THE ETERNAL FIRE
UNCLE AMBROSE poured the grace of forgiveness upon the pile of buckwheat
cakes on his guest's plate next morning in the form of an over-supply of
maple syrup, saying kindly: "Eat well, sonnie; we ain't goin' to talk
over the events of last evening till you are feeling a little stronger
in the stomach."
And though the boy crimsoned and looked sullen, he proved his recovery
by his application to the cakes.
"I was an awful fool last night," he mumbled apologetically a few
moments later.
"You were," Uncle Ambrose replied, "but then being a young fool ain't so
bad; it's bein' an old one that's serious," and his faded blue eyes
twinkled self-accusingly, while the boy went on talking into his plate.
"Course I didn't know what I was doin' when I bust into that social.
Not that it matters; nobody kires fer me about here, and I'll pretty
soon be clearin' out. The widow won't want me back to the farm."
Uncle Ambrose leaned on his table, facing the young man so squarely that
the boy was obliged to raise his bloodshot blue eyes to his.
"Nobody don't kire fer you in Pennyroyal? That ain't the important
thing; don't you kire fer somebody, Sam? That's what keeps a man
straight. If we was stone images now set up in a desert, why, we might
hope to have people come a-worshippin' of us, but bein's as we are just
ordinary--sometimes very ordinary--human bein's, seems like we might do
the lovin' end ourselves." The older man searched the face opposite him
keenly. "How old are you?" he inquired suddenly.
"'Bout twenty," was the answer. "I wasn't more'n eight or ten when
Farmer Tarwater brought me to his farm and give me my schoolin' till I
was a good sized boy. He was more of a friend to me than anybody's ever
been."
Uncle Ambrose waved the last statement aside. "Mebbe he was your friend
and mebbe he wasn't, but the thing that worries me about you most, Sam,
ain't last night's scrape nor the rest of the foolishnesses you been
gettin' into in this village. It's you settin' right here at my table
and you more'n twenty, been raised in Kentucky and got eyes in your
head, and yet tellin' me you don't _kire_ fer nobody! The Widow Tarwater
told me I could bring you back to the farm this evenin' ef you was
feelin' yourself, but mebbe you'd better stay along with me 'till I kin
kind of find something to prop up under you."
But the boy's tanned face grew redder than usual. "I didn't say I didn't
kire fer no one; I said there was no one kired fer me. There's a
girl----"
Now the tall man's hand struck the breakfast table until the plates on
it fairly danced.
"Glory, I knowed you'd more sense'n you showed!" he announced
triumphantly, and coming around to refill his visitor's plate put his
arm affectionately around his shoulder. "You got the best thing on
earth, boy, to keep you goin'; you got to learn a girl to love you."
Uncle Ambrose's emotional old face quivered with the glory of the chase.
"Course your girl don't kire fer you now, you ain't worth it, but you
up and show her what lovin' her has done fer you. And mebbe I'll keep
right 'longside of you, Sam."
This confidence was by no means finished, but at this moment a thin,
brown shadow, faithful as the rising and setting of the sun, appearing
at the dining-room window, Uncle Ambrose's further remarks were choked
off. Returning from the kitchen a moment later he put down more cakes on
the table and then shook his guest's hand in farewell. "I got to leave
you now fer the day; Miner's come to git me to start fer the store, but
there's one thing I want you to recollect while you're waitin' here fer
me, sonnie, and that's that the good Lord sends a new day once in every
twenty-four hours just to show folks they kin begin agen."
It was a long day in the shop both to Miner and Ambrose. Inevitably the
little man had grown more morose and bitter as the years went by. For in
spite of Emily's and Ambrose's pleading he had gone but seldom to his
old place under the apple tree after their marriage, and when his six
sisters made homes of their own he had lived entirely alone. Indeed old
Moses had seemed the only companion he had ever cared for except
Ambrose, and on the day of Ambrose's second marriage the dog had moved
himself and his allegiance from the tall man's house to the little one's
and had never gone home again except to be buried.
Ambrose kept surreptitiously watching the clock from the noon hour on
until his partner removed it clean out of sight in the back of the shop:
however, an hour before closing time Ambrose began putting away his
share of the stock, remarking airily, "I thought I'd git away a little
sooner than usual this evenin', Miner, ef you don't mind."
To this the little man at first returned nothing, but seeing his friend
step over to their assortment of new neckties and laying aside his old
lavender one begin to match a bright red one to the shade of his own
complexion, he sighed. "I reckon you feel it comin' on agen, Ambrose?"
Ambrose nodded. "It started last night at the social," he replied
truthfully, "and then those other two men's actions kind er sicked me
on. Peachy has done ripened and sweetened considerable; mebbe you
noticed it, Miner?" he ended hopefully.
But Miner only scowled. "She's fat and old, but t'aint nothin' to you,
Ambrose Thompson, once you're started. I was kind er hopin' you'd be
faithful to Em'ly."
However, in the midst of his reproach his partner had vanished;
nevertheless, ten minutes later, he came back into the shop and seating
himself on the counter appeared lost in thought for some little time.
"Miner," he confessed finally, "I am a-settin' here tryin' to git a
little light on the subject of myself. I ain't feelin' unfaithful to
Em'ly 'cause I'm noticin' the widow; I never felt unfaithful to Sarah
when I married Em'ly. I tell you, Miner Hobbs, that what's workin' in me
now is that I ain't able to git old and give up 'thout makin' a fight.
It ain't gray hair and wrinkles that make folks hate gettin' old, it's
dryin' up, losin' their spark, so to speak. Now there's nothin' that
makes a man feel such an all fired lot younger as fallin' in love over
agen." He laughed. "'Course I ain't recommendin' dynamite, Miner, which
is fallin' in love with a new woman when you got an old one. That's my
way, 'cause fate's done sent it so fer me, and we got to make our lives
out of what we git. But why can't a man just start in ever so often
fallin' in love agen and recourtin' his wife till he gits himself and
her all woke up as in the old days? I ain't sayin' it's as easy with a
stale girl as with a fresh one, but, Lord!"--and here the shadows chased
each other across the luminous elderly face--"I could 'a' kep' on
courtin' Em'ly till kingdom come and thanked God fer the chance, ef He
had but seen fit to spare her to me so long."
And then Uncle Ambrose slipped off the counter and went away and drove
Sam out to the Widow Tarwater's Red Farm, which was now twice the size
it had been in her youth, since Peachy had married the young man owning
the place adjoining hers.
Yet somehow Uncle Ambrose's anticipated visit proved a disappointment.
In the first place, both of his rivals were there before him, and there
was something in their attitude and in the widow's manner that made him
hot with the desire to get the representatives of the law and the
gospel out behind a fence and have everybody roll up their sleeves.
However, since no open accusations were made and a woman was present,
what was there for him to do but to make a short stay and then return
slowly home?--home, to live through what was perhaps the most
extraordinary experience of Ambrose Thompson's entire lifetime. For
nearly sixty years he had lived in the village of Pennyroyal, been a
friend to all its people, his life had been there for them to see and
interpret, and yet with the first breathings of calumny the record of
his whole career was smirched. Still he made no protest, for what does
denial count if a man's character cannot save him? His visits to the
widow were continued, however, and always he found her in a flutter
between affection and fear. Nevertheless, Uncle Ambrose was merely
biding his time, but in the meanwhile Miner's silence and devotion were
more healing than any ointment.