“I wouldn’t a-spent so much trouble on a joke, widder.”
“No, it don’t seem that you would, Nathan. Well, it’s mighty sudden, mighty sudden, but I can’t say no.”
“Fur these an’ many other blessin’s make us truly thankful, O Lord,” said Nathan devoutly. And he sat another hour with the widow making plans for the early marriage, on which he insisted.
The widow had been settled in Nathan’s home over a month before he had ever thought of telling her of the real motive of his marriage, and every day from the time it occurred to him it grew harder for him to do it.
One night when he had been particularly troubled he sought his friend and counselor with a clouded brow. They sat together in their accustomed place on the fence.
“I’m bothered, Silas.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Why, there’s several things. First off, I ain’t never told the widder that she was a mortification, an’ next she ain’t. I look around at that old house o’ mine that ain’t been a home since mother used to scour the hearth, an’ it makes me feel like singin’ fer joy. An’ I hear them children playin’ round me—they’re the beatenest children; that youngest one called me daddy yistiddy—well, I see ’em playin’ round and my eyes air opened, an’ I see that the widder’s jest another blessin’ added to the rest. It looks to me like I had tried to beat the Almighty.”
“Wall, now, Nathan, I don’t know that you’ve got any cause to feel bothered. You’ve done yore duty. If you’ve tried to mortify yore flesh an’ it refused to mortify, why, that’s all you could do, an’ I believe the Lord’ll take the will fer the deed an’ credit you accordin’ly.”
“Mebbe so, Silas, mebbe so.”