“No, I reckon it ain’t,” Old Jerry rushed on. “And I don’t know’s I’ve got much right criticizing either. Not very much! I’ve been a tidy hand at jedgin’ other folks’ matters until jest lately. Some way I ain’t quite so handy at it as I was. And I kinda expect she’s goin’ to be sorry she even thought it, soon enough, without my tryin’ to make her any more so. She’s goin’ to be mighty uncomfortable sorry, if she’s anything like me!”
He rose and shuffled across to the door, and stopped there. Denny could not understand the new thrill there was in his cracked voice, nor the light in those pale eyes. But he knew that the old man before him had been making something close akin to an eleventh-hour confession; making it out of a profound thankfulness for the opportunity. With the same gesture with which he bade the old man wait, his big hand went inside his shirt, and came out again. And he reached out and pressed something into Old Jerry’s knotty fingers.
“I––I was sure you’d do it,” he told him. “I knew you would. And I want you to take this, too, and keep it. I don’t want to go away like this, but I have to. If I didn’t start right now I––I might not go at all. I hate to leave her alone––in this town. That’s half of what the Judge let me have today on this place. It’s not much, but it’s something if she 140 should need anything while I’m gone. I thought you might––see that she was all right––till I got back?”
The servant of the “Gov’mint” stood and stared down at the limp little roll of bills in his hand; he stared until something caught in his throat and made him gulp again noisily. But his face was shamelessly defiant of the mist that smarted under his eyelids when he looked up again.
“Take care of her?” he whispered. “Me take care of her for you? Why––why, Godfrey––why, man–––”
He dashed one hand across his eyes.
“I’m a old gossipy fool,” he exclaimed. “Nothin’ but a old gossipy fool; but I reckon you don’t hev to count them bills over before you leave ’em with me. Not unless you want to. I’ve been just an ordinary, common waggle-tongue. That’s what I really come for in such a hurry tonight, once I’d thought of it. Jest to see if I couldn’t nose around into business that wa’n’t no concern of mine. But I’m gittin’ over that––I’m gittin’ over that fast! Learning a little dignity of bearin’, too, as you might say. And I don’t deny I ain’t a little curious yet––more’n a little curious. But I want to tell you this: There’s some folks that lies mostly for profit, and some that lies largely for their own amusement, and they both do jest about as much damage in the long run, and I ain’t no better, jest because I never made nothin’ outen 141 mine. But if you could kinda drop me a line, maybe once in a while, and tell me how you’re gittin’ on, I’d be mighty glad to hear. An’ it wouldn’t do no harm, either.” He nodded his head, in turn, in the direction of the drab cottage across the valley. “Because––because she’s goin’ to be waitin’ to hear––she’s goin’ to be sorry, and kinda wonderin’. I know––well, jest because I know!”
Still he lingered, with his fingers on the door catch. He shoved out his free hand.
“I––I suppose we’d ought to shake hands, hedn’t we,” he faltered; “bein’ as it’s kinda considered the reg’lar and customary thing to do on such occasions?”
Denny was smiling as his hand closed over those clawlike fingers; he was smiling in a way that Old Jerry had never seen before. Because the noise in his throat was growing alarmingly louder every moment, the latter went on talking almost wildly, to cover that weakness which he could not control.