T got on toward night, still raining; the clay in the bottom was deep with mud. A man stood in the dusk at the corner of a snake-fence, leaning on a shotgun, silent, motionless, as the minutes went by, peering down through the thickness at the faint, watery lights of the village. The "five-fifteen" had come and gone half an hour: he had heard the whistle, and for a moment, over yonder in Schauer's Gorge, glimpsed the file of its yellow windows swimming down toward the coast. Once he filled his pipe with clumsy fingers and forgot to light it; once he combed his hair back under his hat with an uncertain hand; beyond that he remained as expressionless and immobile as a statue.
By and by another figure came into view a little way off through the murk, climbing up the muddy track from the village.
The men hailed each other in tones constrained and excited. John Petit, who had been standing by the fence so long, started forward with a gesture of eagerness, hesitated, and halted after two or three steps. Luke Petit let his straw suitcase down in the mud and put his hands into his pockets. And so, face to face, the brothers took stock of each other. Both faces showed a little gray in the gathering night.
"Shake!" said Luke Petit.
John Petit put out a hand.
"This is the day I 've been waiting for, Luke; you don't know how."
"You look about the same, John."
"You look about the same, Luke. Trifle poorer about the face."
"Poorer! You ought to 'a' seen me a year ago, John, after the bit in solitary. Poorer! Did you think five years in prison was going to put flesh on to a man?"
"It's been had, Luke."
"Bad! I guess! I tell you one thing, John; for a man that's been five years in a cell, when he comes out there's nothing in the world too good for him. What's the gun for, John?"
"Nothing. The Wallow folks are a mite ugly, that's all. They won't do
anything, though. I just carried it fo luck."
Luke Petit peered about him.
"Where's the mare? I'd 'ave thought you'd 'ave brought the rig, John."
"I 've been sawing cord-wood with her all day, and it's such a short step over the hill. I figured you'd rather walk. Here, I'll carry your suitcase."
They started off in the soggy going, Luke trailing a pace behind.
"But after supper," he said, "we 'll put the mare in the buggy all right, John."
The other stopped and looked back at him.
"To-night? Go over to Belle's to-night, Luke?"
"Why not? Say, look here, John, you got my letter about the minister?"
"Yes." John spoke slowly, his face turned half away. "But to-night, Luke—you 're pretty tired to-night."
"What of it? After five years? You try waiting five years, John."
A misty star in the kitchen window led them down the farther slope to the farmhouse. John had laid the table for their supper before he went over the hill to wait: two cans of sardines, a can of corn, heavy bread made laboriously with his own hands, a peach-pie bought in the village, coffee set on the back of the stove. That afternoon he had washed up the accumulated dishes of a fortnight, but somehow, for all he could do, they began to gather in the sink again.
"I wish it was fancier," he said, with a touch of wistfulness as Luke sank into a chair at the table. "I 've tried to get a woman to work, but there has n't been any, and none of the Wallow niggers would come since you finished Maje. They 're a mite ugly about it. They say Maje was only fooling that time, and nobody else would have thought a thing about it."
"But I would. Black or white, I'd have done the same for any man that scared my girl like that. I 'm built that way."
"Yes, I know. You did right, Luke."
"Sure, I done right. And Belle knows it, and honors me for it, too. She's wrote me a letter every single day."
"And every single day," John told him in a curiously hard voice, "she's marked off the date on the calendar and numbered the days to come. It's made a difference in Belle, Luke. Belle's a woman now. These five years have told."
"These five years have told"—it kept echoing in John Petit's brain as he sat there staring down at the knuckles of the hard hands on his knees, afraid to look at his brother. He would scarcely have known him at a casual meeting. Five years in prison had certainly done Luke no good.
Though John touched nothing, Luke had begun to eat ravenously, picking out sardines with his fingers from the can between his elbows. After he had done for one can, however, he pushed everything away from him with a sudden gesture of revulsion.