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-                                Ann Boyd
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
-no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-Title: Ann Boyd
-
-Author: Will N. Harben
-
-Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37551]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN BOYD ***
-
-
-
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37551 ***
 
 Produced by Roger Frank, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
 Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
@@ -10451,375 +10430,4 @@ and sobbed.
 
                                 THE END
 
-
-
-
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN BOYD ***
-
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37551 ***
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-                                Ann Boyd
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
-no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-Title: Ann Boyd
-
-Author: Will N. Harben
-
-Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37551]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN BOYD ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
-
-                                A Novel
-                                   By
-                             Will N. Harben
-
-                               Author of
-                      "Abner Daniel" "Pole Baker"
-                          "The Georgians" etc.
-
-                          New York and London
-                      Harper & Brothers Publishers
-                                  1906
-
-                Copyright, 1906, by _Harper & Brothers_.
-
-                         _All rights reserved._
-
-                       Published September, 1906.
-
-                                  ----
-
-                                   To
-                          William Dean Howells
-
-                                  ----
-
-[Illustration: _'I RECKON IT WAS THE DIVINE INTENTION FOR ME AND YOU TO
-HAVE THIS SECRET BETWEEN US'_]
-
-                                  ----
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-    I
-    II
-    III
-    IV
-    V
-    VI
-    VII
-    VIII
-    IX
-    X
-    XI
-    XII
-    XIII
-    XIV
-    XV
-    XVI
-    XVII
-    XVIII
-    XIX
-    XX
-    XXI
-    XXII
-    XXIII
-    XXIV
-    XXV
-    XXVI
-    XXVII
-    XXVIII
-    XXIX
-    XXX
-    XXXI
-    XXXII
-    XXXIII
-    XXXIV
-    XXXV
-    XXXVI
-    XXXVII
-    XXXVIII
-    XXXIX
-    XL
-    XLI
-    XLII
-
-                                  ----
-
-                                Ann Boyd
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-
-Ann Boyd Stood at the open door of her corn-house, a square, one-storied
-hut made of the trunks of young pine-trees, the bark of which, being
-worm-eaten, was crumbling from the smooth hard-wood. She had a tin pail
-on her arm, and was selecting "nubbins" for her cow from the great heap
-of husked corn which, like a mound of golden nuggets, lay within. The
-strong-jawed animal could crunch the dwarfed ears, grain and corn
-together, when they were stirred into a mush made of wheat-bran and
-dish-water.
-
-Mrs. Boyd, although past fifty, showed certain signs of having been a
-good-looking woman. Her features were regular, but her once slight and
-erect figure was now heavy, and bent as if from toil. Her hair, which in
-her youth had been a luxuriant golden brown, was now thinner and
-liberally streaked with gray. From her eyes deep wrinkles diverged, and
-the corners of her firm mouth were drawn downward. Her face, even in
-repose, wore an almost constant frown, and this habit had deeply gashed
-her forehead with lines that deepened when she was angry.
-
-With her pail on her arm, she was turning back towards her cottage,
-which stood about a hundred yards to the right, beneath the shade of two
-giant oaks, when she heard her name called from the main-travelled road,
-which led past her farm, on to Darley, ten miles away.
-
-"Oh, it's you, Mrs. Waycroft!" she exclaimed, without change of
-countenance, as the head and shoulders of a neighbor appeared above the
-rail-fence. "I couldn't imagine who it was calling me."
-
-"Yes, it was me," the woman said, as Mrs. Boyd reached the fence and
-rested her pail on the top rail. "I hain't seed you since I seed you at
-church, Sunday. I tried to get over yesterday, but was too busy with one
-thing and another."
-
-"I reckon you have had your hands full planting cotton," said Mrs. Boyd.
-"I didn't expect you; besides, I've had all I could do in my own field."
-
-"Yes, my boys have been hard at it," said Mrs. Waycroft. "I don't go to
-the field myself, like you do. I reckon I ain't hardy enough, but
-keeping things for them to eat and the house in order takes all my
-time."
-
-"I reckon," said Mrs. Boyd, studying the woman's face closely under the
-faded black poke-bonnet--"I reckon you've got something to tell me. You
-generally have. I wish I could not care a snap of the finger what folks
-say, but I'm only a natural woman. I want to hear things sometimes when
-I know they will make me so mad that I won't eat a bite for days."
-
-Mrs. Waycroft looked down at the ground. "Well," she began, "I reckon
-you know thar would be considerable talk after what happened at meeting
-Sunday. You know a thing like that naturally _would_ stir up a quiet
-community like this."
-
-"Yes, when I think of it I can see there would be enough said, but I'm
-used to being the chief subject of idle talk. I've had twenty odd years
-of it, Mary Waycroft, though this public row was rather unexpected. I
-didn't look for abuse from the very pulpit in God's house, if it _is_
-His. I didn't know you were there. I didn't know a friendly soul was
-nigh."
-
-"Yes, I was there clean through from the opening hymn. A bolt from
-heaven on a sunny day couldn't have astonished me more than I was when
-you come in and walked straight up the middle aisle, and sat down just
-as if you'd been coming there regular for all them years. I reckon you
-had your own private reasons for making the break."
-
-"Yes, I did." The wrinkled mouth of the speaker twitched nervously. "I'd
-been thinking it out, Mrs. Waycroft, for a long time and trying to pray
-over it, and at last I come to the conclusion that if I didn't go to
-church like the rest, it was an open admission that I acknowledged
-myself worse than others, and so I determined to go--I determined to go
-if it killed me."
-
-"And to think you was rewarded that way!" answered Mrs. Waycroft; "it's
-a shame! Ann Boyd, it's a dirty shame!"
-
-"It will be a long time before I darken a church door again," said Mrs.
-Boyd. "If I'm ever seen there it will be after I'm dead and they take me
-there feet foremost to preach over my body. I didn't look around, but I
-knew they were all whispering about me."
-
-"You never saw the like in your life, Ann," the visitor said. "Heads
-were bumping together to the damagement of new spring hats, and
-everybody was asking what it meant. Some said that, after meeting, you
-was going up and give your hand to Brother Bazemore and ask him to take
-you back, as a member, but he evidently didn't think you had a purpose
-like that, or he wouldn't have opened up on you as he did. Of course,
-everybody thar knowed he was hitting at you."
-
-"Oh yes, they all knew, and he had no reason for thinking I wanted to
-ask any favor, for he knows too well what I think of him. He hates the
-ground I walk on. He has been openly against me ever since he come to my
-house and asked me to let the Sunday-school picnic at my spring and in
-my grove. I reckon I gave it to him pretty heavy that day, for all I'd
-been hearing about what he had had to say of me had made me mad. I let
-him get out his proposal as politely as such a sneaking man could, and
-then I showed him where I stood. Here, Mrs. Waycroft, I've been treated
-like a dog and an outcast by every member of his church for the last
-twenty years, called the vilest names a woman ever bore by his so-called
-Christian gang, and then, when they want something I've got--something
-that nobody else can furnish quite as suitable for their purpose--why he
-saunters over to my house holding the skirts of his long coat as if
-afraid of contamination, and calmly demands the use of my
-property--property that I've slaved in the hot sun and sleet and rain to
-pay for with hard work. Oh, I was mad! You see, that was too much, and I
-reckon he never in all his life got such a tongue-lashing. When I came
-in last Sunday and sat down, I saw his eyes flash, and knew if he got
-half an excuse he would let out on me. I was sorry I'd come then, but
-there was no backing out after I'd got there."
-
-"When he took his text I knew he meant it for you," said the other
-woman. "I have never seen a madder man in the pulpit, never in my life.
-While he was talking, he never once looked at you, though he knew
-everybody else was doing nothing else. Then I seed you rise to your
-feet. He stopped to take a drink from his goblet, and you could 'a'
-heard a pin fall, it was so still. I reckon the rest thought like I did,
-that you was going right up to him and pull his hair or slap his jaws.
-You looked like you hardly knowed what you was doing, and, for one, I
-tuck a free breath when you walked straight out of the house. What you
-did was exactly right, as most fair-minded folks will admit, though I'm
-here to tell you, my friend, that you won't find fair-minded folks very
-plentiful hereabouts. The fair-minded ones are over there in that
-graveyard."
-
-Mrs. Boyd stroked her quivering lips with her hard, brown hand, and
-said, softly: "I wasn't going to sit there and listen to any more of it.
-I'd thrown aside pride and principle and gone to do my duty to my
-religion, as I saw it, and thought maybe some of them--one or two, at
-least--would meet me part of the way, but I couldn't listen to a two
-hours' tirade about me and my--my misfortune. If I'd stayed any longer,
-I'd have spoken back to him, and that would have been exactly what he
-and some of the rest would have wanted, for then they could have made a
-case against me in court for disturbing public worship, and imposed a
-heavy fine. They can't bear to think that, in spite of all their
-persecution, I've gone ahead and paid my debts and prospered in a way
-that they never could do with all their sanctimony."
-
-There was silence for a moment. A gentle breeze stirred the leaves of
-the trees and the blades of long grass beside the road. There was a
-far-away tinkling of cow and sheep bells in the lush-green pastures
-which stretched out towards the frowning mountain against which the
-setting sun was levelling its rays.
-
-"You say you haven't seen anybody since Sunday," remarked the loitering
-woman, in restrained, tentative tones.
-
-"No, I've been right here. Why did you ask me that?"
-
-"Well, you see, Ann," was the slow answer, "talking at the rate Bazemore
-was to your face, don't you think it would be natural for him to--to
-sort o' rub it on even heavier behind your back, after you got up that
-way and went out so sudden."
-
-"I never thought of it, but I can see now that it would be just like
-him." Mrs. Boyd took a deep breath and lowered her pail to the ground.
-"Yes," she went on, reflectively, as she drew herself up again and
-leaned on the fence, "I reckon he got good and mad when I got up and
-left."
-
-"Huh!" The other woman smiled. "He was so mad he could hardly speak. He
-fairly gulped, his eyes flashed, and he was as white as a bunch of
-cotton. He poured out another goblet of water that he had no idea of
-drinking, and his hand shook so much that the glass tinkled like a bell
-against the mouth of the pitcher. You must have got as far as the
-hitching-rack before his fury busted out. I reckon what he said was the
-most unbecoming thing that a stout, able-bodied man ever hurled at a
-defenceless woman's back."
-
-There was another pause. Mrs. Boyd's expectant face was as hard as
-stone; her dark-gray eyes were two burning fires in their shadowy
-orbits.
-
-"What did he say?" she asked. "You might as well tell me."
-
-Mrs. Waycroft avoided her companion's fierce stare. "He looked down at
-the place where you sat, Ann, right steady for a minute, then he said:
-'I'm glad that woman had the common decency to sit on a seat by herself
-while she was here; but I hope when meeting is over that some of you
-brethren will take the bench out in the woods and burn it. I'll pay for
-a new one out of my own pocket.'"
-
-"Oh!" The exclamation seemed wrung from her when off her guard, and Mrs.
-Boyd clutched the rail of the fence so tightly that her strong nails
-sunk into the soft wood. "He said _that_! He said that _about me_!"
-
-"Yes, and he ought to have been ashamed of himself," said Mrs. Waycroft;
-"and if he had been anything else than a preacher, surely some of the
-men there--men you have befriended--would not have set still and let it
-pass."
-
-"But they _did_ let it pass," said Mrs. Boyd, bitterly; "they did let it
-pass, one and all."
-
-"Oh yes, nobody would dare, in this section, to criticise a preacher,"
-said the other. "What any little, spindle-legged parson says goes the
-same as the word of God out here in the backwoods. I'd have left the
-church myself, but I knowed you'd want to hear what was said; besides,
-they all know I'm your friend."
-
-"Yes, they all know you are the only white woman that ever comes near
-me. But what else did he say?"
-
-"Oh, he had lots to say. He said he hadn't mentioned no names, but it
-was always the hit dog that yelped, and that you had made yourself a
-target by leaving as you did. He went on to say that, in his opinion,
-all that was proved at court against you away back there was just. He
-said some folks misunderstood Scripture when it come to deal with your
-sort and stripe. He said some argued that a church door ought always to
-be wide open to any sinner whatsoever, but that in your daily conduct of
-holding every coin so tight that the eagle on it squeals, and in giving
-nothing to send the Bible to the heathens, and being eternally at strife
-with your neighbors, you had showed, he said, that no good influence
-could be brought to bear on you, and that people who was really trying
-to live upright lives ought to shun you like they would a catching
-disease. He 'lowed you'd had the same Christian chance in your
-bringing-up, and a better education than most gals, and had deliberately
-throwed it all up and gone your headstrong way. In his opinion, it would
-be wrong to condone your past, and tell folks you stood an equal chance
-with the rising generation fetched up under the rod and Biblical
-injunction by parents who knowed what lasting scars the fires of sin
-could burn in a living soul. He said the community had treated you
-right, in sloughing away from you, ever since you was found out, because
-you had never showed a minute's open repentance. You'd helt your head,
-he thought, if possible, higher than ever, and in not receiving the
-social sanction of your neighbors, it looked like you was determined to
-become the richest woman in the state for no other reason than to prove
-that wrong prospered."
-
-The speaker paused in her recital. The listener, her face set and dark
-with fury, glanced towards the cottage. "Come in," she said, huskily;
-"people might pass along and know what we are talking about, and,
-somehow, I don't want to give them that satisfaction."
-
-"That's a fact," said Mrs. Waycroft; "they say I fetch you every bit of
-gossip, anyway. A few have quit speaking to me. Bazemore would himself,
-if he didn't look to me once a month for my contribution. I hope what
-I've told you won't upset you, Ann, but you always say you want to know
-what's going on. It struck me that the whole congregation was about the
-most heartless body of human beings I ever saw packed together in one
-bunch."
-
-"I want you to tell me one other thing," said Mrs. Boyd, tensely, as
-they were entering the front doorway of the cottage--"was Jane Hemingway
-there?"
-
-"Oh yes, by a large majority. I forgot to tell you about her. I had my
-eyes on her, too, for I knowed it would tickle her nigh to death, and it
-did. When you left she actually giggled out loud and turned back an'
-whispered to the Mayfield girls. Her old, yellow face fairly shone, she
-was that glad, and when Bazemore went on talking about you and burning
-that bench, she fairly doubled up, with her handkerchief clapped over
-her mouth."
-
-Mrs. Boyd drew a stiff-backed chair from beneath the dining-table and
-pushed it towards her guest. "There is not in hell itself, Mary
-Waycroft, a hatred stronger than I feel right now for that woman. She is
-a fiend in human shape. That miserable creature has hounded me every
-minute since we were girls together. As God is my judge, I believe I
-could kill her and not suffer remorse. There was a time when my
-disposition was as sweet and gentle as any girl's, but she changed it.
-She has made me what I am. She is responsible for it all. I might have
-gone on--after my--my misfortune, and lived in some sort of harmony with
-my kind if it hadn't been for her."
-
-"I know that," said the other woman, as she sat down and folded her
-cloth bonnet in her thin hands. "I really believe you'd have been a
-different woman, as you say, after--after your trouble if she had let
-you alone."
-
-Mrs. Boyd seated herself in another chair near the open door, and looked
-out at a flock of chickens and ducks which had gathered at the step and
-were noisily clamoring for food.
-
-"I saw two things that made my blood boil as I was leaving the church,"
-said she. "I saw Abe Longley, who has been using my pasture for his
-cattle free of charge for the last ten years. I caught sight of his
-face, and it made me mad to think he'd sit there and never say a word in
-defence of the woman he'd been using all that time; and then I saw
-George Wilson, just as indifferent, near the door, when I've been
-favoring him and his shabby store with all my trade when I could have
-done better by going on to Darley. I reckon neither of those two men
-said the slightest thing when Bazemore advised the--the burning of the
-bench I'd sat on."
-
-"Oh no, of course not!" said Mrs. Waycroft, "nobody said a word. They
-wouldn't have dared, Ann."
-
-"Well, they will both hear from me," said Mrs. Boyd, "and in a way that
-they won't forget soon. I tell you, Mary Waycroft, this thing has
-reached a climax. That burning bench is going to be my war-torch. They
-say I've been at strife with my neighbors all along; well, they'll see
-now. I struggled and struggled with pride to get up to the point of
-going to church again, and that's the reception I got."
-
-"It's a pity to entertain hard feelings, but I don't blame you a single
-bit," said Mrs. Waycroft, sympathetically. "As I look at it, you have
-done all you can to live in harmony, and they simply won't have it. They
-might be different if it wasn't for that meddlesome old Jane Hemingway.
-She keeps them stirred up. She and her daughter is half starving to
-death, while you--" Mrs. Waycroft glanced round the room at the warm rag
-carpet of many colors, at the neat fire-screen made of newspaper
-pictures pasted on a crude frame of wood, and, higher, to the
-mantel-piece, whose sole ornament was a Seth Thomas clock, with the
-Tower of London in glaring colors on the glass door--"while you don't
-ask anybody any odds. Instead of starving, gold dollars seem to roll up
-to your door of their own accord and fall in a heap. They tell me even
-that cotton factory which you invested in, and which Mrs. Hemingway said
-had busted and gone up the spout, is really doing well."
-
-"The stock has doubled in value," said Mrs. Boyd, simply. "I don't know
-how to account for my making money. I reckon it's simply good judgment
-and a habit of throwing nothing away. The factory got to a pretty low
-ebb, and the people lost faith in it, and were offering their stock at
-half-price. My judgment told me it would pull through as soon as times
-improved, and I bought an interest in it at a low figure. I was right;
-it proved to be a fine investment."
-
-"I was sorter sorry for Virginia Hemingway, Sunday," said Mrs. Waycroft.
-"When her mother was making such an exhibition of herself in gloating
-over the way you was treated, the poor girl looked like she was ashamed,
-and pulled Jane's apron like she was trying to keep her quiet. I reckon
-you hain't got nothing against the girl, Ann?"
-
-"Nothing except that she is that devilish woman's offspring," said Mrs.
-Boyd. "It's hard to dislike her; she's pretty--by all odds the prettiest
-and sweetest-looking young woman in this county. Her mother in her prime
-never saw the day she was anything like her. They say Virginia isn't
-much of a hand to gossip and abuse folks. I reckon her mother's ways
-have disgusted her."
-
-"I reckon that's it," said the other woman, as she rose to go. "I know I
-love to look at her; she does my old eyes good. At meeting I sometimes
-gaze steady at her for several minutes on a stretch. Sitting beside that
-hard, crabbed old thing, the girl certainly does look out of place. She
-deserves a better fate than to be tied to such a woman. I reckon she'll
-be picked up pretty soon by some of these young men--that is, if Jane
-will give her any sort of showing. Jane is so suspicious of folks that
-she hardly lets Virginia out of her sight. Well, I must be going. Since
-my husband's death I've had my hands full on the farm; he did a lots to
-help out, even about the kitchen. Good-bye. I can see what I've said has
-made a change in you, Ann. I never saw you look quite so different."
-
-"Yes, the whole thing has kind o' jerked me round," replied Mrs. Boyd.
-"I've taken entirely too much off of these people--let them run over me
-dry-shod; but I'll show them a thing or two. They won't let me live in
-peace, and now they can try the other thing." And Ann Boyd stood in the
-doorway and watched the visitor trudge slowly away.
-
-"Yes," she mused, as she looked out into the falling dusk, "they are
-trying to drive me to the wall with their sneers and lashing tongues.
-But I'll show them that a worm can turn."
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-
-The next morning, after a frugal breakfast of milk and cornmeal pancake,
-prepared over an open fireplace on live coals, which reddened her cheeks
-and bare arms, Mrs. Boyd pinned up her skirts till their edges hung on a
-level with the tops of her coarse, calf-skin shoes. She then climbed
-over the brier-grown rail-fence with the agility of a hunter and waded
-through the high, dew-soaked weeds and grass in the direction of the
-rising sun. The meadow was like a rolling green sea settling down to
-calmness after a storm. Here and there a tuft of dewy broom-sedge held
-up to her vision a sheaf of green hung with sparkling diamonds,
-emeralds, and rubies, and far ahead ran a crystal creek in and out among
-gracefully drooping willows and erect young reeds.
-
-"That's his brindle heifer now," the trudging woman said, harshly. "And
-over beyond the hay-stack and cotton-shed is his muley cow and calf.
-Huh, I reckon I'll make them strike a lively trot! It will be some time
-before they get grass as rich as mine inside of them to furnish milk and
-butter for Abe Longley and his sanctimonious lay-out."
-
-Slowly walking around the animals, she finally got them together and
-drove them from her pasture to the small road which ran along the foot
-of the mountain towards their owner's farm-house, the gray roof of which
-rose above the leafy trees in the distance. To drive the animals out,
-she had found it necessary to lower a panel of her fence, and she was
-replacing the rails laboriously, one by one, when she heard a voice from
-the woodland on the mountain-side, a tract of unproductive land owned by
-the man whose cows she was ejecting. It was Abe Longley himself, and in
-some surprise he hurried down the rugged steep, a woodman's axe on his
-shoulder. He was a gaunt, slender man, gray and grizzled, past sixty
-years of age, with a tuft of stiff beard on his chin, which gave his
-otherwise smooth-shaven face a forbidding expression.
-
-"Hold on thar, Sister Boyd!" he called out, cheerily, though he seemed
-evidently to be trying to keep from betraying the impatience he
-evidently felt. "You must be getting nigh-sighted in yore old age. As
-shore as you are a foot high them's my cattle, an' not yourn. Why, I
-knowed my brindle from clean up at my wood-pile, a full quarter from
-here. I seed yore mistake an' hollered then, but I reckon you are
-gettin' deef as well as blind. I driv' 'em in not twenty minutes ago, as
-I come on to do my cuttin'."
-
-"I know you did, Abe Longley," and Mrs. Boyd stooped to grasp and raise
-the last rail and carefully put it in place; "I know they are yours. My
-eyesight's good enough. I know good and well they are yours, and that is
-the very reason I made them hump themselves to get off of my property."
