And my father stood behind the table in the enclosure of the window, with his arms folded, and his chin lifted above his great black stock. I know how my father looked, for I have seen him stand like that before moving factors in great events, when he intended, at a certain cue, to enter.
He said that it was at this point that Mr. Lucian Morrow's early comment on Zindorf seemed, all at once, to discover the nature of this whole affair. He said that suddenly, with a range of vision like the great figures in the Pentateuch, he saw how things right and true would work out backward into abominations, if, by any chance, the virtue of God in events were displaced!
Zindorf returned, and as he stepped through the door, closing it behind him, the far-off tolling of the bell, faint, eerie, carried by a stronger breath of April air, entered through the window. My father extended his arm toward the distant wood.
“Zindorf,” he said, “do you mark the sign?” The man listened.
“What sign?” he said.
“The sign of death!” replied my father.
The man made a deprecating gesture with his hands, “I do not believe in signs,” he said.
My father replied like one corrected by a memory.
“Why, yes,” he said, “that is true. I should have remembered that. You do not believe in signs, Zindorf, since you abandoned the sign of the cross, and set these coarse patches on your knees to remind you not to bend them in the sign of submission to the King of Kings.”
The intent in the mended clothing was the economy of avarice, but my father turned it to his use.