Burned Bridges

"You'll put that foot in a bad way if you try to use it much," he said

at last. "The best thing you can do is to come home with me and lie

around till you can walk again. I've got stuff to dress it properly.

Think you can hobble across the clearing if I make you a temporary

crutch?"

Thompson at first declined to be such a source of trouble. He was

grateful enough, but reluctant. Carr, however, went about it in a way

that permitted nothing short of a boorish refusal, and presently Mr.

Thompson found himself, with a crutch made of a forked willow, crossing

the meadow to Sam Carr's house.

His instincts had more or less subconsciously warned him that it would

not be well for his peace of mind or the good of his soul to be in

intimate daily contact with Sophie Carr. But his general inability to

cope with emergencies--which was patent enough to a practical man if not

wholly so to himself--culminating in this misadventure with a sharp axe,

had brought about that very circumstance.

He had not looked for such a kindly office on the part of Sam Carr. That

individual's caustic utterances and critical attitude toward theology

had not forewarned Thompson that sympathy and kindliness were

fundamental attributes with Sam Carr. If he had an acid tongue his heart

was tender enough. But Carr was no sentimentalist. When he had bestowed

Thompson in a comfortable room and painstakingly dressed the injured

foot he left his patient much to his own devices--and to the

ministrations of his daughter.

As a consequence, while the wound in his foot healed rapidly, Mr.

Thompson suffered a more grievous injury to his heart. Sophie Carr

affected him much as strong drink affects men with weak heads. The more

he saw of her the more he desired to see, to feast his eyes on her

loveliness--and invariably, when alone, to berate himself for such a

weakness. He had never dreamed that a man could feel that way about a

woman. He did not see why he, of all men, should succumb to the

fascination of a girl like Sophie Carr.

But the emotion was undeniable. Perhaps Sophie would have been surprised

if she could have known the amount of repression Mr. Thompson gradually

became compelled to practice when she was with him.

That was frequently enough. They were all good to him. From Carr's

Indian woman--who could, he now learned, speak passable English--down to

the sloe-eyed youngest Carr of mixed blood, they accepted him as one of

themselves. However, it happened to be Sophie who waited on him most,

who impishly took the greatest liberties with him, who was never averse

to an argument on any subject Thompson cared to touch. He had never

supposed there was a normal being with views on religion and economics,

upon any manifestation of human problems, with views so contrary to his

own. The maddening part of it was her ability to cite facts and

authorities whose existence he was not aware of, to confute him with

logic and compel him to admit that he did not know, that much of what he

asserted so emphatically was based on mere belief rather than

demonstrable fact or rational processes of arriving at a conclusion.

Sometimes both Sam Carr and Tommy Ashe were present at these oral tilts,

sitting back in silent amusement at Mr. Thompson's intellectual

floundering.