-
-"But--but," and the farmer, thoroughly puzzled, lowered his glittering
-axe and stared wonderingly--"but you know, Sister Boyd, that you told me
-with your own mouth that, being as I'd traded off my own pasture-land to
-Dixon for my strip o' wheat in the bottom, that I was at liberty to use
-yourn how and when I liked, and, now--why, I'll be dad-blamed if I
-understand you one bit."
-
-"Well, I understand what I'm about, Abe Longley, if you don't!" retorted
-the owner of the land. "I _did_ say you could pasture on it, but I
-didn't say you could for all time and eternity; and I now give you due
-notice if I ever see any four-footed animal of yours inside of my fences
-I'll run them out with an ounce of buckshot in their hides."
-
-"Well, well, well!" Longley cried, at the end of his resources, as he
-leaned on his smooth axe-handle with one hand and clutched his beard
-with the other. "I don't know what to make of yore conduct. I can't do
-without the use of your land. There hain't a bit that I could rent or
-buy for love or money on either side of me for miles around. When folks
-find a man's in need of land, they stick the price up clean out of
-sight. I was tellin' Sue the other day that we was in luck havin' sech a
-neighbor--one that would do so much to help a body in a plight."
-
-"Yes, I'm very good and kind," sneered Mrs. Boyd, her sharp eyes ablaze
-with indignation, "and last Sunday in meeting you and a lot of other
-able-bodied men sat still and let that foul-mouthed Bazemore say that
-even the wooden bench I sat on ought to be taken out and burned for the
-public good. You sat there and listened to _that_, and when he was
-through you got up and sung the doxology and bowed your head while that
-makeshift of a preacher called down God's benediction on you. If you
-think I'm going to keep a pasture for such a man as you to fatten your
-stock on, you need a guardian to look after you."
-
-"Oh, I see," Longley exclaimed, a crestfallen look on him. "You are
-goin' to blame us all for what he said, and you are mad at everybody
-that heard it. But you are dead wrong, Ann Boyd--dead wrong. You can't
-make over public opinion, and you'd 'a' been better off years ago if you
-hadn't been so busy trying to do it, whether or no. Folks would let you
-alone if you'd 'a' showed a more repentant sperit, and not held your
-head so high and been so spiteful. I reckon the most o' your
-trouble--that is, the reason it's lasted so long, is due to the
-women-folks more than the men of the community, anyhow. You see, it
-sorter rubs women's wool the wrong way to see about the only prosperity
-a body can see in the entire county falling at the feet of the
-one--well, the one least expected to have sech things--the one, I mought
-say, who hadn't lived exactly up to the _best_ precepts."
-
-"I don't go to men like you for my precepts," the woman hurled at him,
-"and I haven't got any time for palavering. All I want to do is to give
-you due notice not to trespass on my land, and I've done that plain
-enough, I reckon."
-
-Abe Longley's thin face showed anger that was even stronger than his
-avarice; he stepped nearer to her, his eyes flashing, his wide upper-lip
-twitching nervously. "Do you know," he said, "that's its purty foolhardy
-of you to take up a fight like that agin a whole community. You know you
-hain't agoin' to make a softer bed to lie on. You know, if you find
-fault with me fer not denouncin' Bazemore, you may as well find fault
-with every living soul that was under reach o' his voice, fer nobody
-budged or said a word in yore defence."
-
-"I'm taking up a fight with no one," the woman said, firmly. "They can
-listen to what they want to listen to. The only thing I'm going to do in
-future is to see that no person uses me for profit and then willingly
-sees me spat upon. That's all I've got to say to you." And, turning, she
-walked away, leaving him standing as if rooted among his trees on the
-brown mountain-side.
-
-"He'll go home and tell his wife, and she'll gad about an' fire the
-whole community against me," Mrs. Boyd mused; "but I don't care. I'll
-have my rights if I die for it."
-
-An hour later, in another dress and a freshly washed and ironed gingham
-bonnet, she fed her chickens from a pan of wet cornmeal dough, locked up
-her house carefully, fastening down the window-sashes on the inside by
-placing sticks above the movable ones, and trudged down the road to
-George Wilson's country-store at the crossing of the roads which led
-respectively to Springtown, hard-by on one side, and Darley, farther
-away on the other.
-
-The store was a long, frame building which had once been whitewashed,
-but was now only a fuzzy, weather-beaten gray. As was usual in such
-structures, the front walls of planks rose higher than the pointed roof,
-and held large and elaborate lettering which might be read quite a
-distance away. Thereon the young store-keeper made the questionable
-statement that a better price for produce was given at his establishment
-than at Darley, where high rent, taxes, and clerk-hire had to be paid,
-and, moreover, that his goods were sold cheaper because, unlike the town
-dealers, he lived on the products from his own farm and employed no
-help. In front of the store, convenient alike to both roads, stood a
-rustic hitching-rack made of unbarked oaken poles into which railway
-spikes had been driven, and on which horseshoes had been nailed to hold
-the reins of any customer's mount. On the ample porch of the store stood
-a new machine for the hulling of pease, several ploughs, and a
-red-painted device for the dropping and covering of seed-corn. On the
-walls within hung various pieces of tin-ware and harnesses and saddles,
-and the two rows of shelving held a good assortment of general
-merchandise.
-
-As Mrs. Boyd entered the store, Wilson, a blond young man with an ample
-mustache, stood behind the counter talking to an Atlanta drummer who had
-driven out from Darley to sell the store-keeper some dry-goods and
-notions, and he did not come to her at once, but delayed to see the
-drummer make an entry in his order-book; then he advanced to her.
-
-"Excuse me, Mrs. Boyd," he smiled. "I am ordering some new prints for
-you ladies, and I wanted to see that he got the number of bolts down
-right. This is early for you to be out, isn't it? It's been many a day
-since I've seen you pass this way before dinner. I took a sort of
-liberty with you yesterday, knowing how good-natured you are. Dave
-Prixon was going your way with his empty wagon, and, as I was about to
-run low on your favorite brand of flour, I sent you a barrel and put it
-on your account at the old price. I thought you'd keep it. You may have
-some yet on hand, but this will come handy when you get out."
-
-"But I don't intend to keep it," replied the woman, under her bonnet,
-and her voice sounded harsh and crisp. "I haven't touched it. It's out
-in the yard where Prixon dumped it. If it was to rain on it I reckon it
-would mildew. It wouldn't be my loss. I didn't order it put there."
-
-"Why, Mrs. Boyd!" and Wilson's tone and surprised glance at the drummer
-caused that dapper young man to prick up his ears and move nearer; "why,
-it's the best brand I handle, and you said the last gave you particular
-satisfaction, so I naturally--"
-
-"Well, I don't want it; I didn't order it, and I don't intend to have
-you nor no one else unloading stuff in my front yard whenever you take a
-notion and want to make money by the transaction. Deduct that from my
-bill, and tell me what I owe you. I want to settle in full."
-
-"But--but--" Wilson had never seemed to the commercial traveller to be
-so much disturbed; he was actually pale, and his long hands, which
-rested on the smooth surface of the counter, were trembling--"but I
-don't understand," he floundered. "It's only the middle of the month,
-Mrs. Boyd, and I never run up accounts till the end. You are not going
-_off_, are you?"
-
-"Oh no," and the woman pushed back her bonnet and eyed him almost
-fiercely, "you needn't any of you think that. I'm going to stay right on
-here; but I'll tell you what I am going to do, George Wilson--I'm going
-to buy my supplies in the future at Darley. You see, since this talk of
-burning the very bench I sit on in the house of God, which you and your
-ilk set and listen to, why--"
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd," he broke in, "now don't go and blame me for what
-Brother Bazemore said when he was--"
-
-"_Brother_ Bazemore!" The woman flared up and brought her clinched hand
-down on the counter. "I'll never as long as I live let a dollar of my
-money pass into the hands of a man who calls that man brother. You sat
-still and raised no protest against what he said, and that ends business
-between us for all time. There is no use talking about it. Make out my
-account, and don't keep me standing here to be stared at like I was a
-curiosity in a side-show."
-
-"All right, Mrs. Boyd; I'm sorry," faltered Wilson, with a glance at the
-drummer, who, feeling that he had been alluded to, moved discreetly
-across the room and leaned against the opposite counter. "I'll go back
-to the desk and make it out."
-
-She stood motionless where he had left her till he came back with her
-account in his hand, then from a leather bag she counted out the money
-and paid it to him. The further faint, half-fearful apologies which
-Wilson ventured on making seemed to fall on closed ears, and, with the
-receipted bill in her bag, she strode from the house. He followed her to
-the door and stood looking after her as she angrily trudged back towards
-her farm.
-
-"Well, well," he sighed, as the drummer came to his elbow and stared at
-him wonderingly, "there goes the best and most profitable customer I've
-had since I began selling goods. It's made me sick at heart, Masters. I
-don't see how I can do without her, and yet I don't blame her one
-bit--not a bit, so help me God."
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-
-Wilson turned, and with a frown went moodily back to his desk and sat
-down on the high stool, gloomily eying the page in a ledger which he had
-just consulted.
-
-"By George, that woman's a corker," said the drummer, sociably, as he
-came back and stood near the long wood-stove. "Of course, I don't know
-what it's all about, but she's her own boss, I'll stake good money on
-that."
-
-"She's about the sharpest and in many ways the strongest woman in the
-state," said the store-keeper, with a sigh. "Good Lord, Masters, she's
-been my main-stay ever since I opened this shack, and now to think
-because that loud-mouthed Bazemore, who expects me to pay a good part of
-his salary, takes a notion to rip her up the back in meeting, why--"
-
-"Oh, I see!" cried the drummer--"I understand it now. I heard about that
-at Darley. So _she's_ the woman! Well, I'm glad _I_ got a good look at
-her. I see a lot of queer things in going about over the country, but I
-don't think I ever ran across just her sort."
-
-"She's had a devil of a life, Masters, from the time she was a blooming,
-pretty young girl till now that she is at war with everybody within
-miles of her. She's always been a study to me. She's treated me more
-like a son than anything else--doing everything in her power to help me
-along, buying, by George, things sometimes that I knew she didn't need
-because it would help me out, and now, because I didn't get up in
-meeting last Sunday and call that man down she holds me accountable. I
-don't know but what she's right. Why should I take her hard-earned money
-and sit still and allow her to be abused? She's simply got pride, and
-lots of it, and it's bad hurt."
-
-"But what was it all about?" the drummer inquired.
-
-"The start of it was away back when she was a girl, as I said," began
-the store-keeper. "You've heard of Colonel Preston Chester, our biggest
-planter, who lives a mile from here--old-time chap, fighter of duels,
-officer in the army, and all that?"
-
-"Oh yes, I've seen him; in fact, I was at college at the State
-University with his son Langdon. He was a terrible fellow--very wild and
-reckless, full half the time, and playing poker every night. He was
-never known to pay a debt, even to his best friends."
-
-"Langdon is a chip off of the old block," said Wilson. "His father was
-just like him when he was a young man. Between you and me, the Colonel
-never had a conscience; old as he now is, he will sit and laugh about
-his pranks right in the presence of his son. It's no wonder the boy
-turned out like he did. Well, away back when this Mrs. Boyd was a young
-and pretty girl, the daughter of honest, hard-working people, who owned
-a little farm back of his place, he took an idle fancy to her. I'm
-telling you now what has gradually leaked out in one way and another
-since. He evidently won her entire confidence, made her believe he was
-going to marry her, and, as he was a dashing young fellow, she must have
-fallen in love with him. Nobody knows how that was, but one thing is
-sure, and that is that he was seen about with her almost constantly for
-a whole year, and then he stopped off suddenly. The report went out that
-he'd made up his mind to get married to a young woman in Alabama who had
-a lot of money, and he did go off and bring home the present Mrs.
-Chester, Langdon's mother. Well, old-timers say young Ann Boyd took it
-hard, stayed close in at home and wasn't seen out for a couple of years.
-Then she come out again, and they say she was better-looking than ever
-and a great deal more serious and sensible. Joe Boyd was a young farmer
-those days, and a sort of dandy, and he fell dead in love with her and
-hung about her day and night, never seeming willing to let her out of
-his sight. Several other fellows, they say, was after her, but she
-seemed to like Joe the best, but nothing he'd do or say would make her
-accept him. I can see through it now, looking back on what has since
-leaked out, but nobody understood it then, for she had evidently got
-over her attachment for Colonel Chester, and Joe was a promising fellow,
-strong, good-looking, and a great beau and flirt among women, half a
-dozen being in love with him, but Ann simply wouldn't take him, and it
-was the talk of the whole county. He was simply desperate folks say,
-going about boring everybody he met with his love affair. Finally her
-mother and father and all her friends got after her to marry Joe, and
-she gave in. And then folks wondered more than ever why she'd delayed,
-for she was more in love with her husband than anybody had any reason to
-expect. They were happy, too. A child was born, a little girl, and that
-seemed to make them happier. Then Mrs. Boyd's mother and father died,
-and she came into the farm, and the Boyds were comfortable in every way.
-Then what do you think happened?"
-
-"I've been wondering all along," the drummer laughed. "I can see you're
-holding something up your sleeve."
-
-"Well, this happened. Colonel Chester's wife was, even then, a homely
-woman, about as old as he was, and not at all attractive aside from her
-money, and marrying hadn't made him any the less devilish. They say he
-saw Mrs. Boyd at meeting one day and hardly took his eyes off of her
-during preaching. She had developed into about the most stunning-looking
-woman anywhere about, and knew how to dress, which was something Mrs.
-Chester, with all her chances, had never seemed to get onto. Well, that
-was the start of it, and from that day on Chester seemed to have nothing
-on his mind but the good looks of his old sweetheart. Folks saw him on
-his horse riding about where he could get to meet her, and then it got
-reported that he was actually forcing himself on her to such an extent
-that Joe Boyd was worked up over it, aided by the eternal gab of all the
-women in the section."
-
-"Did Colonel Chester's wife get onto it?" the drummer wanted to know.
-
-"It don't seem like she did," answered Wilson. "She was away visiting
-her folks in the South most of the time, with Langdon, who was a baby
-then, and it may be that she didn't care. Some folks thought she was
-weak-minded; she never seemed to have any will of her own, but left the
-Colonel to manage her affairs without a word."
-
-"Well, go on with your story," urged the drummer.
-
-"There isn't much more to tell about the poor woman," continued Wilson.
-"As I said, Chester got to forcing himself on her, and I reckon she
-didn't want to tell her husband what she was trying to forget for fear
-of a shooting scrape, in which Joe would get the worst of it; but this
-happened: Joe was off at court in Darley and sent word home to his wife
-that he was to be held all night on a jury. The man that took the
-message rode home alongside of Chester and told him about it. Well, I
-reckon, all hell broke out in Chester that night. He was a drinking man,
-and he tanked up, and, as his wife was away, he had plenty of liberty.
-Well, he simply went over to Joe Boyd's house and went in. It was about
-ten o'clock. My honest conviction is, no matter what others think, that
-she tried her level best to make him leave without rousing the
-neighborhood, but he wouldn't go, but sat there in the dark with his
-coat off, telling her he loved her more than her husband did, and that
-he never had loved his wife, and that he was crazy for her, and the
-like. How long this went on, with her imploring and praying to him to
-go, I don't know; but, at any rate, they both heard the gate-latch click
-and Joe Boyd come right up the gravel-walk. I reckon the poor woman was
-scared clean out of her senses, for she made no outcry, and Chester went
-to a window, his coat on his arm, and was climbing out when Joe, who
-couldn't get in at the front door and was making for the one in the
-rear, met him face to face."
-
-"Great goodness!" ejaculated the commercial traveller.
-
-"Well, you bet, the devil was to pay," went on the store-keeper, grimly.
-"Chester was mad and reckless, and, being hot with liquor, and regarding
-Boyd as far beneath him socially, instead of making satisfactory
-explanations, they say he simply swore at Boyd and stalked away.
-Dumfounded, Boyd went inside to his miserable wife and demanded an
-explanation. She has since learned how to use her wits with the best in
-the land, but she was young then, and so, by her silence, she made
-matters worse for herself. He forced her to explain, and, seeing no
-other way out of the affair, she decided to throw herself on his mercy
-and make a clean breast of things her and her family had kept back all
-that time. Well, sir, she confessed to what had happened away back
-before Chester had deserted her, no doubt telling a straight story of
-her absolute purity and faithfulness to Boyd after marriage. Poor old
-Joe! He wasn't a fighting man, and, instead of following Chester and
-demanding satisfaction, he stayed at home that night, no doubt suffering
-the agony of the damned and trying to make up his mind to believe in his
-wife and to stand by her. As it looks now, he evidently decided to make
-the best of it, and might have succeeded, but somehow it got out about
-Chester being caught there, and that started gossip so hot that her life
-and his became almost unbearable. It might have died a natural death in
-time, but Mrs. Boyd had an enemy, Mrs. Jane Hemingway, who had been one
-of the girls who was in love with Joe Boyd. It seems that she never had
-got over Joe's marrying another woman, and when she heard this scandal
-she nagged and teased Joe about his babyishness in being willing to
-believe his wife, and told him so many lies that Boyd finally quit
-staying at home, sulking about in the mountains, and making trips away
-till he finally applied for a divorce. Ignorant and inexperienced as she
-was, and proud, Mrs. Boyd made no defence, and the whole thing went his
-way with very little publicity. But the hardest part for her to bear was
-when, having the court's decree to take charge of his child, Boyd came
-and took it away."
-
-"Good gracious! that was tough, wasn't it?" exclaimed the drummer.
-
-"That's what it was, and they say it fairly upset her mind. They
-expected her to fight like a tiger for her young, but at the time they
-came for it she only seemed stupefied. The little girl was only three
-years old, but they say Ann came in the room and said she was going to
-ask the child if it was willing to leave her, and they say she calmly
-put the question, and the baby, not knowing what she meant, said, 'Yes.'
-Then they say Ann talked to it as if it were a grown person, and told
-her to go, that she'd never give her a thought in the future, and never
-wanted to lay eyes on her again."
-
-"That was pitiful, wasn't it?" said Masters. "By George, we don't dream
-of what is going on in the hearts of men and women we meet face to face
-every day. And that's what started her in the life she's since led."
-
-"Yes, she lived in her house like a hermit, never going out unless she
-absolutely had to. She had an old-fashioned loom in a shed-room
-adjoining her house, and night and day people passing along the road
-could hear her thumping away on it. She kept a lot of fine sheep,
-feeding and shearing them herself, and out of the wool she wove a
-certain kind of jean cloth which she sold at a fancy figure. I've seen
-wagon-loads of it pass along the road billed to a big house in Atlanta.
-This went on for several years, and then it was noticed that she was
-accumulating money. She was buying all the land she could around her
-house, as if to force folks as far from her as possible, and she turned
-the soil to a good purpose, for she knew how to work it. She hired
-negroes for cash, when others were paying in old clothes and scraps,
-and, as she went to the field with them and worked in the sun and rain
-like a man, she got more out of her planting than the average farmer."
-
-"So she's really well off?" said the drummer.
-
-"Got more than almost anybody else in the county," said Wilson. "She's
-got stocks in all sorts of things, and owns houses on the main street in
-Darley, which she keeps well rented. It seems like, not having anything
-else to amuse her, she turned her big brain to economy and money-making,
-and I've always thought she did it to hit back at the community. You
-see, the more she makes, the more her less fortunate neighbors dislike
-her, and she loves to get even as far as possible."
-
-"And has she had no associates at all?" Masters wanted to know.
-
-"Well, yes, there is one woman, a Mrs. Waycroft, who has always been
-intimate with her. She is the only--I started to say she was the only
-one, but there was a poor mountain fellow, Luke King, a barefoot boy who
-had a fine character, a big brain on him, and no education. His parents
-were poor, and did little for him. They say Mrs. Boyd sort of took pity
-on him and used to buy books and papers for him, and that she really
-taught him to read and write. She sent him off to school, and got him on
-his feet till he was able to find work in a newspaper office over at
-Canton, where he became a boss typesetter. I've always thought that her
-misfortune had never quite killed her natural impulses, for she
-certainly got fond of that fellow. I had an exhibition of both his
-regard and hers right here at the store. He'd come in to buy something
-or other, and was waiting about the stove one cold winter day, when a
-big mountain chap made a light remark about Mrs. Boyd. He was a head
-taller than Luke King was, but the boy sprang at him like a panther and
-knocked the fellow down. They had the bloodiest fight I ever saw, and it
-was several minutes before they could be separated. Luke had damaged the
-chap pretty badly, but he was able to stand, while the boy keeled over
-in a dead faint on the floor, bruised inside some way. The big fellow,
-fearing arrest, mounted his horse and went away, and several of us were
-doing what we could with cold water and whiskey to bring the boy around
-when who should come in but Ann herself. She was passing the store, and
-some one told her about it. People who think she has no heart and is as
-cold as stone ought to have seen her that day. In all my life I never
-saw such a terrible face on a human being. I was actually afraid of her.
-She was all fury and all tenderness combined. She looked down at him in
-all his blood and bruises and white face, and got down on her knees by
-him. I saw a great big sob rise up in her, although her back was to me,
-and shake her from head to foot, and then she was still, simply stroking
-back his damp, tangled hair. 'My poor boy,' I heard her say, 'you can't
-fight my battles. God Himself has failed to do that, but I won't forget
-this--never--never!'"
-
-"Lord, that was strong!" said Masters. "She must be wonderful!"
-
-"She is more wonderful than her narrow-minded enemies dream of,"
-returned the store-keeper. "You see, it's her pride that keeps her from
-showing her fine feelings, and it's her secluded life that makes them
-misunderstand her. Well, she brought her wagon and took the boy away.
-That was another queer thing," Wilson added. "She evidently had started
-to take him to her house, for she drove as far as the gate and then
-stopped there to study a moment, and finally turned round and drove him
-to the poor cabin his folks lived in. You see, she was afraid that even
-that would cause talk, and it would. Old Jane Hemingway would have fed
-on that morsel for months, as unreasonable as it would have been. Ann
-sent a doctor, though, and every delicacy the market afforded, and the
-boy was soon out. It wasn't long afterwards that Luke King went to
-college at Knoxville, and now he's away in the West somewhere. His
-mother, after his father's death, married a trifling fellow, Mark Bruce,
-and that brought on some dispute between her and her son, who had tried
-to keep her from marrying such a man. They say Luke told her if she did
-marry Bruce he'd go away and never even write home, and so far, they
-say, he has kept his word. Nobody knows where he is or what he's doing
-unless it is Mrs. Boyd, and she never talks. I can't keep from thinking
-he's done well, though, for he had a big head on him and a lot of
-determination."
-
-"And this Mrs. Hemingway, her enemy," said the drummer, tentatively,
-"you say she was evidently the woman's rival at one time. But it seems
-she married some one else."
-
-"Oh yes, she suddenly accepted Tom Hemingway, an old bachelor, who had
-been trying to marry her for a long time. Most people thought she did it
-to hide her feelings when Joe Boyd got married. She treated Tom like a
-dog, making him do everything she wanted, and he was daft about her till
-he died, just a couple of weeks after his child was born, who,
-by-the-way, has grown up to be the prettiest girl in all the country,
-and that's another feature in the story," the store-keeper smiled. "You
-see, Mrs. Boyd looks upon old Jane as the prime cause of her losing her
-_own_ child, and I understand she hates the girl as much as she does her
-mother."
-
-A man had come into the store and stood leaning against a show-case on
-the side devoted to groceries.
-
-"There's a customer," said the drummer; "don't let me keep you, old man;
-you know you've got to look at my samples some time to-day."
-
-"Well, I'll go see what he wants," said Wilson, "and then I'll look
-through your line, though I don't feel a bit like it, after losing the
-best regular customer I have."
-
-The drummer had opened his sample-case on the desk when Wilson came
-back.
-
-"You say the woman's husband took the child away," remarked the drummer;
-"did he go far?"
-
-"They first settled away out in Texas," replied Wilson, "but Joe Boyd,
-not having his wife's wonderful head to guide him, failed at farming
-there, and only about three years ago he came back to this country and
-bought a little piece of land over in Gilmer--the county that joins this
-one."
-
-"Oh, so near as that! Then perhaps she has seen her daughter and--"
-
-"Oh no, they've never met," said Wilson, as he took a sample pair of
-men's suspenders from the case and tested the elastic by stretching it
-between his hands. "I know that for certain. She was in here one morning
-waiting for one of her teams to pass to take her to Darley, when a
-peddler opened his pack of tin-ware and tried to sell her some pieces I
-was out of. He heard me call her by name, and, to be agreeable, he asked
-her if she was any kin to Joe Boyd and his daughter, over in Gilmer. I
-could have choked the fool for his stupidity. I tried to catch his eye
-to warn him, but he was intent on selling her a bill, and took no notice
-of anything else. I saw her stare at him steady for a second or two,
-then she seemed to swallow something, and said, 'No, they are no kin of
-mine.' And then what did the skunk do but try to make capital out of
-that. 'Well, you may be glad,' he said, 'that they are no kin, for they
-are as near the ragged edge as any folks I ever ran across.' He went on
-to say he stayed overnight at Boyd's cabin and that they had hardly
-anything but streak-o'-lean-streak-o'-fat meat and corn-bread to offer
-him, and that the girl had the worst temper he'd ever seen. Mrs. Boyd, I
-reckon, to hide her face, was looking at some of the fellow's pans, and
-he seemed to think he was on the right line, and so he kept talking. Old
-Joe, he said, had struck him as a good-natured, lazy sort of
-come-easy-go-easy mountaineer, but the girl looked stuck up, like she
-thought she was some better than appearances would indicate. He said she
-was a tall, gawky sort of girl, with no good looks to brag of, and he
-couldn't for the life of him see what she had to make her so proud.
-
-"I wondered what Mrs. Boyd was going to do, but she was equal to that
-emergency, as she always has been in everything. She held one of his
-pans up in the light and tilted her bonnet back on her head, I thought,
-to let me see she wasn't hiding anything, and said, as unconcerned as if
-he'd never mentioned a delicate subject. 'Look here,' she said, thumping
-the bottom of the pan with her finger, 'if you expect to do any business
-with _me_ you'll have to bring copper-bottom ware to me. I don't buy
-shoddy stuff from any one. These pans will rust through in two months.
-I'll take half a dozen, but I'm only doing it to pay you for the time
-spent on me. It is a bad investment for any one to buy cheap, stamped
-ware.'"
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-
-Mrs. Jane Hemingway, Ann Boyd's long and persistent enemy, sat in the
-passage which connected the two parts of her house, a big, earthernware
-churn between her sharp knees, firmly raising and lowering the
-bespattered dasher with her bony hands. She was a woman past fifty; her
-neck was long and slender, and the cords under the parchment-like skin
-had a way of tightening, like ropes in the seams of a tent, when she
-swallowed or spoke. Her dark, smoothly brushed hair was done up in the
-tightest of balls behind her head, and her brown eyes were easily
-kindled to suspicion, fear, or anger.
-
-Her brother-in-law, Sam Hemingway, called "Hem" by his intimates,
-slouched in from the broad glare of the mid-day sun and threw his coat
-on a chair. Then he went to the shelf behind the widow, and, pouring
-some water into a tin pan from a pail, he noisily bathed his perspiring
-face and big, red hands. As he was drying himself on the towel which
-hung on a wooden roller on the weather-boarding of the wall, Virginia
-Hemingway, his niece, came in from the field bringing a pail of freshly
-gathered dewberries. In appearance she was all that George Wilson had
-claimed for her. Slightly past eighteen, she had a wonderful complexion,
-a fine, graceful figure, big, dreamy, hazel eyes, and golden-brown hair,
-and, which was rare in one of her station, she was tastily dressed. She
-smiled as she showed her uncle the berries and playfully "tickled" him
-under the chin.
-
-"See there!" she chuckled.
-
-"Pies?" he said, with an unctuous grin, as he peered down into her pail.
-
-"I thought of you while I was gathering them," she nodded. "I'm going to
-try to make them just as you like them, with red, candied bars
-criss-crossing."
-
-"Nothing in the pie-line can hold a candle to the dewberry unless it's
-the cherry," he chuckled. "The stones of the cherries sorter hold a
-fellow back, but I manage to make out. I et a pie once over at Darley
-without a stone in it, and you bet your life it was a daisy."
-
-He went into his room for his tobacco, and Virginia sat down to stem her
-berries. He returned in a moment, leaning in the doorway, drawing lazily
-at his pipe. The widow glanced up at him, and rested her dasher on the
-bottom of the churn.
-
-"I reckon folks are still talking about Ann Boyd and her flouncing out
-of meeting like she did," the widow remarked. "Well, that _was_ funny,
-but what was the old thing to do? It would take a more brazen-faced
-woman than she is, if such a thing exists, to sit still and hear all he
-said."
-
-"Yes, they are still hammering at the poor creature's back," said Sam,
-"and that's one thing I can't understand, nuther. She's got dead loads
-of money--in fact, she's independent of the whole capoodle of you women.
-Now, why don't she kick the dust o' this spot off of her heels an' go
-away whar she can be respected, an', by gosh! be let alone _one_ minute
-'fore she dies. They say she's the smartest woman in the state, but that
-don't show it--living on here whar you women kin throw a rock at her
-every time she raises her head above low ground."
-
-"I've wondered why she don't go off, too," the widow said, as she peered
-down at the floating lumps of yellow butter in the snowy depths of her
-vessel, and deftly twirled her dasher in her fingers to make them
-"gather"; "but, Sam, haven't you heard that persons always want to be on
-the spot where they went wrong? I think she's that way. And when the
-facts leaked out on her, and her husband repudiated her and took the
-child away, she determined to stay here and live it down. But instead of
-calling humility and submission to her aid, she turned in to stinting
-and starving to make money, and now she flaunts her prosperity in our
-faces, as if _that_ is going to make folks believe any more in her.
-Money's too easily made in evil ways for Christian people to bow before
-it, and possessions ain't going to keep such men as Brother Bazemore
-from calling her down whenever she puts on her gaudy finery and struts
-out to meeting. It was a bold thing for her to do, anyway, after
-berating him as she did when he went to her to get the use of her grove
-for the picnic."
-
-"They say she didn't know Bazemore was to preach that day," said Sam.
-"She'd heard that the presiding elder was due here, and I'm of the
-opinion that she took that opportunity to show you all she wasn't afraid
-to appear in public."
-
-Virginia Hemingway threw a handful of berry-stems out into the sunshine
-in the yard. "She's a queer woman," she said, innocently, "like a
-character in a novel, and, somehow, I don't believe she is as bad as
-people make her out. I never told either of you, but I met her yesterday
-down on the road."
-
-"_You_ met her!" cried Mrs. Hemingway, aghast.
-
-"Yes, she was going home from her sugar-mill with her apron full of
-fresh eggs that she'd found down at her hay-stacks, and just as she got
-close to me her dress got caught on a snag and she couldn't get it
-loose. I stopped and unfastened it, and she actually thanked me, though,
-since I was born, I've never seen such a queer expression on a human
-face. She was white and red and dark as a thunder-cloud all at once. It
-looked like she hated me, but was trying to be polite for what I'd
-done."
-
-"You had no business touching her dirty skirt," the widow flared up.
-"The next thing you know it will go out that you and her are thick. It
-would literally ruin a young girl to be associated with a woman of that
-stamp. What on earth could have possessed you to--"
-
-"Oh, come off!" Sam laughed. "Why, you know you've always taught Virgie
-to be considerate of old folks, and she was just doing what she ought to
-have done for any old nigger mammy."
-
-"I looked at it that way," said the girl, "and I'm not sorry, for I
-don't want her to think I hate her, for I don't. I think she has had a
-hard life, and I wish it were in my power to help her out of her
-trouble."
-
-"Virginia, what are you talking about?" cried Mrs. Hemingway. "The idea
-of your standing up for that woman, when--"
-
-"Well, Luke King used to defend her," Virginia broke in, impulsively,
-"and before he went away you used to admit he was the finest young man
-in the county. I've seen him almost shed tears when he'd tell about what
-she'd done for him, and how tender-hearted and kind she was."
-
-"Tender-hearted nothing!" snapped Mrs. Hemingway, under a deep frown.
-"Luke King was the only person that went about her, and she tried to
-work on his sympathies for some purpose or other. Besides, nobody knows
-what ever become of him; he may have gone to the dogs by this time; it
-looks like somebody would have heard of him if he had come to any good
-in the five years he's been away."
-
-"Somehow, I think she knows where he is," Virginia said, thoughtfully,
-as she rose to put her berries away.
-
-When she had gone, Sam laughed softly. "It's a wonder to me that Virgie
-don't know whar Luke is, _herself_," he said. "I 'lowed once that the
-fellow liked her powerful; but I reckon he thought she was too young, or
-didn't want to take the matter further when he was as poor as Job's
-turkey and had no sort of outlook ahead."
-
-"I sort o' thought that, too," the widow admitted, "but I didn't want
-Virginia to encourage him when he was accepting so much from that
-woman."
-
-Sam laughed again as he knocked the ashes from his pipe and cleaned the
-bowl with the tip of his finger. "Well, '_that woman_,' as you call her,
-is a power in the land that hates her," he said. "She knows how to hit
-back from her fortress in that old farm-house. George Wilson knows what
-it means not to stand by her in public, so does Abe Longley, that has to
-drive his cattle to grass two miles over the mountains. Jim Johnston,
-who was dead sure of renting her northeast field again next year, has
-been served with a notice to vacate, and now, if the latest news can be
-depended on, she's hit a broad lick at half the farmers in the valley,
-and, while I'm a sufferer with the balance, I don't blame her one bit.
-I'd 'a' done the same pine-blank thing years ago if I'd stood in her
-shoes."
-
-"What's she done _now_?" asked the woman at the churn, leaning forward
-eagerly.
-
-"Done? Why, she says she's tired o' footing almost the entire
-wheat-threshing bill for twenty measly little farmers. You know she's
-been standing her part of the expenses to get the Empire Company to send
-their steam thresher here, and her contribution amounted to more than
-half. She's decided, by hunky, to plant corn and cotton exclusively next
-year, and so notified the Empire Company. They can't afford to come
-unless she sows wheat, and they sent a man clean from Atlanta to argue
-the matter with her, but she says she's her own boss, an' us farmers who
-has land fittin' for nothing but wheat is going to get badly left in the
-lurch. Oh, Bazemore opened the battle agin her, and you-uns echoed the
-war-cry, an' the battle is good on. I'll go without flour biscuits and
-pie-crust, but the fight will be interesting. The Confed' soldiers made
-a purty good out along about '61, an' they done it barefooted an' on
-hard-tack an' water. If you folks are bent on devilling the hide off of
-the most influential woman in our midst, just because her foot got
-caught in the hem of her skirt an' tripped her up when she was a
-thoughtless young girl, I reckon us men will have to look on an' say
-nothing."
-
-"She _did_ slip up, as you say," remarked the widow, "and she's been a
-raging devil ever since."
-
-"Ay! an' who made her one? Tell me that." Sam laughed. "You may not want
-to hear it, Jane, but some folks hint that you was at the bottom of
-it--some think lazy Joe Boyd would have stayed on in that comfortable
-boat, with a firm hand like hern at the rudder, if you hadn't
-ding-donged at him and told tales to him till he had to pull out."
-
-"Huh! They say that, do they?" The widow frowned as she turned and
-looked straight at him. "Well, let 'em. What do I care? I didn't want to
-see as good-hearted a man as he was hoodwinked."
-
-"I reckon not," Sam said, significantly, and he walked out of the
-passage down towards the barn. "Huh!" he mused, as he strode along
-crumbling leaf-tobacco of his own growing and filling his pipe. "I come
-as nigh as pease tellin' the old woman some'n' else folks say, an' that
-is that she was purty nigh daft about Joe Boyd, once upon a time, and
-that dashing Ann cut her out as clean as a whistle. I'll bet that 'ud
-make my sister-in-law so dern hot she'd blister from head to foot."
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-
-That afternoon Jane Hemingway went out to the barn-yard. For years she
-had cultivated a habit of going thither, obviously to look after certain
-hens that nested there, but in reality, though she would not have
-admitted it even to herself, she went because from that coign of vantage
-she could look across her enemy's fertile acres right into the lone
-woman's doorway and sometimes catch a glimpse of Ann at work. There was
-one unpleasant contingency that she sometimes allowed her mind to dwell
-upon, and that was that Joe Boyd and his now grown daughter might,
-inasmuch as Ann's wealth and power were increasing in direct ratio to
-the diminution of their own, eventually sue for pardon and return. That
-had become Jane's nightmare, riding her night and day, and she was not
-going to let any living soul know the malicious things she had done and
-said to thwart it. Vaguely she regarded the possible coming-back of the
-father and daughter as her own undoing. She knew the pulse of the
-community well enough to understand that nothing could happen which
-would so soon end the war against Ann Boyd as such a reconciliation.
-Yes, it would amount to her own undoing, for people were like sheep, and
-the moment one ran to Ann Boyd's side in approval, all would flock
-around her, and it would only be natural for them to turn against the
-one woman who had been the primal cause of the separation.
-
-Jane was at the bars looking out on a little, seldom-used road which ran
-between her land and Ann's, when her attention was caught by a man with
-a leather hand-bag strapped on his shoulders trudging towards her. He
-was a stranger, and his dusty boots and trousers showed that he had
-walked a long distance. As he drew near he took off his straw hat and
-bowed very humbly, allowing his burden to swing round in front of him
-till he had eased it down on the turf at his feet.
-
-"Good-evening, madam," he said. "I'd like to show you something if
-you've got the time to spare. I've made so many mountain folks happy,
-and at such a small outlay, that I tell you they are glad to have me
-come around again. This is a new beat to me, but I felt it my duty to
-widen out some in the cause of human suffering."
-
-"What is it you've got?" Jane asked, smiling at his manner of speaking,
-as he deftly unlocked his valise and opened it out before her.
-
-"It's a godsend, and that's no joke," said the peddler. "I've got a
-household liniment here at a quarter for a four-ounce flask that no
-family can afford to be without. You may think I'm just talking because
-it's my business, but, madam, do you know that the regular druggists all
-about over this country are in a combine not to sell stuff that will
-keep people in good trim? And why? you may ask me. Why? Because, I say,
-that it would kill the'r business. Go to one, I dare you, or to a doctor
-in regular practice, and they will mix up chalk and sweetened water and
-tell you you've got a serious internal complaint, and to keep coming day
-after day till your pile is exhausted, and then they may tell you the
-truth and ask you to let 'em alone. I couldn't begin, madam--I don't
-know your name--I say I couldn't begin to tell you the wonderful cures
-this liniment has worked all over this part of the state."
-
-"What is it good for?" Jane Hemingway's face had grown suddenly serious.
-The conversation had caused her thoughts to revert to a certain secret
-fear she had entertained for several months.
-
-"Huh--good for?--excuse me, but you make me laugh," the peddler said, as
-he held a bottle of the dark fluid up before her; "it's good for so many
-things that I could hardly get through telling you between now and
-sundown. It's good for anything that harms the blood, skin, or muscles.
-It's even good for the stomach, although I don't advise it taken
-internally, for when it's rubbed on the outside of folks they have
-perfect digestions; but what it is best for is sprains, lameness, or any
-skin or blood eruption. Do you know, madam, that you'd never hear of so
-many cancers and tumors, that are dragging weary folks to early graves
-hereabouts, if this medicine had been used in time?"
-
-"Cancer?" The widow's voice had fallen, and she looked towards Ann
-Boyd's house, and then more furtively over her shoulder towards her own,
-as if to be sure of not being observed. "That's what I've always
-wondered at, how is anybody to know whether a--a thing is a cancer or
-not without going to a doctor, and, as you say, even _then_ they may not
-tell you the truth? Mrs. Twiggs, over the mountain, was never let know
-she had her cancer till a few months before it carried her off. The
-family and the doctor never told her the truth. The doctor said it
-couldn't be cured, and to know would only make the poor thing brood over
-it and be miserable."
-
-"That's it, now," said the medicine-vender; "but if it had been taken at
-the start and rubbed vigorously night and morning, it would have melted
-away under this fluid like dirt under lye-soap and warm water. Madam, a
-cancer is nothing more nor less than bad circulation at a certain point
-where blood stands till it becomes foul and putrefies. I can--excuse me
-if I seem bold, but long experience in handling men and women has learnt
-me to understand human nature. Most people who are afraid they've got
-cancers generally show it on their faces, an' I'll bet my hat and walk
-bareheaded to the nighest store to get another that you are troubled on
-that line--a little bit, anyway."
-
-Jane made no denial, though her thin face worked as she strove
-adequately to meet his blunt assertion. "As I said just now"--she
-swallowed, and avoided his covetous glance--"how is a person really to
-_know_?"
-
-"It's a mighty easy matter for _me_ to tell," said the peddler, and he
-spoke most reassuringly. "Just you let me take a look at the spot, if
-it's no trouble to you, and I may save you a good many sleepless nights.
-You are a nervous, broody sort of a woman yourself, and I can see by
-your face that you've let this matter bother you a lots."
-
-"You think you could tell if you--you looked at it?" Jane asked,
-tremulously.
-
-"Well, if I didn't it would be the first case I ever diagnosed
-improperly. Couldn't we go in the house?"
-
-Jane hesitated. "I think I'd rather my folks didn't know--that is, of
-course, if it _is_ one. My brother-in-law is a great hand to talk, and
-I'd rather it wasn't noised about. If there's one thing in the world I
-don't like it's the pity and the curiosity of other folks as to just
-about how long I'm going to hold out."
-
-"I've seed a lots o' folks like you." The peddler smiled. "But, if you
-don't mind tellin', where's the thing located?"
-
-"It's on my breast," Jane gulped, undecidedly, and then, the first
-bridge having been crossed, she unbuttoned her dress at the neck with
-fumbling fingers and pulled it down. "Maybe you can see as well here as
-anywhere."
-
-"Oh yes, never was a better light for the business," said the vender,
-and he leaned forward, his eyes fixed sharply on the spot exposed
-between the widow's bony fingers. For a moment he said nothing. The
-woman's yellow breast lay flat and motionless. She scarcely breathed;
-her features were fixed by grim, fearful expectancy. He looked away from
-her, and then stooped to his pack to get a larger bottle. "I'm glad I
-happened to strike you just when I did, madam," he said. "Thar ain't no
-mistaking the charactericstics of a cancer when it's in its first
-stages. That's certainly what you've got, but I'm telling you God's holy
-truth when I say that by regular application and rubbing this stuff in
-for a month, night and morning, that thing will melt away like mist
-before a hot sun."
-
-"So it really _is_ one!" Jane breathed, despondently.
-
-"Yes, it's a little baby one, madam, but this will nip it in the bud and
-save your life. It will take the dollar size, but you know it's worth
-it."
-
-"Oh yes, I'll take it," Jane panted. "Put it there in the fence-corner
-among the weeds, and I'll come out to-night and get it."
-
-"All right," and the flask tinkled against a stone as it slid into its
-snug hiding-place among the Jamestown weeds nestling close to the
-rotting rails.
-
-"Here's your money. I reckon we'd better not stand here." And Jane gave
-it to him with quivering fingers. He folded the bill carefully, thrust
-it into a greasy wallet, and stooped to close his bag and throw the
-strap over his shoulder.
-
-"Now I'm going on to the next house," he said. "They tell me a curious
-sort of human specimen lives over thar--old Ann Boyd. Do you know,
-madam, I heard of that woman's tantrums at Springtown night before last,
-and at Barley yesterday. Looks like you folks hain't got much else to do
-but poke at her like a turtle on its back. Well, she must be a
-character! I made up my mind I'd take a peep at 'er. You know a
-travelling physician like I am can get at folks that sort o' hide from
-the general run."
-
-Jane Hemingway's heart sank. Why had it not occurred to her that he
-might go on to Ann Boyd's and actually reveal her affliction? Such men
-had no honor or professional reputation to defend. Suddenly she was
-chilled from head to foot by the thought that the peddler might even
-boast of her patronage to secure that of her neighbor--that was quite
-the method of all such persons. It was on her tongue actually to ask him
-not to go to Ann Boyd's house at all, but her better judgment told her
-that such a request would unduly rouse the man's curiosity, so she
-offered a feeble compromise.
