How's that?" he demanded, standing back to get the general effect of man and chair. "Ain't I a jack-leg carpenter, all right? Now you just brace up and swaller all the outdoors you can hold while I smoke me a pipe."
He sat down on the doorstep and filled and lighted his pipe. After a few deep-drawn whiffs, he said, "Don't tire you none to be a-settin' up, does it?"
"No." Jeffard turned slowly and sniffed the pungent fragrance of the burning tobacco with a vague return of the old craving. "Have you another pipe?" he queried. "I believe I'd enjoy a whiff or two with you."
"Now just listen at that, will you?" Garvin growled, masking his joy under a transparent affectation of disgust. "Me takin' care of him like he was a new-borned baby, and him a-settin' there, cool as a blizzard, askin' for a pipe! If I wasn't a bloomin' angel, just waitin' for my wings to sprout, I'd tell him to go to blazes, that's about what I'd do."
None the less, he went in and found a clean corncob, filling it and giving it to Jeffard with a lighted match. The convalescent smoked tentatively for a few minutes, pausing longer between the whiffs until the fire and the tobacco-hunger died out together. After which he said what was in his mind.
"Garvin, old man, you must begin work to-morrow," he began. "I can take care of myself now, and in a few days I hope I'll be able to take hold with you. You've lost too much time tinkering with me. I'm not worth it."
"We'll find out about that when we get you on to the crank o' that win'lass," said Garvin sententiously. "Man's a good deal like a horse,—vallyble accordin' to location. They tell me that back in God's country, where I was raised, horses ain't worth their winter keep since the 'lectric cars come in; but out yere I've seen the time when a no-account, gristly little bronco, three parts wire and five parts pure cussedness, 'u'd a-been worth his weight in bullion."
Jeffard picked the application out of the parable, and smiled.
"You've got your bronco," he asserted. "When you're a little better acquainted with me you'll find your definition isn't far wrong. I used to think I was a halfway decent sort of fellow, Garvin, but I believe the last few months have flailed all the whole wheat out of me, leaving nothing but the musty chaff."