s in the last desperate
struggle for breath, his mother's low sobs, and the haggard face of the
old Major.
Thomas Jefferson dug his fingers and toes into the grass and bit a
mouthful of it to stifle the cry wrung from him by the torturing
poignancy of it. Was there no way of escape?
He turned over and sat up to try to think it out. Yes, there was a
way--the way which would be taken by the boy in the Sunday-school books.
He would say he was sorry, and would have his sins washed away, and
there would be rejoicing in Heaven over the one sinner who had repented.
Of course, the girl would die, just the same, and all the misery his sin
had caused would remain unchanged. But _he_ would escape.
For one unworthy moment Thomas Jefferson was fiercely tempted. Then the
dogged Gordon blood reasserted itself. He had done the dreadful thing:
he had asked God to take this girl out of his way, and now he would
accept what he had coveted and would not try to sneak out of paying. It
comforted him a little to think that, after all, there must eventually
be some sort of end to the torment, away on in the eternities to come.
When he had suffered all he could suffer, not even God could make him
suffer any more.
When he finally recrossed the creek on the dam head it was supper-time,
and his mother had returned. The misery had now settled into dumb
despair, both more and less agonizing than the acute remorse of the
afternoon. What he needed to know was told in his mother's answer to his
father's inquiry: "Yes; she is a very sick child. I'm going up again
after supper to stay as long as I'm needed. It's a judgment on the
Major; he has been setting the creature above the Creator."
Thomas Jefferson knew well enough that the judgment was his, and not the
Major's; but he let his supper choke him in silence. Afterward, when his
mother had gone back to the house of anxiety and he was alone with his
father, there were some vague promptings toward confession and a cry for
human sympathy. What sealed his lips was the conviction that his father
would comfort him without understanding, just as his mother would
understand and condemn him. Early in the evening his father went back to
the furnace and his chance was lost.
For four heart-searching days Thomas Jefferson lived and endured,
because living and enduring were the two unalterable conditions of the
brimstone pit to which he had consigned himself. During these days his
mother came and went,
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