"Ain't you never goin' to stop mopin', Ambrose Thompson? I'm sick of lookin' at you," she said. "Seems like there's nothin' on this earth more tryin' than the way some folks act dead 'cause some one they love is. Ef the Lord hadn't wanted you to live, man, I reckon He'd 'a' took you with Sarah. 'Tain't likely He wants dead folks on His livin' earth!" And then Mrs. Barrows hurried away to her charge, having left behind her sufficient inspiration to persuade Ambrose to finish the task of tidying up his yard.
"Ain't you never goin' to stop mopin', Ambrose Thompson? I'm sick of lookin' at you"
And so another week went by, Ambrose and Miner in the meanwhile having less to say to each other than at any time in their lives since they had learned to speak, and never meeting any more outside of working hours. Nevertheless when they were together, although Miner's manner continued surly and unapproachable, his eyes constantly watched the face of his former friend, while Ambrose never altered in his old attitude of affection toward him.
Yet on Sunday morning, as Ambrose stood dressing for church in front of his yellow pine bureau, without warning his bedroom door suddenly opened and in stalked Miner. Grave and silent he waited, until when the meeting bell sounded, he started forth to church, leaning as of old on the arm of his friend, and entering his pew sat down beside him.
Ambrose did not pay a great deal of attention to the beginning of the service that day; on coming in he noticed that Susan and Doctor Webb were not in their accustomed places, but afterward he seemed always to have been listening to the August hum of the bees just outside the raised window on his side of the pew. Through it he could also see the deep rose of the ripening pink clover fields, smell their almost overpowering sweetness, till with the weight on his chest which he never shook off these days he wondered if Emily, who loved the outdoors as he did, was not by this time weary of feigning illness.
Then Brother Bibbs so changed the order of the usual Sunday routine that it must have startled Ambrose into consciousness. The elderly man had finished his sermon, but instead of at once announcing the closing hymn to be followed by the benediction, he stood clearing his throat, his little worn face paling with emotion.
"Brether'n and sister'n," he began slowly, "there be faith, hope and charity, these three things, but the greatest of these is charity. I want you now to fall on your knees with me and pray for the life of the young woman lately come into our midst whom we, like the Pharisees of old, have tried to cast out. I want you to pray for that young Yankee school teacher, Miss Emily Dunham, because she is powerful sick, and if the good Lord takes her to Him, I don't see just how we are coming out with the greatest of these three things."
While the rest of the congregation were falling upon their knees Ambrose somehow got himself out of the church, nor did he realize during the moment of his leaving that Miner was there hanging on to his arm. After a time, however, when both men were walking toward the log cabin, he turned to his friend, whispering brokenly: