The young man took the outstretched hand with a sudden lifting of heart. He forgot the gaunt figure striding from him and saw only the gentle, wrinkled face in its prim Scotch cap, beaming with light.
In a dozen words he had laid the story before her. She listened with intent eyes, her fingers plaiting the edge of her apron in tiny folds. When he had finished, the apron dropped from her fingers and she smoothed the pleats one by one.
“I knew you would.” It came from a full heart, and she smiled a little to him as she gave a final, smoothing touch to the apron. “He sent us the check, and it was bitter bread we bought wi’ it. But the bread I bake for him will be sweet,” she said.
“Thank you, Ellen.” He held out his hand. “It ’s good in you to do it, and what money can pay for--you shall have, you know.”
“Money won’t pay for the bread I shall bake him, Johnny,” she said slowly. “But he’s welcome to it and may the Lord bless it--to him.”
SIMEON Tetlow, in the little house by the creek, was growing stronger.
There had been days of waiting-long, slow days, when he sat dully passive, staring before him, or lay on the camp bed in a deep sleep. When he woke, he took the food that John brought him and fell asleep again.
Little by little, unseen fingers had come in the silence and smoothed the lines from the sleeping face, touching the fevered cheeks to coolness.... He slept now like a child, breathing lightly, and when he woke, his eyes were clear and fresh--only somewhere in the depths lurked a little shadow that nothing could efface.
The shadow kept tally on their days. When it lightened, John’s heart sang, and when it deepened, he set himself anew to his task.
For the first days he had not left his patient night or day--except for brief journeys across the woodlot to the farmhouse to bring the food that Ellen cooked. Later, when Simeon was able to walk a little and needed less care, he had made occasional trips to the office of the road.
It was during one of these trips that a new factor had entered into the case. The young man had been gone since early morning and the house was very quiet, deepening in the long silence to a kind of presence. The October sun poured in at the windows and a late fly buzzed in the light on the pane.