ORIGINAL SIN
THE Widow Tarwater was in truth a pleasing vision.
Not once had Ambrose Thompson left her side, yet he had been uncommonly
silent. Thoughts, rose coloured as a boy's dream of a holiday, were
floating before his mind's eye; he had been but dimly conscious that two
plates of warm soup had lately flowed into him the while the
conversation around him flowed on unceasingly. For the spirit of
romance, which is an eternal though elusive thing, was surely taking
fresh hold on him this evening as his pillar of cloud by day and of fire
by night, and only Miner Hobbs, the little wooden figure of a man seated
several tables off, was yet aware of his friend's exalted state.
At the present moment the Rev. Elias Tupper was talking to the widow. He
had but lately traversed the room crowded with tables and resplendent
with decorations of harvest apples, pumpkins, goldenrod and tall
tasselled stalks of corn, dispensing pleasantries as one would
lollipops; and now amid much joking, laughter, and nudging had been
allowed to take his place next the widow, only the legislator, who was
making but a few weeks' visit in Pennyroyal, appearing disquieted.
It was past seven o'clock and assuredly the new Baptist Sunday-school
room was now the centre of Pennyroyal's social activities, when
unexpectedly the tall figure of a boy lurched into the room--Pennyroyal's
black sheep, a boy taller than any man in the village save Ambrose
Thompson.
There was a dismayed flutter and then an uncomfortable silence.
Now there are black sheep and black sheep with extenuating
circumstances, but this boy had none of the extenuating circumstances--a
respectable family, money in the bank, or a line of distinguished but
self-indulgent ancestors; no, he was simply a sandy-haired,
loose-jointed boy of about twenty-one who worked about the Widow
Tarwater's stables--one of nature's curious anomalies, a boy without a
father.
He looked about the homely, cheerful company at first with defiance, and
then, feeling the weight of his loneliness and degradation, fell to
crying foolishly. "I don't see why I ain't a right to your church
social; if I ain't no name of my own, I got to be the son of some man in
this town!"
It was such a sudden, unlooked for accusation piercing the holy covering
of every hard-shelled Baptist brother in the new Sunday-school room that
for the moment the little group of men were staggered. Then while they
were making up their minds as to which one should have the privilege of
throwing out the intruder, a familiar tall figure was seen crossing the
floor, and putting his arm about the lubbering, drunken boy.
"Come along, sonnie; steady now," he whispered, leading him quickly
away.
Half an hour later, sauntering back to the church social, Uncle Ambrose
found that supper time was past and that the tables having been cleared
away there was more and more room for conversation. Once again he
sought the Widow Tarwater's side, but this time was received more
graciously, for, putting out a trembling hand, she clasped Uncle
Ambrose's with gratitude. "I'm obliged to you, Ambrose Thompson," she
said. "That boy's ever been a thorn in my flesh. I have kept him at the
farm because my late husband was good to him, but after to-night I don't
feel called to have him stay on."
The Rev. Elias Tupper's voice thereafter was sufficiently loud to reach
the ears of a number of the members of his congregation who were grouped
about nearby.
"That boy," he announced, folding his short arms across his chest and
sighing deeply, "is a painful example of original sin."
Since his return to the room up to this time Uncle Ambrose had made no
remark, but now clearing his throat he eyed the last speaker for so long
in silence that a little clacking noise was heard close by him and an
old, old woman with an ear trumpet held to her ear leaned so far out of
her wheeled chair that only her daughter's restraining hand kept her
from falling.
"Original sin, Brother Elias?" The tall man drawled his question
thoughtfully. "I wonder now why you speak of this boy's weaknesses as
_original_ sin? I've done lived in Pennyrile a right smart number of
years and I ain't been witness to a single original sin. Seems like
every fault a human crittur commits is just a plain copy of some fault
that has gone before him. And I reckon it's more'n likely there's a good
many original sinners among us men here to-night that has been original
along pretty much the same lines as this here boy."
There was an unspoken yet moving appeal in the sympathetic tones of the
well-known voice, softening some of the women listeners and a few of the
men, but the Hon. Calvin Jones had still to be heard from.
There are men in this world to whom even the simplest exchange of words
is a chance for oratory. So the Honorable Calvin, frowning and with one
finger thrust in his coat, by his dramatic silence held his audience for
a moment spellbound.
"May I inquire," he thundered, "if this lad whom Mr. Ambrose Thompson
has just rescued and--er--defended, is any relation of his?"
In the interrogation itself there was no offence, but to every grown-up
person who heard, the insinuation was plain enough.
To the tips of his big ears Uncle Ambrose flushed. "No, sir, he's not my
son," he answered the man, who was a stranger to him before this
evening, "and maybe I'm glad and maybe I'm sorry. For I won't say since
my daughter and Em'ly's died that I ain't thought most any kind of a
child's better than no child at all." He hesitated and then went on in
pretty much his same old fashion of talking to himself: "Come to think
of it now, mebbe in a way this boy is a son of mine, for I kind er think
that every young man that plays the fool is the son of every man that's
played the fool before him."
And then with a friendly smile he turned again toward the widow.
"Ambrose," she faltered, with two round tears rolling down her plump
cheeks, "Brother Elias and Mr. Jones advise against it, but maybe you
are thinkin' I ought to give that boy another chance."
The tall man pressed the soft hand and shook his head.
"No, Peachy, I ain't never felt in my life that I knowed what another
person _ought_ to do, but ef I've studied 'em long enough and close
enough I know pretty well what they _will_ do. I took that boy home to
spend the night with me, but I'll be drivin' out to your place with him
to-morrow toward sundown. I'm more'n anxious fer a little old-time chat
with you."