-
-"Look here," she said, "I want it understood between us that--that you
-are to tell nobody about me--about my trouble. That woman over there is
-at outs with all her neighbors, and--and she'd only be glad to--"
-
-Jane saw her error too late. It appeared to her now in the bland twinkle
-of amused curiosity in the stranger's face.
-
-"I understand--I understand; you needn't be afraid of me," the man said,
-entirely too lightly, Jane thought, for such a grave matter, and he
-pushed back the brim of his hat and turned. "Remember the directions,
-madam, a good brisk rubbing with a flannel rag--red if you've got
-it--soaked in the medicine, twice a day. Good-evening; I'll be off. I've
-got to strike some house whar they will let me stay all night. I know
-that old hag won't keep me, from all I hear."
-
-The widow leaned despondently against the fence and watched him as he
-ploughed his way through the tall grass and weeds of the intervening
-marsh towards Ann Boyd's house. The assurance that the spot on her
-breast was an incipient cancer was bad enough without the added fear
-that her old enemy would possibly gloat over her misfortune. She
-remained there till she saw the vender approach Ann's door. For a moment
-she entertained the mild hope that he would be repulsed, but he was not.
-
-She saw Ann's portly form framed in the doorway for an instant, and then
-the peddler opened the gate and went into the house. Heavy of heart, the
-grim watcher remained at the fence for half an hour, and then the
-medicine-vender came out and wended his way along the dusty road towards
-Wilson's store.
-
-Jane went into the house and sat down wearily. Virginia was sewing at a
-western window, and glanced at her in surprise.
-
-"What's the matter, mother?" she inquired, solicitously.
-
-"I don't know as there is anything wrong," answered Jane, "but I am sort
-o' weak. My knees shake and I feel kind o' chilly. Sometimes, Virginia,
-I think maybe I won't last long."
-
-"That's perfectly absurd," said the girl. "Don't you remember what Dr.
-Evans said last winter when he was talking about the constitutions of
-people? He said you belonged to the thin, wiry, raw-boned kind that
-never die, but simply stay on and dry up till they are finally blown
-away."
-
-"He's not a graduated doctor," said Jane, gloomily. "He doesn't know
-everything."
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-
-A week from that day, one sultry afternoon near sunset, a tall
-mountaineer, very poorly clad, and his wife came past Wilson's store.
-They paused to purchase a five-cent plug of tobacco, and then walked
-slowly along the road in a dust that rose as lightly as down at the
-slightest foot-fall, till they reached Ann Boyd's house.
-
-"I'll stay out here at the gate," the man said. "You'll have to do all
-the talking. As Willard said, she will do more for Luke King's mother
-than she would for anybody else, and you remember how she backed the boy
-up in his objections to me as a step-daddy."
-
-"Well, I'll do what I can," the woman said, plaintively. "You stay here
-behind the bushes. I don't blame you for not wanting to ask a favor of
-her, after all she said when we were married. She may spit in my
-face--they say she's so cantankerous."
-
-Seating himself on a flat stone, the man cut the corner off of his
-tobacco-plug and began to chew it, while his wife, a woman about
-sixty-five years of age, and somewhat enfeebled, opened the gate and
-went in. Mrs. Boyd answered the gentle rap and appeared at the door.
-
-"Howdy do, Mrs. Boyd," the caller began. "I reckon old age hasn't
-changed me so you won't know me, although it's been ten years since me
-'n' you met. I'm Mrs. Mark Bruce, that used to be Mrs. King. I'm Luke's
-mother, Mrs. Boyd."
-
-"I knew you when you and Mark Bruce turned the bend in the road a
-quarter of a mile away," said Ann, sharply, "but, the Lord knows, I
-didn't think you'd have the cheek to open my front gate and stalk right
-into my yard after all you've said and done against me."
-
-The eyes of the visitor fell to her worn shoe, through which her bare
-toes were protruding. "I had no idea I'd ever do such a thing myself
-until about two hours ago," she said, firmly; "but folks will do a lots,
-in a pinch, that they won't ordinarily. You may think I've come to beg
-you to tell me if you know where Luke is, but I hain't. Of course, I'd
-like to know--any mother would--but he said he'd never darken a door
-that his step-father went through, and I told 'im, I did, that he could
-go, and I'd never ask about 'im. Some say you get letters from him. I
-don't know--that, I reckon, is your business."
-
-"You didn't come to inquire about your boy, then?" Ann said, curiously,
-"and yet here you are."
-
-"It's about your law-suit with Gus Willard that I've come, Ann. He told
-you, it seems, that he was going to fight it to the bitter end, and he
-_did_ call in a lawyer, but the lawyer told him thar was no two ways
-about it. If his mill-pond backed water on your land to the extent of
-covering five acres, why, you could make him shet the mill up, even if
-he lost all his custom. Gus sees different now, like most of us when our
-substance is about to take wings and fly off. He sees now that you've
-been powerful indulgent all them years in letting him back water on your
-property to its heavy damagement, and he says, moreover, that, to save
-his neck from the halter, he cayn't blame you fer the action. He says he
-_did_ uphold Brother Bazemore in what he said about burning the bench
-that was consecrated till you besmirched it, and he admits he talked it
-here an' yan considerably. He said, an' Gus was mighty nigh shedding
-tears, in the sad plight he's in, that you had the whip in hand now, and
-that his back was bare, an' ef you chose to lay on the lash, why, he was
-powerless, for, said he, he struck the fust lick at you, but he was
-doin' it, he thought, for the benefit of the community."
-
-"But," and the eyes of Ann Boyd flashed ominously, "what have _you_ come
-for? Not, surely, to stand in my door and preach to me."
-
-"Oh no, Ann, that hain't it," said the caller, calmly. "You see, Gus is
-at the end of his tether; he's in an awful fix with his wife and gals in
-tears, and he's plumb desperate. He says you hain't the kind of woman to
-be bent one way or another by begging--that is, when you are a-dealing
-with folks that have been out open agin you; but now, as it stands, this
-thing is agoing to damage me and Mark awfully, fer Mark gets five
-dollars a month for helping about the mill on grinding days, and when
-the mill shets down he'll be plumb out of a job."
-
-"Oh, I see!" and Ann Boyd smiled impulsively.
-
-"Yes, that's the way of it," went on Mrs. Bruce, "and so Gus, about two
-hours ago, come over to our cabin with what he called his only hope, and
-that was for me to come and tell you about Mark's job, and how helpless
-we'll be when it's gone, and that--well, Ann, to put it in Gus's own
-words, he said you wouldn't see Luke King's mother suffer as I will have
-to suffer, for, Ann, we are having the hardest time to get along in the
-world. I was at meeting that day, and I thought what Bazemore said was
-purty hard on any woman, but I was mad at you, and so I set and
-listened. I'm no coward. If you do this thing you'll do it of your own
-accord. I cayn't get down on my knees to you, and I won't."
-
-"I see." Ann's face was serious. She looked past the woman down the
-dust-clouded road along which a man was driving a herd of sheep. "I
-don't want you on your knees to me, Cynthia Bruce. I want simple
-justice. I was doing the best I could when Bazemore and the community
-began to drive me to the wall, then I determined to have my
-rights--that's all; I'll have my legal rights for a while and see what
-impression it will make on you all. You can tell Gus Willard that I will
-give him till the first of July to drain the water from my land, and if
-he doesn't do it he will regret it."
-
-"That's all you'll say, then?" said the woman at the step.
-
-"That's all I'll say."
-
-"Well, I reckon you are right, Ann Boyd. I sorter begin to see what
-you've been put to all on account of that one false step away back when,
-I reckon, like all gals, you was jest l'arnin' what life was. Well, as
-that's over and done with, I wonder if you would mind telling me if you
-know anything about Luke. Me 'n' him split purty wide before he left,
-and I try to be unconcerned about him, but I cayn't. I lie awake at
-night thinking about him. You see, all the rest of my children are
-around me."
-
-"I'll say this much," said Ann, in a softened tone, "and that is that he
-is well and doing well, but I don't feel at liberty to say more."
-
-"Well, it's a comfort to know _that_ much," said Mrs. Bruce, softly.
-"And it's nothing but just to you for me to say that it's due to you.
-The education you paid fer is what gave him his start in life, and I'll
-always be grateful to you fer it. It was something I never could have
-given him, and something none of the rest of my children got."
-
-Mrs. Boyd stood motionless in the door, her eyes on the backs of the
-pathetic pair as they trudged slowly homeward, the red sunset like a
-world in conflagration beyond them.
-
-"Yes, she's the boy's mother," she mused, "and the day will come when
-Luke will be glad I helped her, as he would if he could see the poor
-thing now. Gus Willard is no mean judge of human nature. I'll let him
-stew awhile, but the mill may run on. I can't fight _everybody_. Gus
-Willard is my enemy, but he's open and above-board."
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-
-One morning about the first of May, Virginia Hemingway went to Wilson's
-store to purchase some sewing-thread she needed. The long, narrow room
-was crowded with farmers and mountaineers, and Wilson had called in
-several neighbors to help him show and sell his wares. Langdon Chester
-was there, a fine double-barrelled shot-gun and fishing-rod under his
-arm, wearing a slouch hat and hunter's suit, his handsome face well
-tanned by exposure to the sun in the field and on the banks of the
-mountain streams. He was buying a reel and a metallic fly that worked
-with a spring and was set like a trap. Fred Masters was there, lounging
-about behind the counters, and now and then "making a sale" of some
-small article from the shelves or show-cases. He had opened his big
-sample trunks at the hotel in Springtown, half a mile distant, and a
-buggy and pair of horses were at the door, with which he intended to
-transport the store-keeper to his sample-room as soon as business became
-quieter. Seeing the store so crowded, Virginia only looked in at the
-door and walked across the street and sat down in Mrs. Wilson's
-sitting-room to rest and wait for a better opportunity to get what she
-had come for.
-
-Langdon Chester had recognized an old school-mate in the drummer, but he
-seemed not to care to show marked cordiality. However, the travelling
-man was no stickler for formality. He came from behind the counter and
-cordially slapped Langdon on the shoulder. "How are you, old chap?" he
-asked; "still rusticating on the old man's bounty, eh? When you left
-college you were going into the law, and soar like an eagle with the
-worm of Liberty in its beak skyward through the balmy air of politics,
-by the aid of all the 'pulls' of influential kin and money, but here you
-are as easy-going as of old."
-
-"It was the only thing open to me," Chester said, with a flush of
-vexation. "You see, my father's getting old, Masters, and the management
-of our big place here was rather too much for him, and so--"
-
-"Oh, I see!" And the drummer gave his old friend a playful thumb-thrust
-in the ribs. "And so you are helping him out with that gun and rod?
-Well, that's _one_ way of doing business, but it is far from my
-method--the method that is forced on me, my boy. When you get to a town
-on the four-o'clock afternoon train and have to get five sample trunks
-from the train to a hotel, scrap like the devil over who gets to use the
-best sample-room, finally buy your way in through porters as rascally as
-you are, then unpack, see the best man in town, sell him, or lose your
-job, pack again, trunks to excess-baggage scales--more cash and tips,
-and lies as to weight--and you roll away at midnight and try to nap
-sitting bolt-upright in the smoker--well, I say, you won't find that
-sort of thing in the gun-and-fishing-pole line. It's the sort of work,
-Chester, that will make you wish you were dead. Good Lord, I don't blame
-you one bit. In England they would call you one of the gentry, and,
-being an only son, you could tie up with an heiress and so on to a green
-old age of high respectability; but as for me, well, I had to dig, and I
-went in for it."
-
-"I had no idea you would ever become a drummer," Langdon said, as he
-admired his friend's attire. Such tasty ties, shirts, and bits of
-jewelry that Masters wore, and such well brushed and pressed clothes
-were rarely seen in the country, and Langdon still had the good ideas of
-dress he had brought from college, and this was one extravagance his
-father cheerfully allowed him.
-
-"It seemed the best thing for me," smiled the drummer. "I have a cousin
-who is a big stockholder in my house, and he got the job for me. I've
-been told several times by other members of the firm that I'd have been
-fired long ago but for that family pull. I've made several mistakes,
-sold men who were rotten to the core, and caused the house to lose money
-in several instances, and, well--poker, old man. Do you still play?"
-
-"Not often, out here," said Langdon; "this is about the narrowest,
-church-going community you ever struck. I suppose you have a good deal
-of fun travelling about."
-
-"Oh yes, fun enough, of its kind." Masters laughed. "Like a sailor in
-every port, a drummer tries to have a sweetheart in every town. It makes
-life endurable; sometimes the dear little things meet you at the train
-with sweet-smelling flowers and embroidered neckties so long that you
-have to cut off the ends or double them. Have a cigar--they don't cost
-me a red cent; expense account stretches like elastic, you know. My
-house kicked once against my drinking and cigar entries, and I said, all
-right, I'd sign the pledge and they could tie a blue ribbon on me, if
-they said the word, but that half my trade, I'd discovered, never could
-see prices right except through smoke and over a bottle. Then, what do
-you think? Old man Creighton, head of the firm, deacon in a swell
-joss-house in Atlanta, winked, drew a long face, and said: 'You'll have
-to give the boy _some_ freedom, I reckon. We are in this thing to pull
-it through, boys, and sometimes we may have to fight fire with fire or
-be left stranded.'"
-
-"He's an up-to-date old fellow," Chester laughed. "I've seen him. He
-owns some fine horses. When a man does that he's apt to be progressive,
-no matter how many times he says his prayers a day."
-
-"Yes, for an old duck, Creighton keeps at the head of the procession. I
-can generally get him to help me out when I get in a tight. He thinks
-I'm a good salesman. Once, by the skin of my teeth, I sold the champion
-bill in the history of the house. A new firm was setting up in business
-in Augusta, and I stocked three floors for them. It tickled old man
-Creighton nearly to death, for they say he walked the floor all night
-when the thing was hanging fire. There was a pile of profit in it, and
-it meant more, even, than the mere sale, for Nashville, Memphis, New
-Orleans, and Louisville men were as thick as flies on the spot. When I
-wired the news in the firm did a clog-dance in the office, and they were
-all at the train to meet me, with plug-hats on, and raised sand
-generally. Old Creighton drew me off to one side and wanted to know how
-I did it. I told him it was just a trick of mine, and tried to let it go
-at that, but he pushed me close, and I finally told him the truth. It
-came about over a game of poker I was playing with the head of the new
-firm. If I lost I was to pay him a hundred dollars. If he lost I was to
-get the order. He lost. I think I learned that 'palming' trick from
-you."
-
-Langdon laughed impulsively as he lighted the drummer's cigar. "And what
-did the old man say to that?" he inquired.
-
-"It almost floored him." Masters smiled. "He laid his hand on my
-shoulder. His face was as serious as I've seen it when he was praying in
-the amen corner at church, but the old duck's eyes were blazing. 'Fred,'
-he said, 'I want you to promise me to let that one thing alone--but,
-good gracious, if Memphis had sold that bill it would have hurt us
-awfully!'"
-
-"You were always fond of the girls," Chester remarked as he smoked.
-"Well, out here in the country is no place for them."
-
-"No place for them! Huh, that's _your_ idea, is it? Well, let me tell
-you, Chester, I saw on the road as I came on just now simply the
-prettiest, daintiest, and most graceful creature I ever laid my eyes on.
-I've seen them all, too, and, by George, she simply took the rag off the
-bush. Slender, beautifully formed, willowy, small feet and hands, high
-instep, big, dreamy eyes, and light-brown hair touched with gold. She
-came out of a farm-house, walking like a young queen, about half a mile
-back. I made Ike drive slowly and tried to get her to look at me, but
-she only raised her eyes once."
-
-"Virginia Hemingway," Chester said, coldly. "Yes, she's pretty. There's
-no doubt about that."
-
-"You know her, then?" said the drummer, eagerly. "Say, old man,
-introduce a fellow."
-
-Chester's face hardened. The light of cordiality died out of his eyes.
-There was a significant twitching of his lips round his cigar. "I really
-don't see how I could," he said, after an awkward pause, during which
-his eyes were averted. "You see, Masters, she's quite young, and it
-happens that her mother--a lonely old widow--is rather suspicious of men
-in general, and I seem to have displeased her in some way. You see, all
-these folks, as a rule, go regularly to meeting, and as I don't go
-often, why--"
-
-"Oh, I see," the drummer said. "But let me tell you, old chap,
-suspicious mother or what not, I'd see something of that little beauty
-if I lived here. Gee whiz! she'd make a Fifth Avenue dress and Easter
-hat ashamed of themselves anywhere but on her. Look here, Chester, I've
-always had a sneaking idea that sooner or later I'd be hit deep at first
-sight by some woman, and I'll be hanged if I know but what that's the
-matter with me right now. I've seen so many women, first and last, here
-and there, always in the giddy set, that I reckon if I ever marry I'd
-rather risk some pure-minded little country girl. Do you know, town
-girls simply know too much to be interesting. By George, I simply feel
-like I'd be perfectly happy with a little wife like the girl I saw this
-morning. I wish you could fix it so I could meet her this trip, or my
-next."
-
-"I--I simply can't do it, Masters." There was a rising flush of vexation
-in the young planter's face as he knocked the ashes from his cigar into
-a nail-keg on the floor. "I don't know her well enough, in the first
-place, and then, in the next, as I said, her mother is awfully narrow
-and particular. She scarcely allows the girl out of sight; if you once
-saw old Jane Hemingway you'd not fancy making love before her eyes."
-
-"Well, I reckon Wilson knows the girl, doesn't he?" the drummer said.
-
-Chester hesitated, a cold, steady gleam of the displeasure he was trying
-to hide flashed in his eyes.
-
-"I don't know that he knows her well enough for _that_," he replied.
-"The people round here think I'm tough enough, but you drummers--huh!
-some of them look on you as the very advance agents of destruction."
-
-"That's a fact," Masters sighed, "the profession is getting a black eye
-in the rural districts. They think we are as bad as show people. By
-George, there she is now!"
-
-"Yes, that's her," and the young planter glanced towards the front
-doorway through which Virginia Hemingway was entering. So fixed was the
-drummer's admiring gaze upon the pretty creature, that he failed to
-notice that his companion had quietly slipped towards the rear of the
-store. Chester stood for a moment in the back doorway, and then stepped
-down outside and made his way into the wood near by. The drummer
-sauntered behind the counter towards the front, till he was near the
-show-case at which the girl was making her purchase, and there he stood,
-allowing the fire of his cigar to die out as he watched her, while
-Wilson was exhibiting to her a drawer full of thread for her to select
-from.
-
-"By all that's good and holy, she simply caps the stack!" Masters said
-to himself; "and to think that these galoots out here in the woods are
-not onto it. She'd set Peachtree Street on fire. I'm going to meet that
-girl if I have to put on old clothes and work for day wages in her
-mother's cornfield. Great goodness! here I am, a hardened ladies' man,
-feeling cold from head to foot on a hot day like this. I'm hit, by
-George, I'm hit! Freddy, old boy, this is the thing you read about in
-books. I wonder if--"
-
-But she was gone. She had tripped out into the sunshine. He saw the
-yellow light fall on her abundant hair and turn it into a blaze of gold.
-As if dreaming, he went to the door and stood looking after her as she
-moved away on the dusty road.
-
-"I see you are killing time." It was George Wilson at his elbow. "I'll
-be through here and with you in a minute. My crowd is thinning out now.
-That's the way it comes--all in a rush; like a mill-dam broke loose."
-
-"Oh, I'm in no hurry, Wilson," said Masters, his gaze bent upon the
-bushes behind which Virginia had just disappeared. "Say, now, old man,
-don't say you won't do it; the fact is, I want to be introduced to that
-girl--the little daisy you sold the thread to. By glory, she is the
-prettiest little thing I ever saw."
-
-"Virginia Hemingway!" said the store-keeper. "Yes, she's a regular
-beauty, and the gentlest, sweetest little trick in seven states. Well,
-Masters, I'll be straight with you. It's this way. You see, she really
-_is_ full grown, and old enough to receive company, I reckon, but her
-mother, the old woman I told you about who hates Ann Boyd so
-thoroughly--well, she doesn't seem to realize that Virginia is coming
-on, and so she won't consent to any of the boys going near her. But old
-Jane can't make nature over. Girls will be girls, and if you put too
-tight a rein on them they will learn to slip the halter, or some chap
-will teach them to take the bit in their teeth."
-
-A man came to Wilson holding a sample of syrup on a piece of
-wrapping-paper, to which he had applied his tongue. "What's this here
-brand worth?" he asked.
-
-"Sixty-five--best golden drip," was Wilson's reply. "Fill your jug
-yourself; I'll take your word for it."
-
-"All right, you make a ticket of it--jug holds two gallons," said the
-customer, and he turned away.
-
-"Say, Wilson, just a minute," cried the drummer; "do you mean that
-she--"
-
-"Oh, look here now," said the store-keeper. "I don't mean any reflection
-against that sweet girl, but it has become a sort of established habit
-among girls here in the mountains, when their folks hold them down too
-much, for them to meet fellows on the sly, out walking and the like.
-Virginia, as I started to say, is full of natural life. She knows she's
-pretty, and she wouldn't be a woman if she didn't want to be told
-so--though, to be so good-looking, she is really the most sensible girl
-I know."
-
-"You mean she has her fancies, then," said Masters, in a tone of
-disappointment.
-
-"I don't say she has." Wilson had an uneasy glance on a group of women
-bending over some bolts of calico, one of whom was chewing a sample
-clipped from a piece to see if it would fade. "But--between me and you
-now--Langdon Chester has for the last three months been laying for her.
-I see he's slipped away; I'd bet my hat he saw her just now, and has
-made a break for some point on the road where he can speak to her."
-
-"Chester? Why, the rascal pretended to me just now that he hardly knew
-her."
-
-Wilson smiled knowingly. "That's his way. He is as sly as they make 'em.
-His daddy was before him. When it comes to dealing with women who strike
-their fancy they know exactly what they are doing. But Langdon has
-struck flint-rock in that little girl. He, no doubt, is flirting with
-all his might, but she'll have him on his knees before he's through with
-it. A pair of eyes like hers would burn up every mean thought in a man."
