When Mrs. Cranceford returned home early in the afternoon, she told the
Major, whom she found pacing up and down the long porch, that Pennington
was up and walking about the house. She told him, also, that he was
resolved upon taking Louise to Alabama, and added that she herself would
oppose this determination up to the very moment of departure.
The Major grunted. "What right have you to do that?" he asked. "Why
should you meddle with the affairs of a man that is seeking to make a
living for his wife?"
"John, you are laughing at me and I know it. Here lately you make light
of everything I say."
The season was changing, he felt its influence, and he shook with good
humor as he walked.
"John, you are so tickled that you can't answer me."
"Why, I could answer you very easily if I only knew what you want me to
say."
This broke her whimsical resentment of his droll playfulness; she
laughed with him, and taking his arm, walked up and down the porch. They
talked of many things--of Louise's persistent stubbornness, and of a
growing change in the conduct of Tom--his abstraction and his
gentleness. He had left uncut the leaves of a sporting review, had taken
to romances, and in his room had been found, sprawled on foolscap, an
ill-rhymed screed in rapturous praise of soulful eyes and flaxen hair.
Mrs. Cranceford knew that he must be in love; so did the Major, but he
could not conjecture the object of so fervid a passion. But his wife had
settled upon the object and was worried, though of her distress she had
not spoken to Tom, so recent had been the discovery of the tell-tale
blotch of ink. But she would as soon as an opportunity offered.
"It will soon pass," said the Major. "I don't think he intends to marry
her."
"Marry her!" his wife exclaimed. "I would rather see him dead than
married into a family of white trash. She may be a most amiable young
person and all that, but he shan't marry her. It would break my heart,
and I vow she shall never come here. Why, she came from the pine woods
and is a cracker."
"But the cracker may have a most gallant and well-born origin, my dear,"
the Major replied. "The victim of a king's displeasure is not
insignificant; he must have been a force."
"What! Do you approve of it?" she demanded, pulling away from him. "Is
it possible that you would not oppose his marriage into such a family
as hers must be?"
"I don't think, my dear, that her father was in the penitentiary."
"John, that is unworthy of you. I was grieved at Louise's marriage, and
you know it."
In prankishness he sought a refuge; he laughed, but she did not follow
him. For a moment her black eyes were hard, then came a look of
distress--and tears. He put his arm about her. "Why, my dear, I didn't
mean to hurt your feelings; bless your life, I didn't. Why, of course,
he shan't marry her. Who ever heard of such a thing? I'll talk to
him--thrash him if you say the word. There, it's all right. Why, here
comes Gid."
She went into the house as Batts came up, glancing back at him as she
passed through the door; and in her eyes there was nothing as soft as a
tear. The old fellow winced, as he nearly always did when she gave him a
direct look.
"Are you all well?" Gideon asked, lifting the tails of his long coat and
seating himself in a rocking chair.
"First-rate," the Major answered, drawing forward another rocker; and
when he had sat down, he added: "Somewhat of an essence of November in
the air."
"Yes," Gid assented; "felt it in my joints before I got up this
morning." From his pocket he took a plug of tobacco.
"I thought you'd given up chewing," said the Major. "Last time I saw you
I understood you to say that you had thrown your tobacco away."
"I did, John; but, I gad, I watched pretty close where I threw it.
Fellow over here gave me some stuff that he said would cure me of the
appetite, and I took it until I was afraid it would, and then threw it
away. I find that when a man quits tobacco he hasn't anything to look
forward to. I quit for three days once, and on the third day, about the
time I got up from the dinner table, I asked myself: 'Well, now, got
anything to come next?' And all I could see before me was hours of
hankering; and I gad, I slapped a negro boy on a horse and told him to
gallop over to the store and fetch me a hunk of tobacco. And after I
broke my resolution I thought I'd have a fit there in the yard waiting
for that boy to come back. I don't believe that it's right for a man to
kill any appetite that the Lord has given him. Of course I don't believe
in the abuse of a good thing, but it's better to abuse it a little
sometimes than not to have it at all. If virtue consists in deadening
the nervous system to all pleasurable influences, why, you may just mark
my name off the list. There was old man Haskill. I sat up with him the
night after he died, and one of the men with me was harping upon the
great life the old fellow had lived--never chewed, never smoked, never
was drunk, never gambled, never did anything except to stand still and
be virtuous--and I couldn't help but feel that he had lost nothing by
dying. Haven't seen Louise, have you?"
"No; but I have about made up my mind to go over there, whether she
wants me or not."
"I believe I would, John. We haven't long to stay here, and nothing
sweetens our sojourn like forgiveness. I don't mean it in sacrilege, but
Christ was greatest and closest to His Father when he forgave the
thief."
"That's true," said the Major. "You may not be able to think very
coherently, Gid, but sometimes you stroll into a discussion and bark the
shins of thought."
"Easy, John. I am a thinker. My mind is full of pictures when your fancy
is checkered with red and blue lines. So you are willing to forgive
her?" he added after a pause.
