“Set down in thet cheer and be still,” commanded the old man.
Jake dropped obediently into a seat.
“I ’lowed you war out’n the kentry. Why didn’t you make tracks when you had a chanct?”
“I did aim ter,” answered Jake Simcox, “but I fell, crawlin’ over thet ledge by the Gulch, and I didn’t know nothin’ till this mornin’. I could hear the men thrashin’ the bushes all ’round me, but I was jest out of sight of ’em. I wish fer the land they’d tuk me then and thar and done with hit.”
“The way of a transgressor is shorely hard,” exclaimed the old man pityingly.
“I didn’t go fer ter fire the place, Si, I shore didn’t. I jest thought ter burn the books and sech. Oh, I don’t know what made me do hit, ’less I was plumb crazy!” Jake bowed his head in his hands and groaned in agony.
The schoolmaster set the coffee pot upon the coals, where it simmered gently. “Sho now, Jake,” he said kindly, “you’re all beat out. Draw up and hev a bite; hit ain’t much but hit’ll put some heart in you. I don’t cornsider thet jest burnin’ thet old shack war sech a turrible sin; hit war the sperit you done hit in. You did ’low to burn all thet pore gal spent most of her savin’s on, and thet was the meanest part of the hull bizness. I allers said thet temper of yours would bring you ter grief. Hit’s like a skeery hoss critter; when hit gits loose you never can cal’late on all the didos hit’s goin’ ter cut up. Do you think thet if you hed another chanct you hev got grit ’nough ter turn ’round in your tracks?”
Jake reached a hand over the table and grasped the hard, shrivelled one. “Oh, I shore would if I could only hev hit,” he answered humbly. “I shore would, but hit’s too late.”
“Hit ain’t,” contradicted the old man cheerfully. “So long as you see the error of your ways, I’ll see thet you git out of this bizness hopin’ hit’s a lesson you won’t forgit.”
Until Jake Simcox was able both mentally and physically to make the journey, he remained in the schoolmaster’s cabin, hiding away in the little loft at the least sign of danger.