"Pore! Pore!" he repeated hopelessly. "Why, if we had a million, I would
still be just common, ornery, doless pore folks--tongue-tied and
helpless, and I couldn't give you nothin--nothin!" he cried, "but just
rubbish! Yet there are so many things I'd like to give you, Laura--so
many, many things!" he repeated. "God Almighty's put a terrible
hog-tight inheritance tax on experience, girl!" He smiled a crooked,
tearful little smile--looked up into her eyes in dog-like wistfulness as
he continued: "I'd like to give you some of mine--some of the wisdom
I've got one way and another--but, Lord, Lord," he wailed, "I can't. The
divine inheritance tax bars me." He patted her with one hand, holding
his smoldering pipe in the other. Then he shrilled out in the impotence
of his pain: "I just must give you this, Laura: Whatever comes and
whatever goes--and lots of sad things will come and lots of sad things
will go, too, for that matter--always remember this: Happiness is from
the heart out--not from the world in! Do you understand, child--do you?"
The girl smiled and petted him, but he saw that he hadn't reached her
consciousness. He puffed at a dead pipe a moment, then he cried as he
beat his hands together in despair: "I suppose it's no use. It's no use.
But you can at least remember these words, Laura, and some time the
meaning will get to you. Always carry your happiness under your bonnet!
It's the only thing I can give you--out of all my store!"
The girl put her arm about him and pressed closely to him, and they
rose, as she said: "Why, father--I understand. Of course I understand.
Don't you see I understand, father?"
She spoke eagerly and clasped her arms tighter about the pudgy little
figure. They stood quietly a moment, as the father looked earnestly,
dog-wise, up into her face, as if trying by his very gaze to transmit
his loving wisdom. Then, as he found voice: "No, Laura, probably you'll
need fifty years to understand; but look over on the hill across the
valley at the moving cloud shadows. They are only shadows--not
realities. They are just unrealities that prove the real--just trailing
anchors of the sun!" He had pocketed his pipe and his hand came up from
his pocket as he waved to the distant shadows and piped:
"Trouble--heartaches--all the host of clouds that cover life--are
only--only--" he let his voice drop gently as he sighed: "only anchors
of the sun; Laura, they only prove--just prove--"
She did not let him finish, but bent to kiss him and she could feel the
shudder of a smothered sob rack him as she touched his cheek.
Then he smiled at her and chirped: "Just Eendiany--sis'. Just pore, dumb
Eendiany! Hi, ho! Now run and be a good girl! And here's a jim-crack
your daddy got you!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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