Part 29 (2/2)

”Is that you, Bill? Now what are you pokin' round in this rain for? Come over to the house and get your supper.”

”No, I must go home.”

”Home? Why, you haven't got any home and never will have.”

”That's true,” he agreed.

”Not till you go where we took my old sister to-day,” she said, letting the lantern down till her face was in the dark. ”And just to think it should have come as it did, while I was talkin' about her! I'd been thinkin' about her all day, and I knowed somethin' was goin' to happen.

But come on in the house, and don't be standin' here in the rain like a fool. Get away, Jack. I do think he's got less sense than any dog I ever set eyes on. Now, if you do put your muddy feet on me I'll cut your throat. You just dare to do it, you triflin' whelp! Are you goin' to the house with me, Bill?”

”You're not afraid, are you?” he asked, now that her fear of the dead cat was gone.

”Now you keep still. I'm not afraid of the devil himself. But this is just the sort of a night for me to die. Yes, I'll tell you that.”

”I thought you were to die on a cold night, with the wagons creaking along the road.”

”That was the plan, but it has been changed. Now I'm goin' to die when the ground is soaked. You don't know Peterson, do you? Well, no matter.

But he lived just down the road there not long ago, and a meaner neighbor never breathed. I caught him drivin' his turkeys into my tomato patch. Yes. And his well went dry, and he come to my house and wanted to haul off water in barrels. Yes. And I wouldn't let him. And what did he say? He said he'd see my grave full of water. And now just think of what I've had to contend with all my life. Think of me lyin' there in the water, with that feller prancin' around!”

”But the chances are that you'll outlive him, Mrs. Stuvic.”

”Yes, you bet, that's what I'm goin' to do,” she said, her voice strong with encouragement. ”I'll outlive the whole pack of 'em, and then mebbe they'll let me alone. Well, I'm not goin' to stand here any longer like a fool.”

When Milford reached home he found the Professor warm in a disquisition delivered to the hired man. He hopped up from his chair and seized Milford by the hand. ”Ha,” said he, ”I was just telling our friend here that exact memory is not the vital part of true culture. It is the absorption of the idea rather than the catching of the words.”

”Sit down,” said Milford. ”But what does he know about it? Woman is his culture, and he's not only caught her idea, but has learned her by heart.”

”Now you're trottin',” spoke the hired man. ”If there's anything in a woman's nature that I don't know, why, it must have come to her in the last hour or so.”

The Professor crossed his legs and slowly nodded his head. ”You ask,”

said he, speaking to Milford, ”what does he know about it? A man never knows unless he learns. Even to the ignorant, wisdom may be music. The man whose mind has been dried and hardened in the field of harsh toil, may sip the delicious luxury, the G.o.d-flavored juice of knowledge.

Wisdom cannot be concealed. You may lock it in an iron box, but it will seep through.”

Upon entering the room Milford had seen the hired man put aside an earthen ewer, and now he knew that cider had been brought from the cellar.

”Nearly all utterances upon knowledge, human nature or life, are trite,”

the learned man proceeded. ”And so are herbs and flowers trite, the stars in the heavens common, but once in a while there appears from the ground a shoot so new that botany marvels, a star in the sky so strange that astronomers gape in the wonder of a discovery. And I, humble as the lowly earth, may sprout a new thought.”

”I was going to suggest more cider,” said Milford, ”but I guess you've had enough.”

”Ha! enough and not too much. To pause at the line, a virtue; to cross but an inch, a vice. Do you know of a publication that would buy a paper upon the decadence of the modern drama? I have one in my head, a hot and withering blast of fierce contempt.”

”The last play I saw was a hummer,” said the hired man. ”There was a whole lot of dancin' and cavortin' before they got down to it, fellers givin' each other gags, and women singin' songs. But when they got down to her she was there--a sort of a Mormon play; and they had a bed that reached clear across the platform.”

”Melpomene rioting as a bawd,” declared the Professor. ”I could elucidate if permitted one more russet cup, drawn from the oak.” He looked at Milford. ”One more, and let it be russet.”

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