When the last footstep had lost itself in the still streets the proprietor turned to the big young man who was sitting on an ice-cream table, carelessly swinging his feet.
"I feel so damn funny," said the proprietor, "and all shook up to-night. And I don't know whether it all really happened or whether I just dreamed it—the little woman with the blue eyes and the soft-faced little guy. Say, parson, what were they after, anyway?"
"Williams," the parson made grave answer, "I rather think those two were looking for their children." And Cynthia's son told the story of Joe and Hattie and Mrs. Dustin and Peter as Green Valley had told it to him. And when it was told the two men sat still and listened to the little wind mourning somewhere outside.
"Yes—that's it. They were looking for their children. If mine hadn't a-died that's maybe what I'd be doing now. Oh, God, parson, I'm in wrong again. I've been in wrong ever since Annie died. If she was alive I'd be working in a machine shop somewheres, bringing home my twenty-two a week with more for overtime and going around with my wife and the kid and living natural, like other men. My God," he groaned, "the lights just went out when she went and I've been stumbling around in the dark, not knowing how to live or die.
"I quit work the day after I buried her. What was the use of working then? I had half a mind to blow in all I had but I couldn't. Seemed like she was still there with me, trying to cheer me up. I slunk around like a shadow for months. And then I got hungry for people. A single man don't get asked around much and he's got to hang around with the boys.
"So I took what money I had and started a pool-room. I thought maybe I'd feel better seeing people around all day. Well—it wasn't so bad. But one night a little woman with a baby in her arms came to the door and begged me to send her husband home and not let him play in my place any more. She said she had no milk for the baby and no fire, that he was spending everything he earned in my poolroom.
"So help me, God, parson, that part of it had never struck me. I ain't bright and never was. But I ain't no skunk. I give that woman some of her own money back and that week I sold out at a loss and slunk around some more. I couldn't go back to my own work. I had a grudge against it, someway. By and by the money was all gone and an old pal of mine offered to set me up in business out here, away from the city and old memories. And here I am again—the same old fool and numbskull. I'll sell out this week and git. What I'll do I don't know. I'm not a smart man. It was always Annie that did the heavy thinking and the advising and had the ideas for starting things."
The boy who was born in India, who had heard hundreds of gripping, human tales in that land of story and proverb, listened as if this was the first breath of grief his heart had ever experienced. Then he took the dead Annie's place.
"Williams, sometime next spring, Billy Evans is going to add a garage to his livery barn. He'll need a mechanic. That will be just the place for you. In the meantime I'm buying a little car and am in need of a driver. So until Billy is ready you'd better come and bach with me. The farm is big and I'm nearly as lonely at times as you are."
And he told his poolroom friend a tale of India and of two plain white stones that lay somewhere within the heart of it.