"Yes, more than willing. But she isn't ready to be forgiven. She has
some very queer notions, and I'll be hanged if I know where she picked
them up. At times she's most unnatural."
"Don't say that, John. I gad, sir, what right has one person to say that
another person is unnatural? Who of us is appointed to set up the
standard and gauge of naturalness? Who is wholly consistent? You may
say the average man. Ah, but if everyone conformed to the average there
would be nothing great in the world. There is no greater bore than the
well-balanced man. He wears us out with his evenness. You know what he's
going to say before he says it."
"I grant you all that; but the well-balanced man made it possible for
the genius to make the world great. Genius is the bloom that bursts out
at the top of commonplace humanity."
"Yes, that's all very well; but just at present I'd like to have a
little liquor. Be easy, though, and don't let the madam know what you're
after."
"There's not a drop in the house, Gid, but there's a demijohn in the
office. Let's step out there."
"No, I believe not, John," the old fellow replied, with a shudder.
"Can't you bring it out?"
"She'll see me if I do. You must go with me. Whisky that's not worth
going after is not worth drinking."
"You are right, John; but you have stated one of those truths that are
never intended to be used except in the absence of something else that
might have been said. Plain truths are tiresome, John. They never lend
grace to a conversation."
"What do you know about the graces of conversation? You are better
fitted to talk of the disgraces of conduct."
"Slow, John. But I know that a truth to be interesting must be whimsical
or so blunt that it jolts."
"But didn't it jolt you when I said that you must go into the office
after the liquor?"
"Yes; but cruelly, John. You must never jolt cruelly. I gad, I'm getting
old. Do you realize that we have known each other intimately for
thirty-five years?"
Mrs. Cranceford came out upon the porch. "Ah," said old Gid, without
changing his tone, and as if he were continuing a moral discourse,
"thirty-five years ago we heard an old circuit-rider preach at Gum
Springs, and while we could not subscribe to his fiery doctrine, being
inclined to the broader and more enlightened faith of the Episcopal
church, yet the fervor and sincerity of his utterances made a lasting
impression on us. Madam, I hear with much pleasure that Mr. Pennington
is better."
"Yes, he is feeling quite improved," she replied, merely glancing at
him. "Did the Major think enough of him to tell you?"
The Major looked at Gid, winked at him, and the old fellow believing
that he knew what was wanted, thus answered: "Yes, ma'am, but I first
heard it from the priest. He knows everything, it seems. I met him down
the road and had quite a talk with him. By the way, I read a number of
years ago a most edifying book, 'The Prince of the House of David.' You
doubtless have it in your collection, and may I ask you to lend it to
me?"
She had but small faith in the old fellow's sincerity, and yet she was
pleased to see him manifest an interest in so godly a book. "Yes, and I
will get it for you," she answered, going straightway to look for it;
and when she had passed through the door, Gid snatched a bottle out of
his pocket and held it out toward the Major. "Here, John, hurry out
there and fill this up while she's gone. Meet me around at the gate.
Quick!"
"Why, you old rascal, do you suppose me capable of complicity in such a
fraud?"
"Oh, that's all right, John. Hurry up. I could get liquor, plenty of it,
but yours always hits me where I live. I'm sick, I tell you, and hang
it, I'm getting old. You don't seem to realize that I'm an old man, not
long for this vain world. Take it, John, and hurry up. Confound it, you
won't be deceiving her; it would be an advantage taken of her
unreasonable prejudice. You never saw me drunk and never will.
Thunderation, here she comes!"
He stuffed the bottle back into his hip pocket and the Major threw
himself back with a loud laugh. Mrs. Cranceford, handing the book to
Gid, cast a suspicious look at the Major, who continued to shake. "Why,
what has amused you so?" she asked. And now old Gid was nodding and
chuckling in hypocritical diversion. "I was just telling him of the
first time I borrowed a copy of this book," he said. "Walked four miles
to get it, and when I returned, some rascal had greased the foot-log and
I slipped off into the creek. Oh, it's very funny now, but it wasn't
then; had to fight to keep from losing the book and came within one of
drowning. Well, I must go. Ma'am, I'm a thousand times obliged to you
for this store-house of faith, and I assure you that I'll take the best
of care that it shall come back to you in good condition. By the way,
John, is your office locked? I'll step out there and get that paper."
"Yes, it's locked. I'll go with you."
"Oh, never mind. Let me have the key."
"But you can't find the paper."
"Well, let it go; I can get it some other time."
The Major, slyly shaking, walked with him to the end of the porch.
"You've played thunder," the old fellow whispered. "I didn't think it of
you. I gad, every chance you get you hoist me on your hip and slam the
life out of me. Sick as a dog, too. Again, ma'am," he added, turning
about, "let me thank you for this book. And Major," he said aloud, and
"damn you," he breathed, "I hope to see you over my way soon."
He swore at his horse as he mounted, and throwing back a look of
reproach, he jogged off down the road. But he had not proceeded more
than a mile when a boy, urging a galloping horse, overtook him and gave
him a bundle; and therein he found a bottle of whisky, with these words
written in red ink and pasted on the glass: "You are an old fool."