Laban smiled. “The folks in Washington are doin' their best to help me out,” he said. “They're goin' to take the stuff away from everybody so's to make sure I don't get any more. They'll probably put up a monument to me for startin' the thing; don't you think they will, Al? Eh? Don't you, now?”
Albert and he walked up the road together. Laban told a little more of his battle with John Barleycorn.
“I had half a dozen spells when I had to set my teeth, those I've got left, and hang on,” he said. “And the hangin'-on wa'n't as easy as stickin' to fly-paper, neither. Honest, though, I think the hardest was when the news came that you was alive, Al. I—I just wanted to start in and celebrate. Wanted to whoop her up, I did.” He paused a moment and then added, “I tried whoopin' on sass'parilla and vanilla sody, but 'twa'n't satisfactory. Couldn't seem to raise a real loud whisper, let alone a whoop. No, I couldn't—no, no.”
Albert laughed and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You're all right, Labe,” he declared. “I know you, and I say so.”
Laban slowly shook his head. His smile, as he answered, was rather pathetic.
“I'm a long, long ways from bein' all right, Al,” he said. “A long ways from that, I am. If I'd made my fight thirty year ago, I might have been nigher to amountin' to somethin'. . . . Oh, well, for Rachel's sake I'm glad I've made it now. She's stuck to me when everybody would have praised her for chuckin' me to Tophet. I was readin' one of Thackeray's books t'other night—Henry Esmond, 'twas; you've read it, Al, of course; I was readin' it t'other night for the ninety-ninth time or thereabouts, and I run across the place where it says it's strange what a man can do and a woman still keep thinkin' he's an angel. That's true, too, Al. Not,” with the return of the slight smile, “that Rachel ever went so far as to call me an angel. No, no. There's limits where you can't stretch her common-sense any farther. Callin' me an angel would be just past the limit. Yes, yes, yes. I guess SO.”
They spoke of Captain Zelotes and Olive and of their grief and discouragement when the news of Albert's supposed death reached them.
“Do you know,” said Labe, “I believe Helen Kendall's comin' there for a week did 'em more good than anything else. She got away from her soldier nursin' somehow—must have been able to pull the strings consider'ble harder'n the average to do it—and just came down to the Snow place and sort of took charge along with Rachel. Course she didn't live there, her father thought she was visitin' him, I guess likely, but she was with Cap'n Lote and Olive most of the time. Rachel says she never made a fuss, you understand, just was there and helped and was quiet and soft-spoken and capable and—and comfortin', that's about the word, I guess. Rachel always thought a sight of Helen afore that, but since then she swears by her.”
That evening—or, rather, that night, for they did not leave the sitting room until after twelve—Mrs. Snow heard her grandson walking the floor of his room, and called to ask if he was sick.
“I'm all right, Grandmother,” he called in reply. “Just taking a little exercise before turning in, that's all. Sorry if I disturbed you.”