When he went back into the furnace cellar, he found Nathaniel sitting before the fire.  The food and warmth had brought a little color into his pale face, but it was still set in a mask of tragic desolation.

As his uncle came in, he exclaimed, “Why, Uncle Jehiel, you look awful bad.  Are you sick?”

“Yes, I be,” said the other harshly, “but ‘tain’t nothin’.  It’ll pass after a while.  Nathaniel, I’ve thought of a way you can manage.  You know your uncle’s wife died this last week and that leaves me without any house keeper.  What if your stepmother sh’d come and take care of me and I’ll take care of her.  I’ve just sold a piece of timber land I never thought to get a cent out of and that’ll ease things up so we can hire help if she ain’t strong enough to do the work.”

Nathaniel’s face flushed in a relief which died quickly down to a somber hopelessness.  He faced his uncle doggedly.  “Not much, Uncle Jehiel!” he said heavily, “I ain’t a-goin’ to hear to such a thing.  I know all about your wantin’ to get away from the valley—­you take that money and go yourself and I’ll—–­”

Hopelessness and resolution were alike struck out of his face by the fury of benevolence with which the old man cut him short.  “Don’t you dare to speak a word against it, boy!” cried Jehiel in a labored anguish.  “Good Lord!  I’m only doin’ it for you because I have to!  I’ve been through what you’re layin’ out for yourself an’ stood it, somehow, an’ now I’m ’most done with it all.  But ‘twould be like beginnin’ it all again to see you startin’ in.”

The boy tried to speak, but he raised his voice.  “No, I couldn’t stand it all over again.  ’Twould cut in to the places where I’ve got calloused.”  Seeing through the other’s stupor the beginnings of an irresolute opposition, he flung himself upon him in a strange and incredible appeal, crying out, “Oh, you must!  You got to go!” commanding and imploring in the same incoherent sentence, struggling for speech, and then hanging on Nathaniel’s answer in a sudden wild silence.  It was as though his next breath depended on the boy’s decision.

It was very still in the twilight where they stood.  The faint murmur of a prayer came down from above, and while it lasted both were as though held motionless by its mesmeric monotony.  Then, at the boom of the organ, the lad’s last shred of self-control vanished.  He burst again into muffled weary sobs, the light from the furnace glistening redly on his streaming cheeks.  “It ain’t right, Uncle Jehiel.  I feel as though I was murderin’ somethin’!  But I can’t help it.  I’ll go, I’ll do as you say, but——­”

His uncle’s agitation went out like a wind-blown flame.  He, too, drooped in an utter fatigue.  “Never mind, Natty,” he said tremulously, “it’ll all come out right somehow.  Just you do as Uncle Jehiel says.”

A trampling upstairs told him that the service was over.  “You run home now and tell her I’ll be over this afternoon to fix things up.”