THE REVELATION
AFTER this it was extraordinary the number of absolutely unassailable
reasons that kept Ambrose so frequently on his way back and forth from
the village to the school-house. Certainly twenty-four hours rarely
passed without his getting up a wholly new idea to assist Miss Dunham,
and therefore Miner, about which it was necessary to ask her advice. And
possibly Emily encouraged him in this, for often she had postponed or
put aside a perfectly good suggestion with the proposition that they
talk the question over later, and that Ambrose come out again to the log
cabin to see if they were of the same mind.
Of course Ambrose was extremely particular not to permit the hours of
his visits to conflict with those of his partner, but as Miner no longer
spent his evenings with him, naturally he concluded that these evenings
were devoted to Emily, and therefore his appearances were usually made
during the long summer twilight. And this not with any idea of hiding or
of disloyalty, but simply that he should not be in his friend's way; for
Ambrose's heart was singularly light these days and the sun shone with
its old glory. Why, even the one little cloud that had troubled him for
a while had been with laughter pushed away. On his mind during the first
of his two or three visits had been the thought that Miss Dunham could
not know of his presence in the midnight raid.
They were in the woods together one evening, a little beyond the papaw
thicket, when Ambrose, thrusting his hand into his pocket, drew forth a
carefully wrapped up package. "It ain't a present; it's yours already,"
he announced, pushing it toward Emily with his face crimsoning, and
digging his toes into the earth like a big, awkward boy.
Slowly the girl unfolded her lost hairbrush, and, though her eyes
immediately shone with laughter, womanlike she kept her lids down,
asking with a kind of over-emphasized wonder, "How on earth, Mr.
Ambrose Thompson, could you ever have come upon my hairbrush?"
And in another moment Ambrose had confessed everything of his own part
in the raid, told his story miserably and without extenuating
circumstances, and ending with the statement that he couldn't endure to
have her friendship until she knew the full extent of his unmanliness.
Then Emily allowed herself to look straight at him and her laughter
brimmed over. "Why, I've known all along," she whispered, putting her
hand for just the briefest, comforting second over the top of his.
"Don't you suppose that I recognized the voice coming from the longest
shadow I ever saw as soon as I saw the longest man in Pennyroyal?"
Two weeks afterward it happened as usual that Miner and Ambrose were
both in their shop closing up for the night, but, what was most
remarkable, Miner was allowing Ambrose to do the greater part of the
work, and for fifteen minutes had been sitting on the top of a vinegar
barrel idly whittling at a stick and every once in a while clearing his
throat as though he were getting ready to speak, notwithstanding he
kept his face turned from the sight of his partner.
"Looks like Miss Dunham's gettin' more cheerfuller lately," he blurted
at last, not glancing up, but whittling so briskly that the chips about
him on the floor looked like the shorn curls of a lamb.
Ambrose lifted his face from the depth of a large ledger where he had
been laboriously writing down the day's accounts. "Yes, ain't she?" he
returned happily; "seems like she's sorter too big to be hurt by other
folk's meannesses." Then walking across the shop he laid his hand on his
friend's shoulder with a gesture that was almost a caress.
"You been goin' out to see her yourself considerable lately, ain't you?
So mebbe she ain't needin' much other comp'ny," Miner suggested, raising
his eyes and then lowering them quickly before the other man could catch
his glance.
Ambrose hesitated. "Why, mebbe I have," he confessed slowly; "funny I
ain't ever thought of it in that light! You see I've been a-tryin' to do
what you asked and hatch up some scheme to make 'Pennyrile' understand
and like Miss Dunham better, but Em'ly and me ain't come to any
conclusion yet that's good enough, so I reckon that's why I keep on
a-goin'."
"Em'ly!" Miner sprung off his barrel top like he had been struck. "So
it's come to that, has it?" And by this time his sneer and anger were so
unmistakable that his companion, whose expression had been perfectly
frank a moment before, turned a dull red and for the first time in his
life his eyes dropped before those of his friend.
"I ain't callin' her Em'ly to her face, Miner, at least not more'n once
or twice," he answered painfully, feeling himself turn hot and cold in
the same instant, and an awful weight settle itself upon his chest. Then
a relieved light broke over him. "Mebbe now I'm thinkin' upon her as
Em'ly because some day you and she----"
"Liar!" The little man, blinded with passion, struck out somewhere into
the region of his friend's chest and, when Ambrose caught his hands and
held them, twisted and growled like a little dog in the grasp of a big
one, repeating over and over in a thick voice, "Liar, liar, you know you
want her for yourself, you know you love her, so what damn use is there
in you pretendin' before me?" until his rage had partly spent itself.
