The Patriarch sat on the store porch. An old cob pipe, the smoke oozing lazily from its mouth, protruded from the recesses of his white beard. His eyes were fixed on the mountains over whose sides the black, sharp shadows of the clouds were wandering. His mood was so pensive as to awaken the curiosity of the Storekeeper, who had been watching the old man sitting upright on the bench, his gaze fastened on the distant hills.

“What are ye thinkin’ of, Gran’pap?” the young man asked.

“I was thinkin’ o’ Hen Wheedle. I hain’t thot o’ him fer a year, so I sais to meself to-day, I sais, ‘You otter think o’ Hen Wheedle!’ An’ I set right down, an’ a mighty good time I’ve hed a medytatin’ over him.”

The Miller laid the county paper over his knees and smoothed it out. Then he looked at the Patriarch.

“My souls!” he cried. “Why, Hen’s ben over the mo’ntain nigh onto forty year.”

[160]

“That’s jest the pint,” was the rejoinder. “‘Hen folks is gone ye otter think on ’em.”

To the old man there was nothing beyond the mountains but infinite space. To him the world was bounded by the green range before him and the range back by the river. The two sprang out of the blue at a point some nine miles to the north, went their own ways some fifteen miles to the south, joined, and made the valley and the world. To go over the mountain to him meant voluntary annihilation. He would step off into space beyond and become nothingness. In the seventy-five years of his life he had known men to return, but it was as though they had arisen from the dead.

“You uns knowd Hen Wheedle?” he inquired.

“He was afore my time but I’ve heard o’ him,” replied the Miller.

The Chronic Loafer looked up from the steps, where he had been sitting, whittling a piece of soft white pine.

“I s’posn you’ve heard o’ Bill Siler?” he asked, in a pleasant, alluring tone.

“Bill Siler,” repeated the Miller. He laid his forefinger against his forehead and thought a minute. “I think I hev. His name’s wery famil’ar. But why did ye ast?”

“Oh, jest because I’ve noticed that most everybody was afore your time an’ you’ve heard o’ ’em. I never knowd Bill Siler. His name was jest[161] ginirated in my head, an’ I thot ye might tell me who he was.”

“You thot ye’d ketch me, heigh,” cried the other. “Ye thot ye’d be smart an’——”

“Boys, boys,” the Patriarch shook his stick at his companions. “Don’t quarrel—don’t. Mebbe some day one o’ ye’ll go over the mo’ntain an’ then every mean word ye ever sayd’ll come back. Mean words is like them wooden balls on a ’lastic string that they sells the children at the county fair. The harder they is an’ the wiolenter ye th’ow ’em the quicker they bounces home to ye an’ the more they hurt. I otter know. Hen Wheedle otter know. Why every time he thinks o’ me his conscience must jest roll around inside o’ him.” The light in the old man’s pipe had gone out. He applied a sulphur match to it and sneezed violently. “But I’ve forgot the wrong Hen done me. He must ’a’ suffered innardly fer it. Ef he ever returns I’ll put this right hand in hisn an’ say, ’Hen, you done wrong, but you’ve suffered innardly an’ I fergive ye.’ They’s a heap o’ difference ’tween plain, ord’nary sufferin’ inside o’ ye, an’ sufferin’ innardly. Fer the first ye takes bitters, stops smokin’ an’ in a day you’re all right. But ’hen the conscience gits out o’ order all the bitters in the world an’ all the stoppin’ smokin’ in creation’ll give ye no ease. That’s what I sais, an’ I otter know, fer I can jest see how Hen Wheedle feels.”

[162]

No sulphurous fume was blazing around the Patriarch’s nose, but he sneezed again and choked himself with a piece of canton-flannel that served him as a handkerchief.

“Hen an’ me was raised on joinin’ farms. From the time we was big enough to gether eggs we was buddies. At school the boy that licked me had to lick both; the boy that was licked be one was licked be both. It was a reg’lar caset o’ David an’ Joshuay all over agin.

“They’s only one thing in the world’ll separate buddies like me an’ him was. A crow-bar won’t do it; a gun won’t; nothin’ won’t but a combination o’ yeller hair an’ dreamy blue eyes an’ pink cheeks. Melissy Flower hed ’em all. But what she done she didn’t do intentional. I didn’t want her without Hen hevin’ her; he didn’t want her without me hevin’ her—so they was a hitch. We used to go over to her house together allus, an’ we’d sing duets to her melodium playin’. He sung tenor an’ I bass. At the eend of each piece she distributed her praise jest equal. ’Hen we wasn’t hevin’ music we’d be on the settee, all three, first him, then her, then me. Ef Hen was so fortnit ez to catch the sparkle o’ her eyes, she’d turn her head my way an’ give me a chancet too.

“Now things went on this way tell one night we was comin’ home from her house together. We reached the covered bridge where the road[163] dewided, one fork goin’ to his placet an’ one to mine. How clear I remembers it!

“‘Henry,’ I sais, lookin’ right inter his eyes—it was moonlight an’ I could almost read his thots, ’Henry, it seems to me like you’ve ben thinkin’ more ’an usual o’ Melissy lately.’

“‘I was thinkin’ the same of you,’ sais he.

“‘You’re right,’ I answers. ‘But I won’t treat no buddy o’ mine mean.’

“‘An’ the same with me,’ sais he.

“We was quiet a piece. Then I sais, ’Henry, ef ever I finds I can’t stand it no longer I’ll tell you.’

“‘An’ ef ever I gits the same way I’ll tell you,’ sais he.

“We shook hands an’ went home.

“I s’pose things ’ud ’a’ gone on ez they was fer a good many year hed not a young town felly from up the walley come drivin’ down in slick clothes an’ in a slick buggy. You uns hev all heard the old sayin’ that it ain’t the clothes that makes the man. Ye never heard the proverb that it ain’t the paint that makes the house, did ye? I guess ye didn’t, yit it’s jest ’bout ez sensible. It ain’t the paint that makes the house, but it’s the paint that keeps the boards from rottin’ an’ the hull thing from fallin’ to pieces out o’ pure bein’ ashamed o’ itself. Solerman was the wisest man that ever lived, yit the Bible sais that he allus run to fine raiment. He hed a thousand[164] an’ odd wives an’ knowd well enough that he wouldn’t hev no peace with ’em ef he run ’round in his bare feet an’ overalls. ’Hen the Queen o’ Sheby called on him ye can bet your bottom dollar she didn’t find him settin’ on the throne with a hickory shirt ’thout no collar, an’ his second-best pants held up be binder-twine gall............