“I dunno how long I set there list’nin’ to ’em movin’ ’round overhead, an’ wonderin’ what was goin’ on; but fin’ly I heard a step on the stair an’ I went out into the entry, an’ it was Mis’ Jones. ‘How be they?’ I says.
“ ‘We don’t quite know yet,’ she says. ‘The little boy is a nice formed little feller,’ she says, ‘an’ them childern very often grow up, but he is very little,’ she says.
“ ‘An’ how ’bout my wife?’ I says.
“ ‘Wa’al,’ she says, ‘we don’t know jes’ yet, but she is quiet now, an’ we’ll hope fer the best. If you want me,’ she says, ‘I’ll come any time, night or day, but I must go now. The doctor will stay all night, an’ the nurse will stay till you c’n git someone to take her place,’ an’ she went home, an’,” declared David, “you’ve hearn tell of the ‘salt of the earth,’ an’ if that woman wa’n’t more on’t than a hoss c’n draw down hill, the’ ain’t no such thing.”
“Did they live?” asked John after a brief silence, conscious of the bluntness of his question, but curious as to the sequel.
“The child did,” replied David; “not to grow up, but till he was ’twixt six an’ seven; but my wife never left her bed, though she lived three four weeks. She never seemed to take no int’rist in the little feller, nor nothin’ else much; but one day—it was Sunday, long to the last—she seemed a little more chipper ’n usual. I was settin’ with her, an’ I said to her how much better she seemed to be, tryin’ to chirk her up.
“ ‘No,’ she says, ‘I ain’t goin’ to live.’
“ ‘Don’t ye say that,’ I says.
“ ‘No,’ she says, ‘I ain’t, an’ I don’t care.’
“I didn’t know jest what to say, an’ she spoke agin:
“ ‘I want to tell you, Dave,’ she says, ‘that you’ve ben good an’ kind to me.’
“ ‘I’ve tried to,’ I says, ‘an’ Lizy,’ I says, ‘I’ll never fergive myself about that bunnit, long ’s I live.’
“ ‘That hadn’t really nothin’ to do with it,’ she says, ‘an’ you meant all right, though,’ she says, almost in a whisper, an’ the’ came across her face, not a smile exac’ly, but somethin’ like a little riffle on a piece o’ still water, ‘that bunnit was enough to kill most anybody.’ ”
XL
John leaned out of the buggy and looked back along the road, as if deeply interested in observing something which had attracted his attention, and David’s face worked oddly for a moment.
Turning south in the direction of the village, they began the descent of a steep hill, and Mr. Harum, careful of loose stones, gave all his attention to his driving. Our friend, respecting his vigilance, forebore to say anything which might distract his attention until they reached level ground, and then, “You never married again?” he queried.
“No,” was, the reply. “My matrymonial experience was ‘brief an’ to the p’int,’ as the sayin’ is.”
“And yet,” urged John, “you were a young man, and I should have supposed—”
“Wa’al,” said David, breaking in and emitting his chuckling laugh, “I allow ’t mebbe I sometimes thought on’t, an’ once, about ten year after what I ben tellin’ ye, I putty much made up my mind to try another hitch-up. The’ was a woman that I seen quite a good deal of, an’ liked putty well, an’ I had some grounds fer thinkin’ ’t she wouldn’t show me the door if I was to ask her. In fact, I made up my mind I would take the chances, an’ one night I put on my best bib an’ tucker an’ started fer her house. I had to go ’cross the town to where she lived, an’ the farther I walked the fiercer I got—havin’ made up my mind—so ’t putty soon I was travelin’ ’s if I was ’fraid some other feller’d git there ’head o’ me. Wa’al, it was Sat’day night, an’ the stores was all open, an’ the streets was full o’ people, an’ I had to pull up in the crowd a little, an’ I don’t know how it happened in pertic’ler, but fust thing I knew I run slap into a woman with a ban’box, an’ when I looked ’round, there was a mil’nery store in full blast an’ winders full o’ bunnits. Wa’al, sir, do you know what I done? Ye don’t. Wa’al, the’ was a hoss car passin’ that run three mile out in the country in a diff’rent direction f’m where I started fer, an’ I up an’ got onto that car, an’ rode the length o’ that road, an’ got off an’ walked back—an’ I never went near her house f’m that day to this, an’ that,” said David, “was the nearest I ever come to havin’ another pardner to my joys an’ sorro’s.”
“That was pretty near, though,” said John, laughing.
“Wa’al,” said David, “mebbe Prov’dence might ’a’ had some other plan fer stoppin’ me ’fore I smashed the hull rig, if I hadn’t run into the mil’nery shop, but as it was, that fetched me to a stan’still, an’ I never started to run agin.”
They drove on for a few minutes in silence, which John broke at last by saying, “I have been wondering how you got on after your wife died and left you with a little child.”
“That was where Mis’ Jones come in,” said