-
-The drummer sighed, a deep frown on his brow. "You don't know him as
-well as I do," he said. "I knew him at college. George, that little
-trick ought not to be under such a fellow's influence I'm just a
-travelling man, but--well--"
-
-"Well, what are you going to do about it--even if there _is_ any
-danger?" said Wilson. "Get a drink in him, and Langdon, like his father,
-will fight at the drop of a hat. Conscience? He hasn't any. I sometimes
-wonder why the Almighty made them like they are, and other men so
-different, for it is only the men who are not bothered by conscience
-that have any fun in this life. One of the Chesters could drive a
-light-hearted woman to suicide and sleep like a log the night she was
-buried. Haven't I heard the old man laugh about Ann Boyd, and all she's
-been through? Huh! But I'm not afraid of that little girl's fate. She
-will take care of herself, and don't you forget it."
-
-"Well, I'm sorry for her," said Masters, "and I'm going to try to meet
-her. I'm tough, George--I'll play a game of cards and bet on a horse,
-and say light things to a pretty girl when she throws down the bars--but
-I draw the line at downright rascality. Once in a while I think of home
-and my own folks."
-
-"Now you are a-talking." And Wilson hurried away to a woman who sat in a
-chair holding a bolt of calico in her arms, as if it were her first-born
-child and the other women were open kidnappers.
-
-Masters stood motionless in the doorway, his eyes on the dusty road that
-stretched on towards Jane Hemingway's house.
-
-"Yes, she's in bad, _bad_ hands," he said; "and she is the first--I
-really believe she's the first that ever hit me this hard."
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-
-At dusk that day Ann Boyd went out to search for a missing cow. She
-crossed the greater part of her stretch of meadow-land in the foggy
-shadows, and finally found the animal mired to the knees in a black bog
-hidden from view by the high growth of bulrushes. Then came the task of
-releasing the patient creature, and Ann carried rails from the nearest
-fence, placing them in such a way that the cow finally secured a
-substantial footing and gladly sped homeward to her imprisoned calf.
-Then, to escape the labor of again passing through the clinging vines
-and high grass of the marsh, Ann took the nearest way to the main road
-leading from the store on to Jane Hemingway's cottage. She had just
-reached the little meeting-house, and a hot flush of anger at the memory
-of the insult passed upon her there was surging over her, when,
-happening to glance towards the graveyard in the rear of the building,
-she saw Virginia Hemingway and Langdon Chester, quite with the air of
-lovers, slowly walking homeward along a path which, if more rugged, led
-more directly towards the girl's home. Ann Boyd started and then stared;
-she could hardly credit the evidence of her sight--Virginia Hemingway
-and the scapegrace son of that man, of all men, together!
-
-"Ah, ha!" she exclaimed, under her breath, and, falling back into the
-bushes which bordered the roadside, she stood tingling from head to foot
-with a new and unexpected sensation, her eager eyes on the loitering
-pair. "So _that's_ it, is it? The young scamp has picked _her_ out,
-devil that he is by blood and birth. Well, I might have known it. Who
-could know better than me what a new generation of that cursed stock
-would be up to? Right now he's the living image of what his father was
-at the same age. He's lying to her, too, with tongue, eyes, voice, and
-very bend of body. Great God, isn't she pretty? I never, in my best day,
-saw the minute that I could have held a candle to her, and yet they all
-said--but that makes no difference. I wonder why I never thought before
-that he'd pick her out. As much as I hate her mammy, and her, too, I
-must acknowledge she's sweet-looking. She's pure-minded, too--as pure of
-thought as I was away back there when I wore my hair in a plait. But
-that man will crush your purity, you little, blind kitten, crush it like
-a fresh violet under a horse's hoof; _he'll_ teach you what life is.
-That's the business the Chesters are good at. But, look! I do believe
-she's holding off from him." Ann crept onward through the bushes to keep
-pace with the couple, now and then stretching her neck or rising to her
-full height on tiptoe.
-
-"He hasn't been on her track very long," she mused, "but he has won the
-biggest part of his battle--he's got her to meet him privately. A sight
-of this would lay her old mammy out stiff as a board, but she'll be kept
-in the dark. That scamp will see to that part of the affair. But she'll
-know in the end. Somebody will tell her the truth. Maybe the girl will
-herself, when the awful, lonely pinch comes and there is no other friend
-in sight. _Then_, Jane Hemingway, it will all come home to you. Then
-you'll look back on the long, blood-hound hunt you've given another
-woman in the same plight. The Almighty is doing it. He's working it out
-for Jane Hemingway's life-portion. The girl is the very apple of her
-eye; she has often said she was the image of herself, and that, as her
-own marriage and life had come to nothing, she was going to see to it
-that her only child's path was strewn with roses. Well, Langdon Chester
-is strewing the roses thick enough. Ha, ha, ha!" the peering woman
-chuckled. "Jane can come along an' pick 'em up when they are withered
-and crumble like powder at the slightest touch. Now I really will have
-something to occupy me. I'll watch this thing take root, and bud, and
-leave, and bloom, and die. Maybe I'll be the first to carry the news to
-headquarters. I'd love it more than anything this life could give me.
-I'd like to shake the truth in Jane Hemingway's old, blinking eyes and
-see her unable to believe it. I'd like to stand shaking it in her teeth
-till she knew it was so, and then I honestly believe I'd fall right down
-in front of her and roll over and over laughing. To think that I, maybe
-_I_ will be able to flaunt the very thing in her face that she has all
-these years held over me--the very thing, even to its being a son of the
-very scoundrel that actually bent over the cradle of my girlhood and
-blinded me with the lies that lit up his face."
-
-A few yards away the pair had paused. Chester had taken the girl's hand
-and was gently stroking it as it lay restlessly in his big palm. For a
-moment Ann lost sight of them, for she was stealthily creeping behind
-the low, hanging boughs of the bushes to get nearer. She found herself
-presently behind a big bowlder. She no longer saw the couple, but could
-hear their voices quite distinctly.
-
-"You won't even let me hold your hand," she heard him say. "You make me
-miserable, Virginia. When I am at home alone, I get to thinking over
-your coldness and indifference, and it nearly drives me crazy. Why did
-you jerk your hand away so quickly just now?"
-
-"I don't see what you were talking to a drummer about me for, in a
-public place like that," the girl answered, in pouting tones.
-
-"Why, it was this way, Virginia--now don't be silly!" protested Chester.
-"You see, this Masters and I were at college together, and rather
-intimate, and down at the store we were standing talking when you came
-in the front to buy something. He said he thought you were really the
-prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he was begging me to introduce him
-to you."
-
-"Introduce him!" Virginia snapped. "I don't want to know him. And so you
-stood there talking about me!"
-
-"It was only a minute, Virginia, and I couldn't help it," Chester
-declared. "I didn't think you'd care to know him, but I had to treat him
-decently. I told him how particular your mother was, and that I couldn't
-manage it. Oh, he's simply daft about you. He passed you on the road
-this morning, and hasn't been able to talk about anything since. But who
-could blame him, Virginia? You can form no idea of how pretty you are in
-the eyes of other people. Frankly, in a big gathering of women you'd
-create a sensation. You've got what every society woman in the country
-would die to have, perfect beauty of face and form, and the most
-remarkable part about it is your absolute unconsciousness of it all.
-I've seen good-looking women in the best sets in Augusta and Savannah
-and Atlanta, but they all seem to be actually making up before your very
-eyes. Do you know, it actually makes me sick to see a woman all rigged
-out in a satin gown so stiff that it looks like she's encased in some
-metallic painted thing that moves on rollers. It's beauty unadorned that
-you've got, and it's the real thing."
-
-"I don't want to talk about myself eternally," said Virginia, rather
-sharply, the eavesdropper thought, "and I don't see why you seem to
-think I do. When you are sensible and talk to me about what we have both
-read and thought, I like you better."
-
-"Oh, you want me to be a sort of Luke King, who put all sorts of fancies
-in your head when you were too young to know what they meant. You'd
-better let those dreams alone, Virginia, and get down to everyday facts.
-My love for you is a reality. It's a big force in my life. I find myself
-thinking about you and your coldness from early morning till late at
-night. Last Monday you were to come to the Henry Spring, and I was there
-long before the time, and stayed in agony of suspense for four hours,
-but I had my walk for nothing."
-
-"I couldn't come," Ann Boyd heard the sweet voice say. "Mother gave me
-some work to do, and I had no excuse; besides, I don't like to deceive
-her. She's harsh and severe, but I don't like to do anything she would
-disapprove of."
-
-"You don't really care much for me," said Langdon--"that is the whole
-thing in a nutshell."
-
-Virginia was silent, and Ann Boyd bit her lip and clinched her hands
-tightly. The very words and tone of enforced reproach came back to her
-across the rolling surf of time. She was for a moment lost in
-retrospection. The young girl behind the bushes seemed suddenly to be
-herself, her companion the dashing young Preston Chester, the prince of
-planters and slave-holders. Langdon's insistent voice brought back the
-present.
-
-"You don't care for me, you know you don't," he was saying. "You were
-simply born with all your beauty and sweetness to drag me down to
-despair. You make me desperate with your maddening reserve and icy
-coldness, when all this hot fire is raging in me."
-
-"That's what makes me afraid of you," Virginia said, softly. "I admit I
-like to be with you, my life is so lonely, but you always say such
-extravagant things and want to--to catch hold of me, and kiss me, and--"
-
-"Well, how can I help myself, when you are what you are?" Chester
-exclaimed, with a laugh. "I don't want to act a lie to you, and stand
-and court you like a long-faced Methodist parson, who begins and ends
-his love-making with prayer. Life is too beautiful and lovely to turn it
-into a funeral service from beginning to end. Let's be happy, little
-girl; let's laugh and be merry and thank our stars we are alive."
-
-"I won't thank my stars if I don't go on home." And Virginia laughed
-sweetly for the first time.
-
-"Yes, I suppose we had better walk on," Langdon admitted, "but I'm not
-going out into the open road with you till I've had that kiss. No, you
-needn't pull away, dear--I'm going to have it."
-
-The grim eavesdropper heard Virginia sharply protesting; there was a
-struggle, a tiny, smothered scream, and then something waked in the
-breast of Ann Boyd that lifted her above her sordid self. It was the
-enraged impulse to dart forward and with her strong, toil-hardened hands
-clutch the young man by the throat and drag him down to the ground and
-hold him there till the flames she knew so well had gone out of his
-face. Something like a prayer sprang to her lips--a prayer for help, and
-then, in a flush of shame, the slow-gained habit of years came back to
-her; she was taking another view--this time down a darkened vista.
-
-"It's no business of mine," she muttered. "It's only the way things are
-evened up. After all, where would be the justice in one woman suffering
-from a thing for a lifetime and another going scot free, and that one,
-too, the daughter of the one person that has deliberately made a life
-miserable? No, siree! My pretty child, take care of yourself, I'm not
-your mother. If she would let me alone for one minute, maybe her eyes
-would be open to her own interests."
-
-Laughing pleasantly over having obtained his kiss by sheer force,
-Langdon, holding Virginia's reluctant hand, led her out into an open
-space, and the watcher caught a plain view of the girl's profile, and
-the sight twisted her thoughts into quite another channel. For a moment
-she stood as if rooted to the ground behind the bushes which had
-shielded her. "That girl is going to be a hard one to fool," she
-muttered. "I can see that from her high forehead and firm chin. Now, it
-really _would_ be a joke on me if--if Jane Hemingway's offspring was to
-avoid the pitfall I fell into, with all the head I've got. Then, I
-reckon, Jane _could_ talk; that, I reckon, would prove her right in so
-bitterly denouncing me; but will the girl stand the pressure? If she
-intends to, she's made a bad beginning. Meeting a chap like that on the
-sly isn't the best way to be rid of him, nor that kiss; which she let
-him have without a scratch or loss of a hair on his side, is another bad
-indication. Well, the game's on. Me 'n' Jane is on the track neck to
-neck with the wire and bandstand ahead. If the angels are watching this
-sport, them in the highest seats may shed tears, but it will be fun to
-the other sort. I'm reckless. I don't much care which side I amuse; the
-whole thing come up of its own accord, and the Lord of Creation hasn't
-done as much for my spiritual condition as the Prince of Darkness. I may
-be a she-devil, but I was made one by circumstances as naturally as a
-foul weed is made to grow high and strong by the manure around its root.
-And yet, I reckon, there must be _some_ dregs of good left in my cup,
-for I felt like strangling that scamp a minute ago. But that may have
-been because I forgot and thought he was his daddy, and the girl was me
-on the brink of that chasm twenty years wide and deeper than the mystery
-of the grave of mankind. I don't know much, but I know I'm going to
-fight Jane Hemingway as long as I live. I know I'm going to do that, for
-I know she will keep her nose to my trail, and I wouldn't be human if I
-didn't hit back."
-
-The lovers had moved on; their voices were growing faint in the shadowy
-distance. The gray dusk had fallen in almost palpable folds over the
-landscape. The nearest mountain was lost like the sight of land at sea.
-She walked on to her cow that was standing bellowing to her calf in the
-stable-lot. Laying her hand on the animal's back, Ann said: "I'm not
-going to milch you to-night, Sooky; I'm going to let your baby have all
-he wants if it fills him till he can't walk. I'm going to be better to
-you--you poor, dumb brute--than I am to Jane Hemingway."
-
-Lowering the time-worn and smooth bars, she let the cow in to her young,
-and then, closing the opening, she went into her kitchen and sat down
-before the fire and pushed out her water-soaked feet to the flames to
-dry them.
-
-In an iron pot having an ash-covered lid was a piece of corn-pone
-stamped with the imprint of her fingers, and on some smouldering coals
-was a skillet containing some curled strips of fried bacon. These things
-Ann put upon a tin plate, and, holding it in her lap, she began to eat
-her supper. She was normal and healthy, and therefore her excitement had
-not subdued her appetite. She ate as with hearty enjoyment, her mind
-busy with what she had heard and seen.
-
-"Ah, old lady!" she chuckled, "you can laugh fit to split your sides
-when a loud-mouthed preacher talks in public about burning benches, but
-your laugh is likely to come back in an echo as hollow as a voice from
-the grave. If this thing ends as I want it to end, I'll be with you,
-Jane, as you've managed to be with me all these years."
-
-Till far in the night Ann sat nursing her new treasure and viewing it in
-all its possible forms, till, growing drowsy, from a long day of
-fatigue, she undressed herself, and, putting on a dingy gray night-gown,
-she crept into her big feather-bed.
-
-"It all depends on the girl," was her last reflection before sleep bore
-her off. "She isn't a bit stronger than I was at about the same age, and
-I'll bet the Chester power isn't a whit weaker than it was. Well, time
-will tell."
-
-Late in the night she was waked by a strange dream, and, to throw it out
-of mind, she rose and walked out into the entry and took a drink of
-water from the gourd. She had dreamed that Virginia had come to her
-bedraggled and torn, and had cried on her shoulder, and begged her for
-help and protection. In the dream she had pressed the girl's tear-wet
-face against her own and kissed her, and said: "I know what you feel, my
-child, for I've been through it from end to end; but if the whole world
-turns against you, come here to me and we'll live together--the young
-and old of the queerest fate known to womankind."
-
-"Ugh!" Ann ejaculated, with a shudder. "I wonder what's the matter with
-me." She went back to bed, lay down and drew her feet up under the
-sheets and shuddered. "To think I'd have a dream of that sort, and about
-_that woman's_ child!"
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-
-It was the first Sunday in June. Mrs. Waycroft came along the stony
-hill-side road that slanted gently down from her house to Ann Boyd's. It
-was a dry, breezeless morning under an unclouded sun, and but for the
-earliness of the hour it would have been hot.
-
-"I was just wondering," she said to Ann, whom she found in the back-yard
-lowering a pail of butter into the well to keep it cool--"I was just
-wondering if you'd heard that a new man is to preach to-day. He's a Mr.
-Calhoun, from Marietta, a pretty good talker, I've heard."
-
-"No, I didn't know it," said Ann, as she let the hemp rope slowly glide
-through her fingers, till, with a soft sound, the pail struck the dark
-surface of the water forty feet below. "How am I to hear such things?
-Through the whole week, unless you happen along, I only have a pack of
-negroes about me, and they have their own meetings and shindigs to go
-to."
-
-Mrs. Waycroft put her hand on the smooth, wooden windlass and peered
-down into the well. "This is a better place, Ann, to keep milk and
-butter cool than a spring-house, if you can just make folks careful
-about letting the bucket down. I got my well filled with milk from a
-busted jug once, when one of the hands, in a big hurry, pushed the
-bucket in and let it fall to the water."
-
-"Nobody draws water here but me," said Ann. She had fixed her friend
-with a steady, penetrating stare. She was silent for a moment, then she
-said, abruptly: "You've got something else to say besides that about the
-new preacher; I have got so I read you like a book. I watched you coming
-along the road. I could see you over the roof of the house when you was
-high up in the edge of the timber, and I knew by your step you had
-something unusual on your mind. Besides, you know good and well that I'd
-never darken the door of that house again, not if forty new preachers
-held forth there. No, you didn't come all the way here so early for
-that."
-
-The other woman smiled sheepishly under her gingham bonnet.
-
-"I'm not going to meeting myself," she said, "and I reckon I was just
-talking to hear myself run on. I'm that away, you know."
-
-"You might learn not to beat the Old Nick around a stump with a woman
-like me," said Ann, firmly. "You know I go straight at a thing. I've
-found that it pays in business and everything else."
-
-"Well, then, I've come to tell you that I'm going over to Gilmer
-to-morrow to see my brother and his wife."
-
-"Ah, you say you are!" Ann showed surprise against her will. "Gilmer?"
-
-"Yes, you see, Ann, they've been after me for a long time, writing
-letters and sending word, so now that my crop is laid by I've not really
-got a good excuse to delay; seems like everything tends to pull me that
-way whether or no, for Pete McQuill is going over in the morning with an
-empty wagon, and, as he's coming back Thursday, why, it will just suit.
-I wouldn't want to stay longer than that."
-
-The two women stood staring at each other in silence for a moment, then
-Ann shrugged her powerful shoulders and averted her eyes.
-
-"That wasn't _all_ you come to say," she said, almost tremulously.
-
-"No, it wasn't, Ann; I admit it wasn't _all_--not quite all."
-
-There was another silence. Ann fastened the end of the rope to a strong
-nail driven in the wood-work about the well with firm, steady fingers,
-then she sighed deeply.
-
-"You see, Ann," Mrs. Waycroft gathered courage to say, "your husband and
-Nettie live about half a mile or three-quarters from brother's, and I
-didn't know but what you--I didn't know but what I might accidentally
-run across them."
-
-Ann's face was hard as stone. Her eyes, resting on the far-off blue
-mountains and foot-hills, flashed like spiritual fires. It was at such
-moments that the weaker woman feared her, and Mrs. Waycroft's glance was
-almost apologetic. However, Ann spoke first.
-
-"You may as well tell me, Mary Waycroft," she faltered, "exactly what
-you had in mind. I know you are a friend. You are a friend if there ever
-was one to a friendless woman. What was you thinking about? Don't be
-afraid to tell me. You could not hurt my feelings to save your life."
-
-"Well, then, I will be plain, Ann," returned the widow. "I have queer
-thoughts about you sometimes, and last night I laid awake longer than
-usual and got to thinking about the vast and good blessings I have had
-in my children, and from that I got to thinking about you and the only
-baby you ever had."
-
-"Huh! you needn't bother about _that_," said Ann, her lips quivering. "I
-reckon I don't need sympathy in that direction."
-
-"But I _did_ bother; I couldn't help it, Ann; for, you see, it seems to
-me that a misunderstanding is up between you and Nettie, anyway. She's a
-grown girl now, and I reckon she can hardly remember you; but I have
-heard, Ann, that she's never had the things a girl of her age naturally
-craves. She's got her beaus over there, too, so folks tell me, and wants
-to appear well; but Joe Boyd never was able to give her anything she
-needs. You see, Ann, I just sorter put myself in your place, as I laid
-there thinking, and it struck me that if I had as much substance as you
-have, and was as free to give to the needy as you are, that, even if the
-law _had_ turned my child over to another to provide for, that I'd love
-powerful to do more for it than he was able, showing to the girl, and
-everybody else, that the court didn't know what it was about. And, Ann,
-in that way I'd feel that I was doing my duty in spite of laws or narrow
-public opinion."
-
-Ann Boyd's features were working, a soft flush had come into her tanned
-cheeks, her hard mouth had become more flexible.
-
-"I've thought of that ten thousand times," she said, huskily, "but I
-have never seen the time I could quite come down to it. Mary, it's a
-sort of pride that I never can overcome. I feel peculiar about
-Net--about the girl, anyway. It seems to me like she died away back
-there in her baby-clothes, with her playthings--her big rag-doll and tin
-kitchen--and that I almost hate the strange, grown-up person she's
-become away off from me. As God is my Judge, Mary Waycroft, I believe I
-could meet her face to face and not feel--feel like she was any near kin
-of mine, I can't see no reason in this way of feeling. I know she had
-nothing to do with what took place, but she represents Joe Boyd's part
-of the thing, and she's lost her place in my heart. If she could have
-grown up here with me it would have been different, but--" Ann went no
-further. She stood looking over the landscape, her hand clutching her
-strong chin. There was an awkward silence. Some of Ann's chickens came
-up to her very skirt, chirping and springing open-mouthed to her kindly
-hand for food. She gently and absent-mindedly waved her apron up and
-down and drove them away.
-
-"I understand all that," said Mrs. Waycroft; "but I believe you feel
-that way just because you've got in the habit of it. I really believe
-you ought to let me"--the speaker caught her breath--"ought to just let
-me tell Nettie, when I see her, about what I know you to be at heart,
-away down under what the outside world thinks. And you ought to let me
-say that if her young heart yearns for anything her pa can't afford to
-buy, that I know you'd be glad, out of your bounty, to give it to her. I
-really believe it would open the girl's eyes and heart to you. I believe
-she'd not only accept your aid, but she'd be plumb happy over it, as any
-other girl in the same fix would be."
