Part 2 (2/2)

”Just as soon as he thinks we're gettin' curious he'll up and leave,” he said, ”and that would put us in a bad way. Help is so scarce now I don't know where I _would_ get an extra man. Seems almost as though the hand of Providence had sent him to us.”

It was perfectly true. Since so many men had gone into the army it was next thing to impossible to get any help on the farms except good-for-nothing negroes that weren't worth their salt. It seemed, indeed, an act of Providence to cast an able man at our door just at this juncture. So I promised again not to bother the man with questions.

Indeed, it bade fair to be an easy matter not to ask him any questions.

Beyond a few polite words at meals he never said anything at all, and as he had moved his sleeping quarters to a small cabin away from the house I saw very little of him, and I suppose we never would have gotten any better acquainted if your letter hadn't come that Friday. Friday is the worst day of the week for me, because after five days of constant set-to-ing with Absalom b.u.t.ts my philosophy is at its lowest ebb. This week was the worst because I had a visitation from the school board to see how I was getting on, and, of course, none of the pupils knew a thing and most of them acted as if the very devil of mischief had gotten into them. Elijah b.u.t.ts gave me a solemn warning that I would have to keep better order if I wanted to stay in the school, and Absalom, who had been hanging around listening, made an impudent grimace at me and laughed in a taunting manner. If I hadn't needed the money so badly I would have thrown up the job right there.

Then, on top of that, came your letter describing the supergorgeousness of your college rooms, and when I thought of the room I had planned to have at college this winter, adjoining yours, my heart turned to water within me and melancholy marked me for its own. I wept large and pearly tears which Niagara-ed over the end of my nose and sizzled on the hot stove, as I stood in the kitchen stirring a pudding for supper. Get the effect, do you? Me standing there with the spoon in one hand and your letter in the other, doing the Niobe act, quite oblivious to the fact that I was not the only person in the county. I was just in the act of swallowing a small rapid which had gotten side-tracked from the main channel and gone whirlpooling down my Sunday throat, when a voice behind me said, ”Did you get bad news in your letter?”

I jumped so I dropped the letter right into the pudding. I made a savage dab at my eyes with the corner of my ap.r.o.n and wheeled around furiously.

There stood the Justice Sherman person looking at me with his solemn black eyes. I was ready to die with shame at being caught.

”No, I didn't,” I exploded, mopping my face vehemently with my ap.r.o.n, and thereby capping the climax. For while I had been reading your letter and absently stirring the pudding it had slopped over and run down the front of my ap.r.o.n, and, of course, I had to use just that part to wipe my face with. The pudding was huckleberry, and what it did to my features is beyond description. I caught one glimpse of myself in the mirror over the sink and then I sank down into a chair and just yelled. Justice Sherman doubled up against the door frame in a regular spasm of mirth, although he tried not to make much noise about it. Finally he bolted out of the door and came back with a basin of water from the pump, which he set down beside me.

”Here,” he said, ”remove the marks of b.l.o.o.d.y carnage, before you scare the wolf from the door.”

So I scrubbed, wis.h.i.+ng all the while that he would go away, and still furious for having made such a spectacle of myself. But he stayed around, and when I resembled a human being once more (if I ever could be said to resemble one), he came over and handed me the letter, which he had fished out of the pudding.

”Here's the fatal missive,” he said, ”or would you rather leave it in the pudding?”

”Throw it into the fire,” I commanded.

”That's the right way,” he said approvingly. ”I always burn bad news myself.”

”It wasn't bad news,” I insisted.

”Then why the tears?” he inquired curiously. ”Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean----”

He was smiling, but somehow I had a feeling that he was trying to cheer me up and not making fun of me. I was so low in my mind that afternoon that anyone who acted in the least degree sympathetic was destined to fall a victim. Before I knew it I had told him of my s.h.i.+pwrecked hopes and how your letter had opened the flood gates of disappointment and nearly put out the kitchen fire.

”College--you!” I heard him exclaim under his breath. He stared at me solemnly for a moment and then he exclaimed, ”O tempora, O mores! What's to hinder?”

”What's to hinder?” I repeated blankly.

”Yes,” he said, ”having the room anyway.”

”What do you mean?” I asked.

”Why,” he explained, ”you have a room of your own, haven't you? Why don't you fix it up just the way you had planned to have your room in college?

Then you can go there and study and make believe you're in college.”

I stared at him open-mouthed. ”Make-believe has never been my long suit,”

I said.

”Come on,” he urged. ”I'll help you fix it up. If you have any more tears prepare to shed them now into the paint pot and dissolve the paint.”

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