Ambrose had made no sort of answer or defence; indeed, his big hands had
seemed to cling to Miner rather than to restrain him, besides which
there was something in his appearance that would have made it hard to
continue angry with him even if you had not loved him.
"I didn't know, Miner," he said at last, hushed and frightened, "I
didn't know until you spoke it. I reckon I do love her, but now I know I
won't see or speak with her no more."
Then when Miner had banged his way out of the store the tall man,
sitting down on the deserted barrel, began to shake, and there was shame
on his face and the look of a man who has suddenly heard that the ship
on which he is sailing must go down. For several hours he remained in
his shop, sometimes walking up and down and then reseating himself on
the barrel, but wherever he went and whatever he did old Moses dragged
his rheumatic legs after him. Two or three times the man patted the dog,
whispering reassuringly, "It's all right; don't you be worryin' none
about me, old fellow."
It was so dark in the shop that when Mrs. Barrows, carrying a lantern,
opened the door she could not at first find Ambrose. And afterward, when
he did come toward her and her light fell full upon his face, to Susan's
eternal credit let it be set down that she turned away her eyes.
"You come along home, Ambrose Thompson," she began sternly; "ain't I
been watchin' and waitin' for you to go by to your supper these past two
hours? It's mighty nigh time I was gittin' to bed and I ain't able to
sleep less'n my mind's easy."
Taking the man by the arm she led him toward home, talking in a tone
that few persons had ever heard from Susan. "Whatever's happened to you
to-day, Ambrose Thompson, don't you be scaired," she said once. "I tell
you it's the folks that things never happen to that ought to be scaired,
'cause you're livin' and they ain't." And then when Ambrose would have
left her at her gate, climbing up the few steps that led into her yard
she was able thus to place her hands on his shoulders.
"Ambrose," she said then, "there was a neighbour remarked to me the
other day, 'Ain't Ambrose Thompson changed a lot since his wife died?'
I told her, 'No, folks don't change none in what I calls their
fundamentals. They alter some; of course learnin' life don't mean to
make no exception of them with troubles, but leopards don't stripe, nor
zebras spot, nor human bein's get made over by experiences. You been
livin' lately thinkin' you was changed entirely inside by Sarah's death,
but you ain't changed--you've just been restin'. You've seen other folks
git over things that hit 'em as hard as Sarah's dyin' done you, but
course you thought _you_ were differ'nt." Leaning over, Susan gave
Ambrose a peck certainly intended as a kiss. "It's awful hard, boy, to
wake up sometimes, after one has been adreamin', but I reckon you're
wakin' up."
Susan was correct, Ambrose's dream had passed and by morning no mists of
it remained. Since the revelation of Miner's accusation in the shop he
had made no effort at self-deception, understanding now why since his
meeting with the Yankee school teacher his world had been again so
strangely vivid, so full of adventure, that even his trips back and
forth to the shop had been filled with delightful impressions, ideas
that might some day be confided to her. For, after all, is there not so
much of life in the smallest place in this world when you are fully
alive in it, and so little in the biggest when you are not?
Then the bitterest part of Ambrose's fight was that he knew Emily to be
his real mate, knew that Sarah had been a boy's spring fancy, but that
the summer had now set the seal of her warmth and fruition upon his
second love. Moreover, he also knew that Emily might be made to care for
him, since love like his is rarely without its answer.
Nevertheless when dawn came he had written this letter and taken it out
to the post:
DEAR MISS DUNHAM: I've got to quit comin' to see
you and I can't say why, except it's best.
Then I haven't got the old reason, for to-night
it's come to me the way to make Pennyroyal not
treat you so bad. Can't you give out that you're
sick, for if only the Pennyroyal ladies can get
the chance to take care of you they'll be real
pleased. Seems like letting people do good things
for you is the surest way to make them quit doing
mean; it's kind of human nature.
And there is one other thing I'd like to say to
you: It's about Miner; he's a whole lot bigger
than he looks and there can't no man on earth beat
him at loving if you'll only help him a little at
the start.
Yours truly,
AMBROSE THOMPSON, ESQ.
It was an odd, stiff letter, and yet that afternoon when Emily had
received it she laughed and placed it inside the folds of her primrose
dress; although a moment afterward she sighed with the thought of the
lonely hour before sunset.