-
-"Do you think that, Mary? Do you think she'd take anything--a single
-thing from my hands?"
-
-"I do, Ann, as the Lord is my Creator, I do; any natural girl would be
-only too glad. Young women hungering for nice things to put on along
-with other girls ain't as particular as some hide-bound old people. Then
-I'll bet she didn't know what it was all about, anyway."
-
-There was a flush in Ann's strong neck and face to the very roots of her
-hair. She leaned against the windlass and folded her bare arms. "Between
-me and you, as intimate friends, Mary Waycroft, I'd rather actually load
-that girl down with things to have and wear than to have anything on the
-face of this earth. I'd get on the train myself and go clean to Atlanta
-and lay myself out. What she had to wear would be the talk of the
-country for miles around. I'd do it to give the lie to the court that
-said she'd be in better hands than in mine when she went away with Joe
-Boyd. Oh, I'd do it fast enough, but there's no way. She wouldn't
-propose it, nor I wouldn't for my life. I wouldn't run the risk of being
-refused; that would actually humble me to the dust. No, I couldn't risk
-that."
-
-"I believe, Ann, that I could do it for you in such a way that----"
-
-"No, nobody could do it; it isn't to be done!"
-
-"I started to say, Ann, that I believed I could kind o' hint around and
-find out how the land lies without using your name at all."
-
-Ann Boyd held her breath; her face became fixed in suspense. She leaned
-forward, her great eyes staring eagerly at her neighbor.
-
-"Do you think you could do that?" she asked, finally, after a lengthy
-pause. "Do you think you could do it without letting either of them know
-I was--was willing?"
-
-"Yes, I believe I could, and you may let it rest right here. You needn't
-either consent or refuse, Ann, but I'll be back here about twelve
-o'clock Thursday, and I'll tell you what takes place."
-
-"I'll leave the whole thing in your hands," said Ann, and she moved
-towards the rear door of her house. "Now"--and her tone was more joyful
-than it had been for years--"come in and sit down."
-
-"No, I can't; I must hurry on back home," said the visitor. "I must get
-ready to go; Pete wants to make an early start."
-
-"You know you'll have plenty of time all this evening to stuff things in
-that carpet-bag of yours." Ann laughed, and her friend remarked that it
-was the first smile and joke she had heard from Ann Boyd since their
-girlhood together.
-
-"Well, I will go in, then," said Mrs. Waycroft. "I love to see you the
-way you are now, Ann. It does my heart good."
-
-But the mood was gone. Ann was serious again. They sat in the
-sitting-room chatting till the people who had been to meeting began to
-return homeward along the dusty road. Among them, in Sam Hemingway's
-spring wagon, with its wabbling wheels and ragged oil-cloth top, were
-Jane and her daughter Virginia, neither of whom looked towards the
-cottage as they passed.
-
-"I see Virginia's got a new hat," commented Mrs. Waycroft. "Her mother
-raked and scraped to get it; her credit's none too good. I hear she's in
-debt up to her eyes. Every stick of timber and animal down to her litter
-of pigs--even the farm tools--is under mortgage to money-lenders that
-won't stand no foolishness when pay-day comes. I saw two of 'em, myself,
-looking over her crop the other day and shaking their heads at the sight
-of the puny corn and cotton this dry spell. But she'd have the hat for
-Virginia if it took the roof from over her head. Her very soul's bound
-up in that girl. Looks like she thinks Virginia's better clay than
-common folks. They say she won't let her go with the Halcomb girls
-because their aunt had that talk about her."
-
-"She's no better nor no worse, I reckon," said Ann, "than the general
-run of girls."
-
-"There goes Langdon Chester on his prancing horse," said Mrs. Waycroft.
-"Oh, my! that _was_ a bow! He took off his hat to Virginia and bent
-clean down to his horse's mane. If she'd been a queen he couldn't have
-been more gallant. For all the world, like his father used to be to high
-and low. I'll bet that tickled Jane. I can see her rear herself back,
-even from here. I wonder if she's fool enough to think, rascal as he is,
-that Langdon Chester would want to marry a girl like Virginia just for
-her good looks."
-
-"No, he'll never marry her," Ann said, positively, and her face was
-hard, her eyes set in a queer stare at her neighbor. "He isn't the
-marrying sort. If he ever marries, he'll do it to feather his nest."
-
-The visitor rose to go, and Ann walked with her out to the gate. Mrs.
-Waycroft was wondering if she would, of her own accord, bring up the
-subject of their recent talk, but she did not. With her hand on the
-gate, she said, however, in a non-committal tone:
-
-"When did you say you'd be back?"
-
-"Thursday, at twelve o'clock, or thereabouts," was the ready reply.
-
-"Well, take good care of yourself," said Ann. "That will be a long, hot
-ride over a rough road there and back."
-
-Going into her kitchen, Ann, with her roughly shod foot, kicked some
-live embers on the hearth under the pot and kettle containing her
-dinner, bending to examine the boiling string-beans and hunch of salt
-pork.
-
-"I don't feel a bit like eating," she mused, "but I reckon my appetite
-will come after I calm down. Let's see now. I've got two whole days to
-wait before she gets back, and then the Lord above only knows what the
-news will be. Seems to me sorter like I'm on trial again. Nettie was too
-young to appear for or against me before, but now she's on the stand.
-Yes, she's the judge, jury, and all the rest put together. I almost wish
-I hadn't let Mary Waycroft see I was willing. It may make me look like a
-weak, begging fool, and that's something I've avoided all these years.
-But the game is worth the risk, humiliating as it may turn out. To be
-able to do something for my own flesh and blood would give me the first
-joy I've had in many a year. Lord, Lord, maybe she will consent, and
-then I'll get some good out of all the means I've been piling up. Homely
-as they say she is, I'd like to fairly load her down till her finery
-would be the talk of the county, and shiftless Joe Boyd 'ud blush to see
-her rustle out in public. Maybe--I say _maybe_--nobody really knows what
-a woman will do--but maybe she'll just up and declare to him that she's
-coming back to me, where other things will match her outfit. Come back!
-how odd!--come back here where she used to toddle about and play with
-her tricks and toys, on the floor and in the yard. That would be a
-glorious vindication, and then--I don't know, but maybe I'd learn to
-love her. I'm sure I'd feel grateful for it--even--even if it was my
-money and nothing else that brought her to me."
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-
-To Ann Boyd the period between Mrs. Waycroft's departure and return was
-long and fraught with conflicting emotions. Strange, half-defined new
-hopes fluttered into existence like young birds in air that was too
-chill, and this state of mind was succeeded by qualms of doubt and fear
-not unlike the misgivings which had preceded the child's birth; for it
-had been during that time of detachment from her little world that Ann's
-life secret had assumed its gravest and most threatening aspect. And if
-she had not loved the child quite as much after it came as might have
-seemed natural, she sometimes ascribed the shortcoming to that morbid
-period which had been filled with lurking shadows and constantly
-whispered threats rather than the assurances of a blessed maternity.
-
-Yes, the lone woman reflected, her kind neighbor had taken a reasonable
-view of the situation. And she tried valiantly to hold this pacifying
-thought over herself as she sat at her rattling and pounding loom, or in
-her walks of daily inspection over her fields and to her storage-houses,
-where her negro hands were at work. Yes, Nettie would naturally crave
-the benefits she could confer, and, to still darker promptings, Ann told
-herself, time after time, that, being plain-looking, the girl would all
-the more readily reach out for embellishments which would ameliorate
-that defect. Yes, it was not unlikely that she would want the things
-offered too much to heed the malicious and jealous advice of a shiftless
-father who thought only of his own pride and comfort. And while Ann was
-on this rack of disquietude over the outcome of Mrs. Waycroft's visit,
-there was in her heart a new and almost unusual absence of active hatred
-for the neighbors who had offended her. Old Abe Longley came by the
-second day after Mrs. Waycroft's departure. He was filled with the
-augmented venom of their last contact. His eyes flashed and the yellow
-tobacco-juice escaped from his mouth and trickled down his quivering
-chin as he informed her that he had secured from a good, law-abiding
-Christian woman the use of all the pasture-land he needed, and that she
-could keep hers for the devils' imps to play pranks on at night to her
-order. For just one instant her blood boiled, and then the thought of
-Mrs. Waycroft and her grave and spiritual mission cooled her from head
-to foot. She stared at the old man blankly for an instant, and then,
-without a word, turned into her house, leaving him astounded and
-considerably taken aback. That same day from her doorway she saw old
-Mrs. Bruce, Luke King's mother, slowly shambling along the road, and she
-went out and leaned on her gate till Mrs. Bruce was near, then she said,
-"Mrs. Bruce, I've got something to tell you."
-
-The pedestrian paused and then turned in her course and came closer.
-
-"You've heard from my boy?" she said, eagerly.
-
-"No, not since I saw you that day," said Ann. "But he's all right, Mrs.
-Bruce, as I told you, and prospering. I didn't come out to speak of him.
-I've decided to drop that law-suit against Gus Willard. He can keep his
-pond where it is and run his mill on."
-
-"Oh, you don't mean it, surely you don't mean it, Ann!" the old woman
-cried. "Why, Gus was just back from Darley last night and said your
-lawyers said thar was to be no hitch in the proceedings; but, of course,
-if _you_ say so, why--"
-
-"Well, I _do_ say so," said Ann, in a tone which sounded strange and
-compromising even to herself. "I _do_ say so; I don't want your husband
-to lose his job. Luke wouldn't like for you to suffer, either, Mrs.
-Bruce."
-
-"Then I'll go at once and tell Willard," said the older woman. "He'll be
-powerful glad, Ann, and maybe he will think as I do, an' as Luke always
-contended against everybody, that you had a lots o' good away down
-inside of you."
-
-"Tell him what you want to," Ann answered, and she returned to her
-house.
-
-On the morning she was expecting Mrs. Waycroft to return, Ann rose even
-before daybreak, lighting an abundant supply of pine kindling-wood to
-drive away the moist darkness, and bustling about the house to kill
-time. It was the greatest crisis of her rugged life; not even the day
-she was wedded to Joe Boyd could equal it in impending gravity. She was
-on trial for her life; the jury had been in retirement two days and
-nights carefully weighing the evidence for and against the probability
-of a simple, untutored country girl's acceptance of certain luxuries
-dear to a woman's heart, and would shortly render a verdict.
-
-"She will," Ann said once, as she put her ground coffee into the tin pot
-to boil on the coals--"she will if she's like the ordinary girl; she
-won't if she's as stubborn as Joe or as proud as I am. But if she
-does--oh! if she does, won't I love to pick out the things! She shall
-have the best in the land, and she can wear them and keep them in the
-log-cabin her father's giving her till she will be willing to come here
-to this comfortable house and take the best room for herself. I don't
-know that I'd ever feel natural with a strange young woman about, but
-I'd go through it. If she didn't want to stay all the time, I'd sell
-factory stock or town lots and give her the means to travel on. She
-could go out and see the world and improve like Luke King's done. I'd
-send her to school if she has the turn and isn't past the age. It would
-be a great vindication for me. Folks could say her shiftless father took
-her off when she was too young to decide for herself, but when she got
-old enough to know black from white, and right from wrong, she obeyed
-her heart's promptings. But what am I thinking about, when right at this
-minute she may--?" Ann shrugged her shoulders as she turned from the
-cheerful fire and looked out on her fields enfolded in the misty robe of
-early morning. Above the dun mountain in the east the sky was growing
-yellow. Ann suddenly grew despondent and heaved a deep sigh.
-
-"Even if she _did_ come here in the end, and I tried to do all I could,"
-she mused, "Jane Hemingway would begin on her and make it unpleasant.
-She'd manage to keep all civilization away from the girl, and nobody
-couldn't stand that. No, I reckon the jig's up with me. I'm only
-floundering in a frying-pan that will cook me to a cinder in the end.
-This life's given me the power of making money, but it's yellow dross,
-and I hate it. It isn't the means to any end for me
-unless--unless--unless my dau--unless she _does_ take Mrs. Waycroft's
-offer. Yes, she may--the girl actually may! And in that case she and I
-could run away from Jane Hemingway--clean off to some new place."
-
-Ann turned back to the fireplace and filled her big delft cup to the
-brim with strong coffee, and, blowing upon it to cool it, she gulped it
-down.
-
-"Let's see"--her musings ran on apace--"milching the three cows and
-feeding the cattle and horses and pigs and chickens will take an hour. I
-could stretch it out to that by mixing the feed-stuff for to-morrow.
-Then I could go to the loom and weave up all my yarn; that would be
-another hour. Then I might walk down to the sugar-mill and see if they
-are getting it fixed for use when the sorgum's ripe, but all that
-wouldn't throw it later than ten o'clock at latest, and there would
-still be two hours. Pete McQuill is easy on horses; he'll drive slow--a
-regular snail's pace; it will be twelve when he gets to the store, and
-then the fool may stop to buy something before he brings her on."
-
-The old-fashioned clock on the mantel-piece indicated that it was
-half-past eleven when Ann had done everything about the house and farm
-she could think of laying her hands to, and she was about to sit down in
-the shade of an apple-tree in the yard when she suddenly drew herself up
-under the inspiration of an idea. Why not start down the road to meet
-the wagon? No, that would not do. Even to such a close friend as Mrs.
-Waycroft she could not make such an obvious confession of the impatience
-which was devouring her. But, and she put the after-thought into action,
-she would go to the farthest corner of her own land, where her premises
-touched the main road, and that was fully half a mile. She walked to
-that point across her own fields rather than run the chance of meeting
-any one on the road, though the way over ploughed ground, bog, fen, and
-through riotous growth of thistle and clinging briers was anything but
-an easy one. Reaching the point to which she had directed her steps, and
-taking a hasty survey of the road leading gradually up the mountain, she
-leaned despondently on her rail-fence.
-
-"She won't, she won't--the girl won't!" she sighed. "I feel down in my
-heart of hearts that she won't. Joe Boyd won't let her; he'd see how
-ridiculous it would make him appear, and he'd die rather than give in,
-and yet Mary Waycroft knows something about human nature, and she
-said--Mary said--"
-
-Far up the road there was a rumble of wheels. Pete McQuill would let his
-horses go rapidly down-hill, and that, perhaps, was his wagon. It was.
-She recognized the gaunt, underfed white-and-bay pair through the trees
-on the mountain-side. Then Ann became all activity. She discovered that
-one of the rails of the panel of fence near by had quite rotted away,
-leaving an opening wide enough to admit of the passage of a small pig.
-To repair such a break she usually took a sound rail from some portion
-of the fence that was high enough to spare it, and this she now did, and
-was diligently at work when the wagon finally reached her. She did not
-look up, although she plainly heard Mrs. Waycroft's voice as she asked
-McQuill to stop.
-
-"You might as well let me out here," the widow said. "I'll walk back
-with Mrs. Boyd."
-
-The wagon was lumbering on its way when Ann turned her set face, down
-which drops of perspiration were rolling, towards her approaching
-friend.
-
-"You caught me hard at it." She tried to smile casually. "Do you know
-patching fence is the toughest work on a farm--harder 'n splitting
-rails, that men complain so much about."
-
-"It's a man's work, Ann, and a big, strong one's, too. You ought never
-to tax your strength like that. You don't mean to tell me you lifted
-that stack of rails to put in the new one."
-
-"Yes, but what's that?" Ann smiled. "I shouldered a
-hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of salt the other day, and it was as hard
-as a block of stone. I'm used to anything. But I'm through now. Let's
-walk on home and have a bite to eat."
-
-"You don't seem to care much whether--" Mrs. Waycroft paused and started
-again. "You haven't forgotten what I said I'd try to find out over
-there, have you, Ann?"
-
-"Me? Oh no, but I reckon I'm about pegged out with all I've done this
-morning. Don't I look tired?"
-
-"You don't looked tired--you look worried, Ann. I know you; you needn't
-try to hide your feelings from me. We are both women. When you are
-suffering the most you beat about the bush more than any other time.
-That's why this is going to be so hard for me."
-
-"It's going to be _hard_ for you, then?" Ann's impulsive voice sounded
-hollow; her face had suddenly grown pale. "I know what _that_ means. It
-means that Joe set his foot down against me and--"
-
-"I wish I could tell you all, every blessed word, Ann, but you've
-already had too much trouble in this life, and I feel like I was such a
-big, ignorant fool to get this thing up and make such a mess of it."
-
-Ann climbed over the fence and stood in the road beside her companion.
-Her face was twisted awry by some force bound up within her. She laid
-her big, toil-worn hand on Mrs. Waycroft's shoulder.
-
-"Now, looky here," she said, harshly. "I'm going to hear every word and
-know everything that took place. You must not leave out one single item.
-I've got the right to know it all, and I will. Now, you start in."
-
-"I hardly know how, Ann," the other woman faltered. "I didn't know folks
-in this world could have so little human pity or forgiveness."
-
-"You go ahead, do you hear me? You blaze away. I can stand under fire.
-I'm no kitten. Go ahead, I tell you."
-
-"Well, Ann, I met Joe and Nettie day before yesterday at bush-arbor
-meeting. Joe was there, and looked slouchier and more downhearted than
-he ever did in his life, and Nettie was there with the young man she is
-about to marry--a tall, serious-faced, parson-like young man, a Mr.
-Lawson. Well, after meeting, while he was off feeding his horse, I made
-a break and got the girl by herself. Well, Ann, from all I could gather,
-she--well, she didn't look at it favorably."
-
-"Stop!" Ann cried, peremptorily, "I don't want any shirking. I want to
-hear actually every word she said. This thing may never come up between
-you and me again while the sun shines, and I want the truth. You are not
-toting fair. I want the facts--_every word the girl said_, every look,
-every bat of the eye, every sneer. I'm prepared. You talk
-plain--_plain_, I tell you!"
-
-"I see I'll _have_ to," sighed Mrs. Waycroft, her eyes averted from the
-awful stare in Ann's eyes. "The truth is, Ann, Nettie's been thinking
-all her life, till just about a month ago, that you were--dead. Joe Boyd
-told her you was dead and buried, and got all the neighbors to keep the
-truth from her. It leaked out when she got engaged to young Lawson; his
-folks, Ann, they are as hide-bound and narrow as the worst hard-shell
-Baptists here--his folks raised objections and tried to break it off."
-
-"On account of me?" said Ann, under her breath.
-
-"Well, they tried to break it off," evaded Mrs. Waycroft, "and, in all
-the trouble over it, Nettie found out the facts--Joe finally told her.
-They say, Ann, that it brought her down to a sick-bed. She's a queer
-sort of selfish girl, that had always held her head too high, and the
-discovery went hard with her. Then, Ann, the meanest thing that was ever
-done by a human being took place. Jane Hemingway was over there visiting
-a preacher's wife she used to know, and she set in circulation the
-blackest lie that was ever afloat. Ann, she told over there that all
-your means--all the land and money you have made by hard toil, big
-brain, and saving--come to you underhand."
-
-"Underhand?" Ann exclaimed. "What did she mean by that, pray? What could
-the old she-cat mean by--"
-
-Mrs. Waycroft drew her sun-bonnet down over her eyes. She took a deep
-breath. "Ann, she's a _terrible_ woman. I used to think maybe you went
-too far in hating her so much, but I don't blame you now one bit. On the
-way over the mountain, I looked all the circumstances over, and actually
-made up my mind that you'd almost be justified in killing her, law or no
-law. Ann, she circulated a report over there that all you own in the
-world was given to you by Colonel Chester."
-
-"Ugh! Oh, my God!" Ann groaned like a strong man in sudden pain; and
-then, with her face hidden by her poke-bonnet, she trudged heavily along
-by her companion in total silence.
-
-"I've told you the worst now," Mrs. Waycroft said. "Nettie had heard all
-that, and so had Lawson. His folks finally agreed to raise no objections
-to the match if she'd never mention your name. Naturally, when I told
-her about what I thought _maybe_--you understand, _maybe_--you'd be
-willing to do she was actually scared. She cried pitifully, and begged
-me never to allow you to bother her. She said--I told you she looked
-like a selfish creature--that if the Lawsons were to find out that you'd
-been sending her messages it might spoil all. I told her it was all a
-lie of Jane Hemingway's making out of whole cloth, but the silly girl
-wouldn't listen. I thought she was going to have a spasm."
-
-They had reached the gate, and, with a firm, steady hand, Ann opened it
-and held it ajar for her guest to enter before her.
-
-They trudged along the gravel walk, bordered with uneven stones, to the
-porch and went in. On entering the house Ann always took off her bonnet.
-She seemed to forget its existence now.
-
-"Yes, I hate that woman," Mrs. Waycroft heard her mutter, "and if the
-Lord doesn't furnish me with some way of getting even I'll die a
-miserable death. I could willingly see her writhe on a bed of live
-coals. No hell could be hot enough for that woman." Ann paused suddenly
-at the door, and gazed across the green expanse towards Jane's house.
-Mrs. Waycroft heard her utter a sudden, harsh laugh. "And I think I see
-her punishment on the way. I see it--I see it!"
-
-"What is it you say you see?" the visitor asked, curiously.
-
-"Oh, nothing!" Ann said, and she sat down heavily in her chair and
-tightly locked her calloused hands in front of her.
-
-
-
-
-XI
-
-
-The continuous dry weather during the month of June had caused many
-springs and a few wells to become dry, and the women of that section
-found it difficult to get sufficient soft water for the washing of
-clothes. Mrs. Hemingway, whose own well was fed from a vein of limestone
-water too hard to be of much use in that way, remembered a certain
-rock-bottom pool in a shaded nook at the foot of the rugged hill back of
-her house where at all times of the year a quantity of soft, clear water
-was to be found; so thither, with a great bundle of household linen tied
-up in a sheet, she went one morning shortly after breakfast.
-
-Her secret ailment had not seemed to improve under the constant
-application of the peddler's medicine, and, as her doubts of ultimate
-recovery increased correspondingly, her strength seemed to wane. Hence
-she paused many times on the way to the pool to rest. Finally arriving
-at the spot and lowering her burden, she met a great and irritating
-surprise, for, bending over a tub at the edge of the pool, and quite in
-command of the only desirable space for the placing of tubs and the
-sunning of articles, was Ann Boyd. Their eyes met in a stare of
-indecision like that of two wild animals meeting in a forest, and there
-was a moment's preliminary silence. It was broken by an angry outburst
-from the new-comer. "Huh!" she grunted, "you here?"
