Joel read the letter aloud, something—some sturdy uprightness of his own, no doubt—blinding him to its significance.
"Will you read it ag'in, neighbor? I'm not over-quick."
The man's voice was a revelation full of an unutterable hurt, like the cry of some dumb wounded thing.
And Joel read it again, choking with indignation now at every word.
"Thank ye, neighbor. I'll trouble you to write a line thankin' him; that's all."
He got up heavily, staggering a little as he crossed the floor, and went out into the yellow sunlight. There was the long, sun-kissed slope, the huge pile of twisted roots, the rude shanty with its clambering vines. The humming of bees in the sage went on drowsily. Life, infinitely shrunken, was life still. A more cultured grief might have swooned or cried out. This man knew no such refuge; even the poor relief of indignation was denied to him. None of the thousand wild impulses that come to men smitten like him flitted across his clouded brain. He only knew to take up his burden dumbly and go on. If he had been wiser, could he have known more?
No one spoke of the blow that had fallen upon him. The sympathy that met him came in the warmer clasp of hard hands and the softening of rough voices, none the worse certainly for its quietness. Alone with her husband, however, good Mrs. Brandt's wrath bubbled incessantly.
"It's a crying, burning, blistering shame, Joel, that's what it is. I s'pose it's the Lord's doings, but I can't see through it."
"If the Lord's up to that kind o' business, Barbara, I don't see no further use fer the devil," was the dry response.
These plain, honest folk never dreamed of intruding upon their neighbor's grief with poor suggestions of requital. Away in the city across the mountains men babbled of remedies at law. But this man's hurt was beyond the jurisdiction of any court. Day by day the hollow cough grew more frequent, and the awkward step slower. Nobody asked him to quit his work now. Even Mrs. Brandt shrank from the patient misery of his face when idle. He came into her kitchen one evening, choosing the old quiet corner, and following her with his eyes silently.