Yet William King said to Dr. Lavendar that he thought that if the old man could be induced to talk of his grandson, he might rally. "He never speaks of him," the doctor said, "but I am sure he is brooding over him all the time. Once or twice I have referred to the boy, but he pretends not to hear me. He's using up all his strength to bear the idea that he is to blame, I wish I could tell him that he isn't," the doctor ended, sighing.
They had met in the hall as William was coming down-stairs and Dr. Lavendar going up. Simmons, who had been shuffling about with a decanter and hospitable suggestions, had disappeared into the dining-room.
"Well," said Dr. Lavendar, "why don't you tell him? Though in fact, perhaps he is to blame in some way that we don't know? You remember, he said he had 'angered the boy'?"
"No; that wasn't it," said William.
Dr. Lavendar looked at him with sudden attention. "Then what—" he began, but a lean, freckled shadow in the dining-room doorway, spoke up:
"Maybe he might 'a' made Marster Sam's Sam mad, suh, that night; maybe he might 'a'. But that weren't no reason," said Simmons, in a quivering voice, "for a boy to hit out and give his own grandfather a lick. No, suh; it warn't. An' call him a liar!" Dr. Lavendar and William King stared at each other and at the old man, in shocked dismay. "His grandfather used words, maybe, onc't in a while," Simmons mumbled on, "but they didn't mean no mo'n skim-milk. Don't I know? He's damned me for forty years, but he'll go to heaven all the same. The Lawd wouldn't hold it up agin' him. if a pore nigger wouldn't. If He would, I'd as lief go to hell with Mr. Benjamin as any man I know. Yes, suh, as I would with you yo'self, Dr. Lavendar. He was cream kind; yes, he was! One o' them pore white-trash boys at Morison's shanty Town, called me 'Ashcat' onc't; Mr. Wright he cotched him, and licked him with his own hands, suh! An' he was as kind to Marster Sam as if he was a baby. But Marster Sam hit him a lick. No, suh; it weren't right—" Simmons rubbed the cuff of his sleeve over his eyes, and the contents of the tilting decanter dribbled down the front of his spotted old coat.
"Simmons," said Dr. Lavendar, "what had they been quarrelling about?"
But Simmons said glibly, that 'fore the Lawd, he didn't know.
"He does know," said Dr. Lavendar, as the man again retired to his pantry. "But, after all, the subject of the quarrel doesn't make any difference. To think that the boy struck him! That must be a satisfaction to Benjamin."
"A satisfaction?" William repeated, bewildered.