The Widow Tarwater was in truth a pleasing vision.
Not once had Ambrose Thompson left her side, yet he had been uncommonly silent. Thoughts, rose coloured as a boy's dream of a holiday, were floating before his mind's eye; he had been but dimly conscious that two plates of warm soup had lately flowed into him the while the conversation around him flowed on unceasingly. For the spirit of romance, which is an eternal though elusive thing, was surely taking fresh hold on him this evening as his pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and only Miner Hobbs, the little wooden figure of a man seated several tables off, was yet aware of his friend's exalted state.
At the present moment the Rev. Elias Tupper was talking to the widow. He had but lately traversed the room crowded with tables and resplendent with decorations of harvest apples, pumpkins, goldenrod and tall tasselled stalks of corn, dispensing pleasantries as one would lollipops; and now amid much joking, laughter, and nudging had been allowed to take his place next the widow, only the legislator, who was making but a few weeks' visit in Pennyroyal, appearing disquieted.
It was past seven o'clock and assuredly the new Baptist Sunday-school room was now the centre of Pennyroyal's social activities, when unexpectedly the tall figure of a boy lurched into the room—Pennyroyal's black sheep, a boy taller than any man in the village save Ambrose Thompson.
There was a dismayed flutter and then an uncomfortable silence.
Now there are black sheep and black sheep with extenuating circumstances, but this boy had none of the extenuating circumstances—a respectable family, money in the bank, or a line of distinguished but self-indulgent ancestors; no, he was simply a sandy-haired, loose-jointed boy of about twenty-one who worked about the Widow Tarwater's stables—one of nature's curious anomalies, a boy without a father.
He looked about the homely, cheerful company at first with defiance, and then, feeling the weight of his loneliness and degradation, fell to crying foolishly. "I don't see why I ain't a right to your church social; if I ain't no name of my own, I got to be the son of some man in this town!"
It was such a sudden, unlooked for accusation piercing the holy covering of every hard-shelled Baptist brother in the new Sunday-school room that for the moment the little group of men were staggered. Then while they were making up their minds as to which one should have the privilege of throwing out the intruder, a familiar tall figure was seen crossing the floor, and putting his arm about the lubbering, drunken boy.
"Come along, sonnie; steady now," he whispered, leading him quickly away.
Half an hour later, sauntering back to the church social, Uncle Ambrose found that supper time was past and that the tables having been cleared away there was more and more room for conversation. Once again he sought the Widow Tarwater's side, but this time was received more graciously, for, putting out a trembling hand, she clasped Uncle Ambrose's with gratitude. "I'm obliged to you, Ambrose Thompson," she said. "That boy's ever been a thorn in my flesh. I have kept him at the farm because my late husband was good to him, but after to-night I don't feel called to have him stay on."