Abner took up the ball with solicitous promptitude. “A very great man, Lorenzo Dow was—in his way,” he remarked.
“By grace he was spared the shame and humiliation,” said Hagadorn, lifting his voice as he went on—“the humiliation of living to see one whole branch of the Church separate itself from the rest—withdraw and call itself the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in defence of human slavery!”
Esther, red-faced with embarrassment, intervened peremptorily. “How can you, father!” she broke in. “For all you know he might have been red-hot on that side himself! In fact, I dare say he would have been. How on earth can you know to the contrary, anyway?”
Jee was all excitement on the instant, at the promise of an argument. His eyes flashed; he half rose from his seat and opened his mouth to reply. So much had he to say, indeed, that the words stumbled over one another on his tongue, and produced nothing, but an incoherent stammering sound, which all at once was supplanted by a violent fit of coughing. So terrible were the paroxysms of this seizure that when they had at last spent their fury the poor man was trembling like a leaf and toppled in his chair as if about to swoon. Esther had hovered about over him from the outset of the fit, and now looked up appealingly to Abner. The farmer rose, walked down the table-side, and gathered Jee's fragile form up under one big engirdling arm. Then, as the girl hastily dragged forth the tick and blankets again and spread them into the rough semblance of a bed, Abner half led, half carried the cooper over and gently laid him down thereon. Together they fixed up some sort of pillow for him with hay under the blanket, and piled him snugly over with quilts and my comfortable.
“There—you'll be better layin' down,” said Abner, soothingly. Hagadorn closed his eyes wearily and made no answer. They left him after a minute or two and returned to the table.
The rest of the breakfast was finished almost wholly in silence. Every once in a while Abner and Esther would exchange looks, his gravely kind, hers gratefully contented, and these seemed really to render speech needless. For my own part, I foresaw with some degree of depression that there would soon be no chance whatever of my securing attention in the rôle of an invalid, at least in this part of the barn.
Perhaps, however, they might welcome me in the kitchen part, as a sort of home-product rival to the sick cooper. I rose and walked languidly out into M'rye's domain. But the two women were occupied with a furious scrubbing of rescued pans for the morning's milk, and they allowed me to sit feebly down on the wood-box behind the stove without so much as a glance of sympathy.
By and by we heard one of the great front doors rolled back on its shrieking wheels and then shut to again. Someone had entered, and in a moment there came some strange, inarticulate sounds of voices which showed that the arrival had created a commotion. M'rye lifted her head, and I shall never forget the wild, expectant flashing of her black eyes in that moment of suspense.
“Come in here, mother!” we heard Abner's deep voice call out from beyond the democrat wagon. “Here's somebody wants to see you!”
M'rye swiftly wiped her hands on her apron and glided rather than walked toward the forward end of the barn. Janey Wilcox and I followed close upon her heels, dodging together under the wagon-pole, and emerging, breathless and wild with curiosity, on the fringe of an excited group.