Further on was the farm-house belonging to Jeff Warren, and at the well in the yard Paul descried Warren turning the windlass to water a mule which stood with its head over a big tub. Paul saw the man looking at him, but he glanced away. He swung his heels against the flanks of his horse and rode on through a mist which hung before his sight.
Paul went straight to the furniture-store and gave his order, and was leaving when Mrs. Tye came hastily across the street from her husband's shop. There was a kindly light in her eyes, and her voice shook with timid emotion.
“I saw you ride past jest now,” she began. “We heard the news a few minutes ago, an' me an' Si was awfully sorry. He told me to run across an' beg you to stop at the shop a minute. He wants to see you. I don't know when I've seed 'im so upset. Thar, I see 'im motionin' to us now. Let's go over.”
Paul mechanically complied, and as they turned she laid her hand gently on his arm.
“Thar is nothin' a body kin say that will do a bit o' good at sech a sad time,” she gulped. “I've got so I jest hold my tongue when sech a blow falls. But I wish the Lord would show me some way to comfort you. It must be awful, for I know how you doted on yore pore pa, an' how he worshiped you. Maybe it will comfort you if I tell you what he said to me t'other day. I reckon he was pulled down in sperits by ill health or some'n, for he told me that if it hadn't been for you he'd 'a' killed hisse'f long ago. Of course that was a wicked thought, but I reckon he hardly knowed what he was sayin'. He jest couldn't git through talkin' about you, an' the way you loved 'im an' looked after 'im at all times. That will be a comfort, Paul—after a while it will all settle down an' seem right—his death, I mean; then the recollection that you was so good to him will be a sweet memory that will sustain an' strengthen you all through life.”
They had reached the open door of the shop, and Silas rose from his bench, shaking the shavings of leather and broken wooden pegs from his apron. In his left hand he held the coarse shoe he was repairing and the right he gave to Paul.
“I hain't done nothin' but set here an' pray since I heard it,” he began, sympathetically, his rough fingers clinging to Paul's. “In a case like this God is the only resort. I sometimes think that one of the intentions of death is to force folks to look to the Almighty an' cry out for help. That seems to me to be proof enough to convince the stoutest unbelievers of a higher power, for when a blow like this falls we jest simply beg for mercy, an' we know down inside of us that no human aid can be had, an' that help naturally ought to come from some'r's.”
Paul made no response. Mrs. Tye had placed a chair for him near her husband's bench, and the boy sank into it, and sat staring dumbly at the floor.
“I've got some hot coffee on the stove,” Mrs. Tye said, gently. “You'd feel better, Paul, maybe, if you'd take a cup along with some o' my fresh biscuits and butter.”
He shook his head, mumbled his thanks, and forgot what she had said. He was contrasting Jeff Warren as he stood at the well in the full vigor of health with a still, wasted form under a sheet in a silent, deserted room. Mrs. Tye left the shop, and her husband continued his effort at consolation.