“I hain’t set down ter sech a meal o’ vittles sence I war ter your house,” he remarked gleefully as he drew his chair to the table and helped himself liberally to the homely fare. “A squar’ meal will do me a heap more good’n medsun. If I war reel sodden in selfishness, I’d wish you hadn’t any kin and could stay right along here with me. But I ain’t, I’m thankful you’ve got a better place’n this ol’ shack.”
Talitha looked at him curiously. She had never seen her old schoolmaster in such a kindly, paternal mood. In her younger days, the lean, spectacled face had inspired her with awe and a kind of terror. But since her return from Bentville she thought of him with pity, not unmingled with contempt, at his ignorance and dogged belief in the strange theories which still prevailed in the isolated portions of the mountains. She looked at the haggard old face that showed unmistakable signs of past suffering, with a troubled conscience.
At last Si Quinn leaned back with a long sigh of satisfaction. “I reckon you’ve ’bout saved my life, Tally. I war beginnin’ ter feel hit warn’t much use ter hold on ter this world when thar warn’t nobody seemin’ ter care speshul. Then you came along jest as though you’d been blowed acrost the mountings. I’m mighty cur’us ’bout hit, Tally. Only a couple o’ days ago, Dan Gooch looked in and said you-uns, and Ab and Gincy, hed started fer school. Did the folks down thar reckon you’d hed ’nough larnin’ and send you back?”
Talitha hesitated. She wisely felt the need of being very cautious as to the report which would go abroad. “We did go,” she acknowledged, “but the Girls’ Hall was full—just running over, the dean said—and the folks around had taken all they could. There wasn’t another one could be squeezed in, so I came—back,” she concluded, a renewed sense of her disappointment nearly overwhelming her.
“Whar’s Gincy?” demanded the old man keenly.
“Oh, she stayed. She hasn’t ever had a chance, you know. She’d have been terribly disappointed to have had to come home, and so would her father; he’s been lottin’ on it all summer. I’m so glad they let her stay,” Talitha added, fervently hoping that her secret had not slipped out unaware.
“Hit’s cur’us, mighty cur’us,” mused Si Quinn, looking off into the fire as though he had not heard a word Talitha had been saying. “Here I’d been askin’ and askin’ the Lord ter send you here, then Dan Gooch comes ’long and ’lows I won’t set eyes on you agin till next summer and here you be. Ain’t hit cur’us?”
“I never heard you were sick,” faltered the girl. “I’d have come before if I’d only known.”
“That wan’t hit,” rejoined the schoolmaster. “I’ve allers done fer myself, sick or well. I hain’t ever been used ter bein’ coddled afore, that ain’t what’s on my mind, Tally. I wanted ter tell you thet I’ve been a sorry teacher, but I never sensed hit till you-uns came back from Bentville. I never had no sech chance ter git larnin’, and hit seems a turrible pity you couldn’t hev stayed, but I know ’thout your tellin’ me that you-uns came back ter give Gincy a chanct—”
“Oh, you mustn’t tell,” implored Talitha. “Father’d be so angry.”