“I have mended the floor,” replied the School-teacher.
“It ain't so much the floor,” continued the old man. “It's the sills. The sills might be rotten.”
“I have examined the sills,” replied the School-teacher. “The sills are sound.”
“Well,” said the old man, “failin' weather's comin' on. I think the school had better stop anyway.”
He turned a little and put his stick out on the path into the leaves as though he would go down the hill a shorter way to the road.
The School-teacher read his intent in the moving of the cane.
“You would better stay in the path,” he said. “If you get out of the path you will fall.”
The old man turned back into the path before the School-teacher.
There was come now a certain dogged expression into his face.
“If you want to know,” he said, “there's been some complaint about you.”
“Who has complained of me?” said the School-teacher.
“Why, men as good as the minister. Why, men as good as the doctor.”
Then he looked out sharp at the Schoolteacher.
“Ain't that hussy, Yaller Mag, up there with you at Nicholas Parks' house?” The School-teacher regarded the old man standing before him.
“Do you think this woman ought to be sent away?”
“It's a difficult thing to do,” said the School-teacher.
“Yes,” said the School-teacher, “that is it, to find some one to tell her.”
“If that's all,” said the old man, “I'm goin' home by Nicholas Park's house, that's my shortest way. I'll stop an' tell her myself.”
“But have you thought how difficult it will be to tell her?” inquired the Schoolteacher.
“Well,” replied the School-teacher, his eyes resting on the old man's swollen scrofuletic leg, “the trouble is that the one who goes to tell her ought to be better than she is. He ought, himself, to have lived a clean life.... Perhaps you have, perhaps you can tell her.”
The old man thought that the Schoolteacher saw something lying on the ground, for he stooped over and his finger moved in the dust of the path. And while he remained thus, the old man hurried along to the road. The mare stood facing in the direction of the way over the mountain by Nicholas Parks' house.
The old man took her by the bridle and turned her around in the road.
Then he climbed slowly into the creaking cart. He looked back when he had got his big bulk on the folded bedquilt. The School-teacher was standing upright where he had passed him in the path. The old man put his hand on the corner of the seat and turned heavily about.