OLD Jim Ewebanks sat down on the wash-bench in front of the widow Thompson’s cabin and watched the old woman as she stood in the doorway, pouring water into her earthen churn to “make the butter come.” He had walked over from his cabin across the hollow to bring her a piece of news; but the subject was a delicate one, and he hardly knew how to broach it.
If he had been a lighter man, he would have led her further in her cheerful comments on the crops, the price of cotton and the health of their neighbors; but deception of no sort was in Ewebanks’s line, and moreover, the sun was going down. He could see the blue smoke curling from the mud-and-log chimney on the dark, mist-draped mountainside across the marshes and writing a welcome message on the sky. He had a mental glimpse of his wife as she bent over a big fireplace and put steaming food on the supper-table. He was reminded that he had not fed his cattle; and still he could not bring himself to the task before him.
Mrs. Thompson’s son, Joe, came up the narrow road from the field, leading his bay mare. The young man turned the animal into a little stableyard. With the clanking harness massed on his brawny shoulder he passed by, nodding to the visitor, and hung his burden on a peg in the lean-to shed at the end of the cabin.
Then he went into the entry between the two rooms of the house, and, rolling up his shirt sleeves, bathed his face and hands in a tin basin.
Ewebanks determined to come to his point before Joe finished washing. Indeed, a sudden question from the widow made it somewhat easier for him.
“What’s fetched you ’long here this time o’ day, Jim?” she asked, as she tilted her churn toward the light reflected from the sky and raised the dasher cautiously to inspect the yellow lumps of butter clinging to its dripping surface.
Ewebanks felt his throat tighten. It was hard for him to bring up a subject to the mild-faced, reticent woman, which, while it had been common talk in the neighborhood for the past twenty-five years, had scarcely been mentioned in her presence. He bent down irresolutely and began to pick the cockle-burrs from the frayed legs of his trousers.
Joe Thompson saved him from an immediate reply by throwing the contents of his basin at a lot of chickens in the yard and coming toward him, drying his face and hands on his red cotton handkerchief.
“You are off’n yore reg’lar stompin’-ground, hain’t you?” he said cordially.
Jim Ewebanks made a failure of a smile as his eyes fell on Mrs. Thompson. She had stopped churning, and, leaning on her wooden dasher, was studying his face.