-
-It was quickly echoed by a satisfied laugh from the depths of Ann's
-sun-bonnet. "You bet, old lady, I've beat you to the tank. You've toted
-your load here for nothing. You might go down-stream a few miles and
-find a hole good enough for your few dirty rags. I've used about all
-this up. It's getting too muddy to do any good, but I've got about all I
-want."
-
-"This land isn't yours," Jane Hemingway asserted, almost frothing at the
-mouth. "It belongs to Jim Sansom."
-
-"Jim may hold deeds to it," Ann laughed again, "but he's too poor to
-fence it in. I reckon it's public property, or you wouldn't have lugged
-that dirty load all the way through the broiling sun on that weak back
-of yours."
-
-Jane Hemingway stood panting over her big snowball. She had nothing to
-say. She could not find a use for her tongue. Through her long siege of
-underhand warfare against the woman at the tub she had wisely avoided a
-direct clash with Ann's eye, tongue, or muscle. She was more afraid of
-those things to-day than she had ever been. A chill of strange terror
-had gone through her, too, at the mention of her weak back. That the
-peddler had told Ann about the cancer she now felt was more likely than
-ever. Without a word, Jane bent to lift her bundle, but her enemy,
-dashing the water from her big, crinkled hands, had advanced towards
-her.
-
-"You just wait a minute," Ann said, sharply, her great eyes flashing,
-her hands resting on her stocky hips. "I've got something to say to you,
-and I'm glad to get this chance. What I've got to hurl in your
-death-marked face, Jane Hemingway, isn't for other ears. It's for your
-own rotting soul. Now, you listen!"
-
-Jane Hemingway gasped. "Death-marked face," the root of her paralyzed
-tongue seemed to articulate to the wolf-pack of fears within her. Her
-thin legs began to shake, and, to disguise the weakness from her
-antagonist's lynx eyes, she sank down upon her bundle. It yielded even
-to her slight weight, and her sharp knees rose to a level with her chin.
-
-"I don't want to talk to you," she managed to say, almost in a tone of
-appeal.
-
-"Oh, I know that, you trifling hussy, but I do to you, Jane Hemingway.
-I'm going to tell you what you are. You are worse than a thief--than a
-negro thief that steals corn from a crib at night, or meat from a
-smoke-house. You are a low-lived, plotting liar. For years you have
-railed out against my character. I was a bad woman because I admitted my
-one fault of girlhood, but you married a man and went to bed with him
-that you didn't love a speck. You did that to try to hide a real love
-for another man who was another woman's legal husband. Are you
-listening?--I say, are you _listening_?"
-
-"Yes, I'm listening," faltered Jane Hemingway, her face hidden under her
-bonnet.
-
-"Well, you'd better. When I had my first great trouble, God is witness
-to the fact that I thought I loved the young scamp who brought it about.
-I _thought_ I loved him, anyway. That's all the excuse I had for not
-listening to advice of older people. I wasn't old enough to know right
-from wrong, and, like lots of other young girls, I was bull-headed. My
-mother never was strict with me, and nobody else was interested in me
-enough to learn me self-protection. I've since then been through college
-in that line, and such low, snaky agents of hell as you are were my
-professors. No wonder you have hounded me all these years. You loved Joe
-Boyd with all the soul you had away back there, and you happened to be
-the sort that couldn't stand refusal. So when you met him that day on
-the road, and he told you he was on the way to ask me the twentieth time
-to be his wife, you followed him a mile and fell on his neck and
-threatened suicide, and begged and cried and screamed so that the
-wheat-cutting gang at Judmore's wondered if somebody's house was afire.
-But he told you a few things about what he thought of me, and they have
-rankled with you through your honeymoon with an unloved husband, through
-your period of childbirth, and now as you lean over your grave. Bad
-woman that you are, you married a man you had no respect for to hide
-your disappointment in another direction. You are decent in name only.
-Thank God, my own conscience is clear. I've been wronged all my life
-more than I ever wronged beast or man. I had trouble; but I did no wrong
-according to my dim lights. But you--you with one man's baby on your
-breast went on hounding the wife of another who had won what you
-couldn't get. You, I reckon, love Joe Boyd to this day, and will the
-rest of your life. I reckon you thought when he left me that he would
-marry you, but no man cares for a woman that cries after him. You even
-went over there to Gilmer a month or so ago to try to attract his
-attention with new finery bought on a credit, and you even made up to
-the daughter that was stolen from me, but I have it from good authority
-that neither one of them wanted to have anything to do with you."
-
-"There's not a bit of truth in that," said the weaker woman, in feeble
-self-defence. She would have said some of the things she was always
-saying to others but for fear that, driven further, the strong woman
-might actually resort to violence. No, there was nothing for Jane
-Hemingway to do but to listen.
-
-"Oh, I don't care what you deny," Ann hurled at her. "I know what I'm
-talking about." Then Ann's rage led her to say something which, in
-calmer mood, she would, for reasons of her own, not have even hinted at.
-"Look here, Jane," she went on, bending down and touching the shrinking
-shoulder of her enemy, "in all your life you never heard me accused of
-making false predictions. When I say a thing, folks know that I know
-what I'm talking about and look for it to happen. So now I say,
-positively, that I'm going to get even with you. Hell and all its
-inmates have been at your back for a score of years, but
-God--Providence, the law of nature, or whatever it is that rights
-wrong--is bound to prevail, and you are going to face a misfortune--a
-certain sort of misfortune--that I know all about. I reckon I'm making a
-fool of myself in preparing you for it, but I'm so glad it's coming that
-I've got to tell it to somebody. When the grim time comes I want you to
-remember that you brought it on yourself."
-
-Ann ceased speaking and stood all of a quiver before the crouching
-creature. Jane Hemingway's blood, at best sluggish of action, turned
-cold. With her face hidden by her bonnet, she sat staring at the ground.
-All her remaining strength seemed to have left her. She well knew what
-Ann meant. The peddler had told her secret--had even revealed more of
-the truth than he had to her. Discovering that Ann hated her, he had
-gone into grim and minute particulars over her affliction. He had told
-Ann the cancer was fatal, that the quack lotion he had sold would only
-keep the patient from using a better remedy or resorting to the
-surgeon's knife. In any case, her fate was sealed, else Ann would not be
-so positive about it.
-
-"I see I hit you all right that pop, madam!" Ann chuckled. "Well, you
-will wait the day in fear and trembling that is to be my sunrise of joy.
-Now, pick up your duds and go home. I want you out of my sight."
-
-Like a subject under hypnotic suggestion, Jane Hemingway, afraid of Ann,
-and yet more afraid of impending fate, rose to her feet. Ann had turned
-back to her tub and bent over it. Jane felt a feeble impulse to make
-some defiant retort, but could not rouse her bound tongue to action. In
-her helplessness and fear she hated her enemy more than ever before, but
-could find no adequate way of showing it. The sun had risen higher and
-its rays beat fiercely down on her thin back, as she managed to shoulder
-her bundle and move homeward.
-
-
-
-
-XII
-
-
-She had scarcely turned the bend in the path, and was barely out of
-Ann's view, when she had to lower her bundle and rest. Seated on a
-moss-grown stone near the dry bed of the stream which had fed Ann's pool
-before the drought, she found herself taking the most morbid view of her
-condition. The delicate roots of the livid growth on her breast seemed
-to be insidiously burrowing more deeply towards her heart than ever
-before. Ah, what a fool she had been at such a crisis to listen to an
-idle tramp, who had not only given her a stone when she had paid for
-bread, but had revealed her secret to the one person she had wished to
-keep it from! But she essayed to convince herself that all hope was not
-gone, and the very warning Ann had angrily uttered might be turned to
-advantage. She would now be open about her trouble, since Ann knew it,
-anyway, and perhaps medical skill might help her, even yet, to triumph.
-Under that faint inspiration she shouldered her burden and crept slowly
-homeward.
-
-Reaching her cottage, she dropped the ball of clothes at the door and
-went into the sitting-room, where Virginia sat complacently sewing at a
-window on the shaded side of the house. The girl had only a few moments
-before washed her long, luxuriant hair, and it hung loose and beautiful
-in the warm air. She was merrily singing a song, and hardly looked at
-her mother as she paused near her.
-
-"Hush, for God's sake, hush!" Jane groaned. "Don't you see I'm unable to
-stand?"
-
-In sheer astonishment Virginia turned her head and noticed her mother's
-pale, long-drawn face. "What is it, mother, are you sick?"
-
-By way of reply the old woman sank into one of the hide-bottomed chairs
-near the open doorway and groaned again. Quickly rising, and full of
-grave concern, the girl advanced to her. Standing over the bowed form,
-she looked out through the doorway and saw the bundle of clothes.
-
-"You don't mean to tell me, mother, that you have carried that load all
-about looking for water to wash in!" she exclaimed, aghast.
-
-"Yes, I took them to the rock-pool and back; but that ain't it," came
-from between Jane's scrawny hands, which were now spread over her face.
-"I am strong enough bodily, still, but I met Ann Boyd down there. She
-had all the place there was, and had muddied up the water. Virginia, she
-knows about that spot on my breast that the medicine peddler said was a
-cancer. She wormed it out of him. He told her more than he did me. He
-told her it would soon drag me to the grave. It's a great deal worse
-than it was before I began to rub his stuff on it. He's a quack. I was a
-fool not to go to a regular doctor right at the start."
-
-"You think, then, that it really _is_ a cancer?" gasped the girl, and
-she turned pale.
-
-"Yes, I have no doubt of it now, from the way it looks and from the way
-that woman gloated over me. She declared she knew all about it, and that
-nothing on earth had made her so glad. I want to see Dr. Evans. I wish
-you'd run over to his house and have him come."
-
-"But he's not a regular doctor," protested the girl, mildly. "They say
-he is not allowed to practise, and that he only uses remedies of his own
-making. The physicians at Darley were talking of having him arrested not
-long ago."
-
-"Oh, I know all that," Jane said, petulantly, "but that's because he
-cured one or two after they had been given up by licensed doctors. He
-knows a lots, and he will tell me, anyway, whether I've got a cancer or
-not. He knows what they are. He told Mrs. Hiram Snodgrass what her tumor
-was, and under his advice she went to Atlanta and had it cut out, and
-saved her life when two doctors was telling her it was nothing but a
-blood eruption that would pass off. You know he is good-hearted."
-
-With a troubled nod, Virginia admitted that this was true. Her sweet
-mouth was drawn down in pained concern, a stare of horror lay in her
-big, gentle eyes. "I'll go bring him," she promised. "I saw him pass
-with a bag of meal from the mill just now."
-
-"Well, tell him not to say anything about it," Jane cautioned her.
-"Evidently Ann Boyd has not talked about it much, and I don't want it to
-be all over the neighborhood. I despise pity. I'm not used to it. If it
-gets out, the tongues of these busy-bodies would run me stark crazy.
-They would roost here like a swarm of buzzards over a dying horse."
-
-Virginia returned in about half an hour, accompanied by a gray-headed
-and full-whiskered man of about seventy years of age, who had any other
-than the look of even a country doctor. He wore no coat, and his rough
-shirt was without button from his hairy neck to the waistband of his
-patched and baggy trousers. His fat hands were too much calloused by
-labor in the field and forest, and by digging for roots and herbs, to
-have felt the pulse of anything more delicate than an ox, and under less
-grave circumstances his assumed air of the regular visiting physician
-would have had its comic side.
-
-"Virginia tells me you are a little upset to-day," he said, easily,
-after he had gone to the water-bucket and taken a long, slow drink from
-the gourd. He sat down in a chair near the widow, and laid his straw hat
-upon the floor, from which it was promptly removed by Virginia to one of
-the beds. "Let me take a look at your tongue."
-
-"I'll do no such of a thing," retorted Jane, most flatly. "There is
-nothing wrong with my stomach. I am afraid I've got a cancer on my
-breast, and I want to make sure."
-
-"You don't say!" Evans exclaimed. "Well, it wouldn't surprise me. I see
-'em mighty often these days. Well, you'd better let me look at it. Stand
-thar in the door so I can get a good light. I'm wearing my wife's
-specks. I don't know whar I laid mine, but I hope I'll get 'em back. I
-only paid twenty-five cents for 'em in Darley, and yet three of my
-neighbors has taken such a liking to 'em that I've been offered as high
-as three dollars for 'em, and they are only steel rims and are sorter
-shackly at the hinges at that. Every time Gus Willard wants to write a
-letter he sends over for my specks and lays his aside. I reckon he
-thinks I'll get tired sendin' back for 'em and get me another pair. Now,
-that's right"--Mrs. Hemingway had taken a stand in one of the rear doors
-and unbuttoned her dress. Despite her stoicism, she found herself
-holding her breath in fear and suspense as to what his opinion would be.
-Virginia, pale and with a fainting sensation, sat on the edge of the
-nearest bed, her shapely hands tightly clasped in her lap. She saw Dr.
-Evans bend close to her mother's breast and touch and press the livid
-spot.
-
-"Do you feel that?" he asked.
-
-"Yes, and it hurts some when you do that."
-
-"How long have you had it thar?" he paused in his examination to ask,
-peering over the rims of his spectacles.
-
-"I noticed it first about a year ago, but thought nothing much about
-it," she answered.
-
-"And never showed it to nobody?" he said, reprovingly.
-
-"I let a peddler, who had stuff to sell, see it awhile back." There was
-a touch of shame in Jane's face. "He said his medicine would make it
-slough off, but--"
-
-"Slough nothing! That trifling skunk!" Evans cried. "Why, he's the
-biggest fake unhung! He sold that same stuff over the mountain to
-bald-headed men to make hair grow. Huh, I say! they talk about handling
-_me_ by law, and kicking _me_ out of the country on account of my
-knowledge and skill, and let chaps like him scour the country from end
-to end for its last cent. What the devil gets into you women? Here
-you've let this thing go on sinking its fangs deeper and deeper in your
-breast, and only fertilizing it by the treatment he was giving you. Are
-you hankering for a change of air? Thar was Mrs. Telworthy, that let her
-liver run on till she was as yaller as a pumpkin with jaundice before
-she'd come to me. I give 'er two bottles of my purifier, and she could
-eat a barbecued ox in a month."
-
-"What do you think I ought to do about this?" asked Jane; and Virginia,
-with strange qualms at heart, thought that her mother had put it that
-way to avoid asking if the worst was really to be faced.
-
-Evans stroked his bushy beard wisely. "Do about it?" he repeated, as he
-went back to his chair, leaving the patient to button her dress with
-stiff, fumbling fingers. "I mought put you on a course of my blood
-purifier and wait developments, and, Sister Hemingway, if I was like the
-regular run of doctors, with their own discoveries on the market, I'd do
-it in the interest of science, but I'm not going to take the resk on my
-shoulders. A man who gives domestic remedies like mine is on safe ground
-when he's treating ordinary diseases, but I reckon a medical board would
-decide that this was a case for a good, steady knife. Now, I reckon
-you'd better get on the train and take a run down to Atlanta and put
-yourself under Dr. Putnam, who is noted far and wide as the best cancer
-expert in the land."
-
-"Then--then that's what it is?" faltered Mrs. Hemingway.
-
-"Oh yes, that's what you've got, all right enough," said Evans, "and the
-thing now is to uproot it."
-
-"How--how much would it be likely to cost?" the widow asked, her
-troubled glance on Virginia's horror-stricken face.
-
-"That depends," mused Evans. "I've sent Putnam a number of cases, and he
-would, I think, make you a special widow-rate, being as you and me live
-so nigh each other. At a rough guess, I'd say that everything--board and
-room and nurse, treatment, medicines, and attention--would set you back
-a hundred dollars."
-
-"But where am I to get that much money?" Jane said, despondently.
-
-"Well, thar you have me," Evans laughed. "I reckon you know your
-resources better than anybody else, but you'll have to rake it up some
-way. You ain't ready to die yet. Callihan has a mortgage on your land,
-hain't he?"
-
-"Yes, and on my crop not yet gathered," Jane sighed; "he even included
-every old hoe and axe and piece of harness, and the cow and calf, and
-every chair and knife and fork and cracked plate in the house."
-
-"Well," and Evans rose and reached for his hat, "as I say, you'll have
-to get up the money; it will be the best investment you could make."
-
-When he had left, Virginia, horror-stricken, sat staring at her mother,
-a terrible fear in her face and eyes.
-
-"Then it really _is_ a cancer?" she gasped.
-
-"Yes, I was afraid it was all along," said Jane. "You see, the peddler
-said so plainly, and he told Ann Boyd about it. Virginia, she didn't
-know I knew how bad it was, for she hinted at some awful end that was to
-overtake me, as if it would be news to me. Daughter, I'm going to try my
-level best to throw this thing off. I always had a fear of death. My
-mother had before me; she was a Christian woman, and was prepared, if
-anybody was, and yet she died in agony. She laid in bed and begged for
-help with her last breath. But my case is worse than hers, for my one
-foe in this life is watching over me like a hawk. Oh, I can't stand it!
-You must help me study up some way to raise that money. If it was in
-sight, I'd feel better. Doctors can do wonders these days, and I'll go
-to that big one if I possibly can."
-
-
-
-
-XIII
-
-
-One afternoon, about a week later, as Ann Boyd sat in her weaving-room
-twisting bunches of carded wool into yarn on her old spinning-wheel, the
-whir of which on her busy days could be heard by persons passing along
-the road in front of her gate, a shadow fell on her floor, and, looking
-up, she saw a tall, handsome young man in the doorway, holding his hat
-in one hand, a valise in the other. He said nothing, but only stood
-smiling, as if in hearty enjoyment of the surprise he was giving her.
-
-"Luke King!" she exclaimed. "You, of all people on the face of the
-earth!"
-
-"Yes, Aunt Ann"--he had always addressed her in that way--"here I am,
-like a bad coin, always turning up."
-
-The yellow bunches of wool fell to the floor as she rose up and held out
-her hand.
-
-"You know I'm glad to see you, my boy," she said, "but I wasn't
-expecting you; I don't know as I ever looked for you to come back here
-again, where you've had such a hard time of it. When you wrote me you
-was the chief editor of a paying paper out there, I said to myself that
-you'd never care to work here in the mountains, where there is so little
-to be made by a brainy man."
-
-"If I were to tell you the main thing that brought me back you'd
-certainly scold me," he laughed; "but I never hid a fault from you, Aunt
-Ann. The truth is, good, old-fashioned home-sickness is at the bottom of
-it."
-
-"Homesickness, for _this_?" Ann sneered contemptuously, as she waved her
-hand broadly--"homesick for the hard bed you had at your step-father's,
-in a pine-pole cabin, with a mud chimney and windows without glass, when
-you've been the equal, out there, of the highest and best in the land,
-and among folks that could and would appreciate your talents and energy
-and were able to pay cash for it at the highest market-price?"
-
-"You don't understand, Aunt Ann." He flushed sensitively under her stare
-of disapproval as he sat down in a chair near her wheel. "Maybe you
-never did understand me thoroughly. I always had a big stock of
-sentiment that I couldn't entirely kill. Aunt Ann, all my life away has
-only made me love these old mountains, hills, and valleys more than
-ever, and, finally, when a good opportunity presented itself, as--"
-
-"Oh, you are just like the rest, after all. I'd hoped to the contrary,"
-Ann sighed. "But don't think I'm not glad to see you, Luke." Her voice
-shook slightly. "God knows I've prayed for a sight of the one face among
-all these here in the mountains that seemed to respect me, but there was
-another side to the matter. I wanted to feel, Luke, that I had done you
-some actual good in the world--that the education I helped you to get
-was going to lift you high above the average man. When you wrote about
-all your good-luck out there, the big salary, the interest the
-stockholders had given you in the paper that bid fair to make a pile of
-money, and stood so high in political influence, I was delighted; but,
-Luke, if a sentimental longing for these heartless red hills and their
-narrow, hide-bound inhabitants has caused you actually to throw up--"
-
-"Oh, it's really not so bad as that," King hastened to say. "The truth
-is--though I really _was_ trying to keep from bragging about my
-good-fortune before I'd had a chance to ask after your health--the truth
-is, Aunt Ann, it's business that really brings me back, though I confess
-it was partly for sentimental reasons that I decided on the change. It's
-this way: A company has been formed in Atlanta to run a daily paper on
-somewhat similar lines to the one we had in the West, and the promoters
-of it, it seems, have been watching my work, and that sort of thing, and
-so, only a few days ago, they wrote offering me a good salary to assume
-chief charge and management of the new paper. At first I declined, in a
-deliberate letter, but they wouldn't have it that way--they telegraphed
-me that they would not listen to a refusal, and offered me the same
-financial interest as the one I held."
-
-"Ah, they did, eh?" Ann's eye for business was gleaming. "They offered
-you as good as you had?"
-
-"Better, as it has turned out, Aunt Ann," said King, modestly, "for when
-my associates out there read the proposition, they said it was my duty
-to myself to accept, and with that they took my stock off my hands. They
-paid me ten thousand dollars in cash, Aunt Ann. I've got that much ready
-money and a position that is likely to be even better than the one I
-had. So, you see, all my home-sickness--"
-
-"Ten thousand dollars!" Ann cried, her strong face full of
-gratification. "Ten thousand dollars for my sturdy mountain-boy! Ah,
-that will open the eyes of some of these indolent know-it-all louts who
-said the money spent on your education was thrown in the fire. You are
-all right, Luke. I'm a judge of human stock as well as cattle and
-horses. If you'd been a light fellow you'd have dropped me when you
-began to rise out there; but you didn't. Your letters have been about
-the only solace I've had here in all my loneliness and strife, and here
-you are to see me as soon as you come--that is, I reckon, you haven't
-been here many days."
-
-"I got to Darley at two o'clock to-day," King smiled, affectionately. "I
-took the hack to Springtown and left my trunk there, to walk here. I
-haven't seen mother yet, Aunt Ann. I had to see you first."
