“Reckon I’m hungry, reckon I’m tired—and you, Mrs. Tom, are as the widow of Zarephath, who ministered to Elijah in the dearth. May you be rewarded and find your bacon ration as the widow’s cruse this week.”
He was beginning definitely to enjoy her company. Thyrza’s charm was of the comfortable, pervasive kind that attracted all sorts of men in every station. He found that he liked to listen to her soft, drawly voice, to watch her slow, heavy movements, to gaze at her tranquil face with the hair like flowering grass. She at once soothed and stimulated him. She encouraged him to talk, and when the edge was off his appetite, he did so, telling her a little of what had happened to him the last night and day.
“And what do you think I’ve learned by it all, Mrs. Tom? What do you think my trouble’s taught me?”
Thyrza shook her head. In her simple life trouble came and went without any lesson but its patient bearing.
“It’s taught me I’m a blacksmith, and no minister.”
“Reckon you’re both,” said Thyrza.
“No—I’m not—I’m just the smith. And to prove it to you, from this day forward I shall not teach or preach another word.”
“Wot! give up the Bethel!—not be minister here any more?”
“Not here nor anywhere. I’m no minister—I’ve never been a minister.”
“But——”