Strange, too, he began about crops an' prices; then he had somethin' to say about the village, and from that to livin' in big cities, an' how such places changes people's natures, makin' women different creatures—more bold, more forgetful of friends, less kindly to their sex, than those of the country; an' he said it all as slowly an' softly an' solemnly as those ministers pray who don't think the Lord's deaf. He seemed to be tryin' to get at somethin' by goin' round it; an' I thought that somethin' was me.
"Neighbor King," I said finally, "you always speak so kindly of women folks that it seems odd to me that you never have a woman on your farm; an' odder still that you've never married."
"Mrs. Pyncheon," his face lightin' up like the sky just before sunrise, "you an' I are old an' tried friends, an' I know you'll respect an' keep secret what I'm going to tell you, an' what, to be plain, I came to tell you. I knew, an' I didn't wonder, that you thought it strange I'd never married. The Lord only knows how I hunger for a woman's love, a woman's talk, a woman's presence where I can see her. I would give all I am worth if I could take a good woman by the hand as my wife, an' go forth even to begin life over again. Hunger an' thirst are terrible; but they are easily borne in comparison with the hunger an' thirst for a woman's love that I have endured for years. No one can realize my lonesomeness, Mrs. Pyncheon;" an' reachin' out he caught my hands in his. "I've been your friend for years. You know it. I believe you've been mine. Will you continue such when I keep from you a truth I dare not tell, an' give you in its place a fact that you must know? I know you to be brave an' strong. You'll be so now, an' secret, too—for no one here knows what I'm goin' to tell you. Mrs. Pyncheon, I am a married man."
I couldn't help it; but the news was so sudden an' so startlin' that my hands came away from his with a wrench, an' I drew away, feelin' hurt an' shamed, if not guilty; an' I felt a flush of anger burnin' my cheeks.
"There! there! don't misjudge me, Mrs. Pyncheon. Pity me, instead. I've made no attempt to deceive you. I've been silent, because I could not talk about a matter that was sad an' sacred. Yes, I'm married; but"—an' great tears came into his eyes—"my wife has been hopelessly insane for ten years. You buried Micah an' mourned for him, knowin' he was dead; I buried my wife alive, God knows whether I've grieved for her. She is in an insane asylum. For years I could not break away an' leave her; it seemed so heartless to desert one who had been the joy an' pride of my youth. But the doctor told me that it was death for me if I stayed; that I could not last more than a year goin' on as I'd been livin'. Now you can understand why I am here, solitary an' hopeless, without a friend—unless I can call you one?"
"You never had a truer one, neighbor King," my heart speakin' out its gratitude. "When I think of what you've done for me, an' how you've thought of me, all when the world was the darkest,—why, it seems as if my life was too short in which to say all my prayers for you."
Perhaps I spoke particularly quick an' spirited, an' perhaps my eyes showed more'n I spoke; for he looked very queerly at me for a minute, his face lightin' up in a way it was unused to, an' then he said, "Thank you, Mrs. Pyncheon; I think I understand. I shall not forget this meetin'. Good-by." An', before I knew what he meant to do, he stooped an' kissed my forehead, an' was out of the house before I could speak.
I wasn't angry; I wasn't hurt. If the truth was given, I was delighted; for I, too, was hungry an' thirsty for a little love. I was woman enough to know what that kiss meant. At the same time I grieved for the poor man, chained, so to speak, to a crazy person, bearin' his unseen burden so uncomplainingly, an' doin' God-like work all the year round. But the more I thought over that kiss, the more I realized that between neighbor King an' myself had been suddenly put up a high wall, he on one side, I on the other; an' that in the future I should see him very seldom.
It happened as I thought. Days passed, an' neighbor King came not. The thumpety-thump of his pony no longer sounded along the road. Mornin's and evenin's came an' went, an' not a "howdy-do" in his pleasant voice. I wasn't surprised; I expected as much for a time. Finally, one of the hired men said he'd gone away. Then I put my lips together in a dogged way an' settled down to a lonesome life, cheered a little by the prattle of little Hannah, an' kept from rustin' by the farm work. I was lonesome, very lonesome, when the evenin' shadows crept over the ground, an' the crickets began to sing, the katydids to scold, an' the hoot owl to give his mournful cry over in the grove where Micah lay.
