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.”
“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 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.”