-
-"You are a good boy, Luke," Ann said, with feeling, as was indicated by
-her husky voice and the softening of her features. "So you _are_ going
-to see your mother?"
-
-"Yes, I'm going to see her, Aunt Ann. For several years I have felt
-resentment about her marrying as she did, but, do you know, I think
-success and good-fortune make one forgiving. Somehow, with all my joy
-over my good-luck, I feel like I'd like to shake even lazy old Mark
-Bruce by the hand and tell him I am willing to let by-gones be by-gones.
-Then, if I could, I'd like to help him and my mother and step-brother
-and step-sisters in some material way."
-
-"Huh! I don't know about that," Ann frowned. "Help given to them sort is
-certainly throwed away; besides, what's yours is yours, and if you
-started in to distribute help you'll be ridden to death. No, go to see
-them if you _have_ to, but don't let them wheedle your justly earned
-money out of you. They don't deserve it, Luke."
-
-"Oh, well, we'll see about it," King laughed, lightly. "You know old
-Bruce may kick me out of the house, and if mother stood to him in it
-again"--King's eyes were flashing, his lip was drawn tight--"I guess I'd
-never go back any more, Aunt Ann."
-
-"Old Mark would never send you away if he thought you had money," Ann
-said, cynically. "If I was you I'd not let them know about that. You
-see, you could keep them in the dark easily enough, for I've told them
-absolutely nothing except that you were getting along fairly well."
-
-King smiled. "They never would think I had much to judge by this suit of
-clothes," he said. "It is an old knockabout rig I had to splash around
-in the mud in while out hunting, and I put it on this morning--well,
-just because I did not want to come back among all my poor relatives and
-friends dressed up as I have been doing in the city, Aunt Ann," he
-laughed, as if making sport of himself. "I've got a silk high-hat as
-slick as goose-grease, and a long jimswinger coat, and pants that are
-always ironed as sharp as a knife-blade in front. I took your advice and
-decided that a good appearance went a long way, but I don't really think
-I overdid it."
-
-"I'm glad you didn't put on style in coming back, anyway," Ann said,
-proudly. "It wouldn't have looked well in you; but you did right to
-dress like the best where you were, and it had something--a lots, I
-imagine--to do with your big success. If you want to go in and win in
-any undertaking, don't think failure for one minute, and the trouble is
-that shabby clothes are a continual reminder of poverty. Make folks
-believe at the outset that you are of the best, and then _be_ the best."
-
-King was looking down thoughtfully. "There is one trouble," he said, "in
-making a good appearance, and that comes from the ideas of some as to
-what sort of man or woman is the best. Before I left Seattle, Aunt Ann,
-my associates gave me a big dinner at the club--a sort of good-bye
-affair to drink to my future, you know--and some of the most
-distinguished men in the state were there, men prominent in the business
-and political world. And that night, Aunt Ann"--King had flushed
-slightly and his voice faltered--"that night a well-meaning man, a sort
-of society leader, in his toast to me plainly referred to me as a scion
-of the old Southern aristocracy, and he did it in just such a way as to
-make it appear to those who knew otherwise that I would be sailing under
-false colors if I did not correct the impression. He had made a
-beautiful talk about our old colonial homes, our slaves in livery, our
-beautiful women, who invariably graced the courts of Europe, and
-concluded by saying that it was no wonder I had succeeded where many
-other men with fewer hereditary influences to back them had failed."
-
-"Ah, you _were_ in a fix!" Ann said. "That is, it was awkward for you,
-who I know to be almost too sincere for your own good."
-
-"Well, I couldn't let it pass, Aunt Ann--I simply couldn't let all those
-men leave that table under a wrong impression. I hardly know what I said
-when I replied, but it seemed to be the right thing, for they all
-applauded me. I told him I did not belong to what was generally
-understood to be the old aristocracy of the South, but to what I
-considered the new. I told them about our log-cabin aristocracy, Aunt
-Ann, here in these blue mountains, for which my soul was famished. I
-told them of the sturdy, hard-working, half-starved mountaineers and
-their scratching, with dull tools, a bare existence out of this rocky
-soil. I told them of my bleak and barren boyhood, my heart-burnings at
-home, when my mother married again, the nights I'd spent at study in the
-light of pine-knots that filled the house with smoke. Then I told them
-about the grandest woman God ever brought to life. I told them about
-you, Aunt Ann. I gave no names, went into no painful particulars, but I
-talked about what you had done for me, and how you've been persecuted
-and misunderstood, till I could hardly hold back the tears from my
-eyes."
-
-"Oh, hush, Luke," Ann said, huskily--"hush up!"
-
-"Well, I may now, but I couldn't that night," said King. "I got started,
-and it came out of me like a flood. I said things about you that night
-that I've thought for years, but which you never would let me say to
-you."
-
-"Hush, Luke, hush--you are a good boy, but you mustn't--" Ann's voice
-broke, and she placed her hand to her eyes.
-
-"There was a celebrated novelist there," King went on, "and after dinner
-he came over to me and held out his hand. He was old and white-haired,
-and his face was full of tender, poetic emotion. 'If you ever meet your
-benefactress again,' he said, 'tell her I'd give half my life to know
-her. If I'd known her I could write a book that would be immortal.'"
-
-There was a pause. Ann seemed to be trying to crush out some obstruction
-to deliberate utterance in her big, throbbing throat.
-
-"If he knew my life just as it has been," she said, finally--"if he knew
-it all--all that I've been through, all I've thought through it all,
-from the time I was an innocent, laughing girl 'till now, as an old
-woman, I'm fighting a battle of hate with every living soul within miles
-of me--if he knew all _that_, he could write a book, and it would be a
-big one. But it wouldn't help humanity, Luke. My hate's mine, and the
-devil's. It's not for folks born lucky and happy. Some folks seem put on
-earth for love. I'm put here for hate and for joy over the misfortune of
-my enemies."
-
-"You know many things, Aunt Ann," King said, softly, "and you are older
-than I am, but you can't see the end of it all as clearly as I do."
-
-"You think not, my boy?"
-
-"No, Aunt Ann; I have learned that nothing exists on earth except to
-produce ultimate good. The vilest crime, indirectly, is productive of
-good. I confidently expect to see the day that you will simply rise one
-step higher in your remarkable life and learn to love your enemies. Then
-you'll be understood by them all as I understand you, for they will then
-look into your heart, your _real_ heart, as I've looked into it ever
-since you took pity on the friendless, barefoot boy that I was and
-lifted me out of my degradation and breathed the breath of hope into my
-despondent body. And when that day comes--mark it as my prediction--you
-will slay the ill-will of your enemies with a glance from your eye, and
-they will fall conquered at your feet."
-
-"Huh!" Ann muttered, "you say that because you are just looking at the
-surface of things. You see, I know a lots that you don't. Things have
-gone on here and are still going on that nothing earthly could stop."
-
-"That's it, Aunt Ann," Luke King said, seriously--"it won't be anything
-earthly. It will be _heavenly_, and when the bolt falls you will
-acknowledge I am right. Now, I must go. It will be about dark when I get
-to my step-father's."
-
-Ann walked with him to the gate, and as she closed it after him she held
-out her hand. It was quivering. "You are a good boy, Luke," she said,
-"but you don't know one hundredth part of what they've said and done
-since you left. I never wrote you."
-
-"I don't care what they've done or said out of their shallow heads and
-cramped lives," King laughed--"they won't be able to affect your greater
-existence. You'll slay it all, Aunt Ann, with forgiveness--yes, and
-pity. You'll see the day you'll pity them rather than hate them."
-
-"I don't believe it, Luke," Ann said, her lips set firmly, and she
-turned back into the house. Standing in the doorway, she watched him
-trudge along the road, carrying his valise easily in his hand and
-swinging it lightly to and fro.
-
-"What a funny idea!" she mused. "Me forgive Jane Hemingway! The boy
-talks that way because he's young and full of dreams, and don't know any
-better. If he was going through what I am he'd hate the whole world and
-every living thing in it."
-
-She saw him pause, turn, and put his valise down on the side of the
-road. He was coming back, and she went to meet him at the gate. He came
-up with a smile.
-
-"The thought's just struck me," he said, "that you'd be the best adviser
-in the world as to what I ought to invest my ten thousand in. You never
-have made a mistake in money matters that I ever heard of, Aunt Ann; but
-maybe you'd rather not talk about my affairs."
-
-"I don't know why," she said, as she leaned over the gate. "I'll bet
-that money of yours will worry me some, for young folks these days have
-no caution in such matters. Ten thousand dollars--why, that is exactly
-the price--" She paused, her face full of sudden excitement.
-
-"The price of what, Aunt Ann?" he asked, wonderingly.
-
-"Why, the price of the Dickerson farm. It's up for sale. Jerry Dickerson
-has been wanting to leave here for the last three years, and every year
-he's been putting a lower and lower price on his big farm and
-comfortable house and every improvement. His brother's gone in the
-wholesale grocery business in Chattanooga, and he wants to join him. The
-property is worth double the money. I wouldn't like to advise you, Luke,
-but I'd rather see your money in that place than anything else. It would
-be a guarantee of an income to you as long as you lived."
-
-"I know the place, and it's a beauty," King said, "and I'll run over
-there and look at it to-morrow, and if it's still to be had I may rake
-it in. Think of me owning one of the best plantations in the
-valley--_me_, Aunt Ann, your barefoot, adopted son."
-
-Ann's head was hanging low as she walked back to the cottage door.
-
-"'Adopted son,'" she repeated, tenderly. "As God is my Judge, I--I
-believe he's the only creature alive on this broad earth that I love.
-Yes, I love that boy. What strange, sweet ideas he has picked up! Well,
-I hope he'll always be able to keep them. I had plenty of them away back
-at his age. My unsullied faith in mankind was the tool that dug the
-grave of my happiness. Poor, blind boy! he may be on the same road. He
-may see the day that all he believes in now will crumble into bitter
-powder at his touch. I wonder if God can really be _all_-powerful. It
-seems strange that what is said to be the highest good in this life is
-doing exactly what He, Himself, has failed to do--to keep His own
-creatures from suffering. That really _is_ odd."
-
-
-
-
-XIV
-
-
-Luke King was hot, damp with perspiration, and covered with the red dust
-of the mountain road when he reached the four-roomed cabin of his
-step-father among the stunted pines and gnarled wild cedars.
-
-Old Mark Bruce sat out in front of the door. He wore no shoes nor coat,
-and his hickory shirt and trousers had been patched many times. His gray
-hair was long, sunburned, and dyed with the soil, and the corrugated
-skin of his cheeks and neck was covered with long hairs. As his step-son
-came into view from behind the pine-pole pig-pen, the old man uttered a
-grunt of surprise that brought to the doorway two young women in
-unadorned home-spun dresses, and a tall, lank young man in his
-shirt-sleeves. It was growing dark, and they all failed to recognize the
-new-comer.
-
-"I suppose you have forgotten me," King said, as he put his valise on a
-wash-bench by a tub of suds and a piggin of lye-soap.
-
-"By Jacks, it's Luke King!" After that ejaculation of the old man he and
-the others stared speechlessly.
-
-"Yes, that's who I am," continued King. "How do you do, Jake?" (to the
-tall young man in the doorway). "We might as well shake hands for the
-sake of old times. You girls have grown into women since I left. I've
-stayed away a long time and seen a lot of the world, but I've always
-wanted to get back. Where is mother?"
-
-Neither of the girls could summon up the courage to answer, and, as they
-gave him their stiff hands, they seemed under stress of great
-embarrassment.
-
-"She's poorly," said the old man, inhospitably keeping his seat. "She's
-had a hurtin' in 'er side from usin' that thar battlin' stick too much
-on dirty clothes, hoein' corn an' one thing an' another, an' a cold
-settled on her chest. Mary, go tell yore ma her son's turned up at last.
-Huh, all of us, except her, thought you was dead an' under ground! She's
-always contended you was alive an' had a job somers that was payin'
-enough to feed an' clothe you. How's times been a-servin' you?"
-
-"Pretty well." King removed his valise from the bench and took its place
-wearily.
-
-"Is that so? Things is worse than ever here. Whar have you been hangin'
-out?"
-
-"Seattle was the last place," King answered. "I've worked in several
-towns since I left here."
-
-"Huh, about as I expected! An' I reckon you hain't got much to show fer
-it except what you got on yore back an' in that carpet-bag."
-
-"That's about all."
-
-"What you been followin'?"
-
-"Doing newspaper work," replied the young man, coloring.
-
-"I 'lowed you might keep at that. You used to git a dollar a day at
-Canton, I remember. Married?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Hain't able to support a woman, I reckon. Well, you've showed a great
-lot o' good sense thar; a feller of the wishy-washy, drift-about sort,
-like you, can sorter manage to shift fer hisself ef he hain't hampered
-by a pack o' children an' a sick woman."
-
-At this juncture Mary returned. She flushed as she caught King's
-expectant glance. She spoke to her father.
-
-"She said tell 'im to come in thar."
-
-Luke went into the front room and turned thence into a small chamber
-adjoining. It was windowless and dark, the only light filtering
-indirectly through the front room. On a low, narrow bed, beneath a
-ladder leading to a trap-door above, lay a woman.
-
-"Here I am, Luke," she cried out, warningly. "Don't stumble over that
-pan o' water. I've been takin' a hot mustard foot-bath to try and get my
-blood warm. I have chilly spells every day about this time. La me! How
-you take me by surprise! I've prayed for little else in many a year, an'
-was just about to give up. I took a little hope from some'n' old Ann
-Boyd said one day about you bein' well an' employed somers out West, but
-then I met Jane Hemingway, an' she give me the blues. She 'lowed that
-old Ann just pretended you was doin' well to convince folks she'd made
-no mistake in sendin' you to school. But, thank God, here you are alive,
-anyway."
-
-"Yes, I'm as sound as a new dollar, mother." His foot came in contact
-with a three-legged stool in the darkness, and he recognized it as an
-old friend and drew it to the head of her bed and sat down. He took one
-of her hard, thin hands and bent over her. Should he kiss her? She had
-not taught him to do so as a child, and he had never done it later in
-his youth, not even when he had left home, but he had been out in the
-world and grown wiser. He had seen other men kiss their mothers, and his
-heart had ached. With his hand on her hard, withered cheek he turned her
-face towards him and pressed his lips to hers. She was much surprised,
-and drew herself from him instinctively, and wiped her mouth with a
-corner of the coverlet, but he knew she was pleased.
-
-"Why, Luke!" she said, quickly, "what on earth do you mean? Have you
-gone plumb crazy?"
-
-"I wanted to kiss you, that's all," he said, awkwardly. They were both
-silent for a moment, then she spoke, tremblingly: "You always was
-womanish and tender-like; it don't harm anybody, though; none o' the
-rest in this family are that way. But, my stars! I can't tell a bit how
-you look in this pitch-dark. Mary! oh, Mary!"
-
-"What you want, ma?" The nearness of the speaker in the adjoining room
-betrayed the fact that she had been listening.
-
-"I can't see my hand before me," answered the old woman. "I wish you'd
-fetch a light here. You'll find a stub of a candle in the clock under
-the turpentine-bottle. I hid it thar so as to have some'n' to read the
-Book with Sunday night if any preacher happened to drop in to hold
-family worship."
-
-The girl lighted the bit of tallow-dip and braced it upright in a
-cracked teacup with some bits of stone. She brought it in, placed it on
-a dry-goods box filled with cotton-seed and ears of corn, and shambled
-out. King's heart sank as he looked around him in the dim light. The
-room was only a lean-to shed walled with slabs driven into the ground
-and floored with puncheons. The bedstead was a crude, wooden frame
-supported by perpendicular saplings fastened to floor and rafters. The
-irregular cracks in the wall were filled with mud, rags, and newspapers.
-Bunches of dried herbs, roots, and red peppers hung above his head, and
-piles of clothing, earth-dyed and worn to shreds, and agricultural
-implements lay about indiscriminately. Disturbed by the light, a hen
-flew from her nest behind a dismantled cloth-loom, and with a loud
-cackling ran out at the door. There was a square cat-hole in the wall,
-and through it a lank, half-starved cat crawled and came purring and
-rubbing against the young man's ankle.
-
-The old woman shaded her eyes and gazed at him eagerly. "You hain't
-altered so overly much," she observed, "'cept your skin looks mighty
-fair fer a man, and yore hands feel soft."
-
-Then she lowered her voice into a cautious whisper, and glanced
-furtively towards the door. "You favor your father--I don't mean Mark,
-but your own daddy. You are as like him as can be. He helt his head that
-away, an' had yore habit o' being gentle with women-folks. You've got
-his high temper, too. La me! that last night you was at home, an' Mark
-cussed you an' kicked yore writin'-paper in the fire, I didn't sleep a
-wink. I thought you'd gone off to borrow a gun. It was almost a relief
-to know you'd left, kase I seed you an' him couldn't git along. Your
-father was a different sort of a man, Luke, and sometimes I miss 'im
-sharp. He loved books an' study like you do. He had good blood in 'im;
-his father was a teacher an' circuit-rider. I don't know why I married
-Mark, unless it was kase I was afraid of bein' sent to the poor-farm,
-but, la me! this is about as bad."
-
-There was a low whimper in her voice, and the lines about her mouth had
-tightened. King's breast heaved, and he suddenly put out his hand and
-began to stroke her thin, gray hair. A strange, restful feeling stole
-over him. The spell was on her, too; she closed her eyes and a satisfied
-smile lighted her wan face. Then her lips began to quiver, and she
-quickly turned her face from him.
-
-"I'm a simpleton," she sobbed, "but I can't help it. Nobody hain't
-petted me nor tuck on over me a bit since your pa died. I never treated
-you right, neither, Luke. I ort never to 'a' let Mark run over you like
-he did."
-
-"Never mind that," King said. "He and I have already made friends; but
-you must not lie in this dingy hole; you need medicine, and good, warm
-food."
-
-"Oh, I'm goin' to git up," she answered, lightly. "I'm not sick, Luke. I
-jest laid down awhile to rest. I have to do this nearly every evening. I
-must git the house straight. Mary an' Jane hain't no hands at house-work
-'thout I stand right over 'em, an' Jake an' his pa is continually
-a-fussing. I feel stronger already. If you'll go in t'other room I'll
-rise. They'll never fix you nothin' to eat nor nowhar to sleep. I reckon
-you'll have to lie with Jake like you used to, till I can fix better.
-Things has been in an awful mess since I got so porely."
-
-He went into the front room. The old man had brought his hand-bag in. He
-had placed it in a chair and opened it and was coolly inspecting the
-contents in the firelight. Jake and the two girls stood looking on. King
-stared at the old man, but the latter did not seem at all abashed.
-
-"Huh," he said, "you seem to be about as well stocked with little tricks
-as a notion peddler--five or six pair o' striped socks and no end o'
-collars; them things folded under the shirts looks like another suit o'
-clothes. I reckon you have had a good job if you carry two outfits
-around. Though I _have_ heard of printin'-men that went off owin'
-accounts here an' yan."
-
-"I paid what I owed before I left," King said, with an effort at
-lightness as he closed the valise and put it into a corner.
-
-In a few minutes his mother came in. She blew out the candle, and as she
-crossed to the mantel-piece she carefully extinguished the smoking wick
-with her fingers. The change in her was more noticeable to her son than
-it had been when she was reclining. She looked very frail in her faded
-black cotton gown. Somehow, bent as she was, she seemed shorter than of
-old, more cowed and hopeless. Her shoes were worn through, and her bare
-feet showed through the holes.
-
-"Mary," she asked, "have you put on the supper?"
-
-"Yes'm, but it hain't tuck up yet." The girl went into the next room,
-which was used at once for cooking and dining, and her mother followed
-her. In a few minutes the old woman came to the door.
-
-"Walk out, all of you," she said, wearily. "Luke, it seems funny to make
-company of you, but somehow I can't treat you like the rest. You'll have
-to make out with what is set before you, though hog-meat is mighty
-scarce this year. Just at fattenin'-time our pigs took the cholera an'
-six laid down in the swamp in one day and died. Pork is fetchin' fifteen
-cents a pound in town, and mighty few will sell on a credit."
-
-
-
-
-XV
-
-
-After supper King left his mother and step-sisters removing the dishes
-from the table and went out. He was sickened to the depths of his
-sensitive soul by the sordid meal he had just seen the family partake of
-with evident relish, as if it were of unusual occurrence. And he was
-angry with himself, too, for feeling so, when such a life had been their
-lot so long.
-
-He crossed the little brook that ran on a bed of brown stone behind the
-cabin, and leaned against the rail-fence which surrounded the pine-pole
-corn-crib. He could easily leave them in their squalor and ignorance and
-return to the great, intellectual world--the world which read his
-editorials and followed his precepts, the key-note of which had always
-been the love of man for man as the greatest force in the universe--but,
-after all, would that not stamp him with the brand he most
-despised--hypocrisy? A pretty preacher, he, of such fine-spun theories,
-while his own mother and her step-children were burrowing in the soil
-like eyeless animals, and he living on the fat of the land along with
-the wealth and power of the country!
-
-The cabin door shone out, a square of red light against the blackness of
-the hill and the silent, serried pines beyond. He heard Jake whistling a
-tune he had whistled long ago, when they had worked Mark Bruce's crop
-side by side, and the spasmodic creaking of the puncheons as the family
-moved about within.
-
-A figure appeared in the doorway. It was his mother, and she was coming
-to search for him.
-
-"Here I am, mother!" he cried out, gently, as she advanced through the
-darkness; "look out and don't get your feet wet."
-
-She chuckled childishly as she stepped across the brook on the largest
-stones. When she reached him she put her hand on his arm and laughed:
-"La me, boy, a little wet won't hurt me--I'm used to a good soakin'
-mighty nigh every drenchin' rain. I slept with a stream of it tricklin'
-through the roof on my back one night, an' I've milched the cows in that
-thar lot when the mire was shoe-mouth deep in January. I 'lowed I'd find
-you out here. You used to be a mighty hand to sneak off to yoreself to
-study, and you are still that away. But you are different in some
-things, too. You don't talk our way exactly, an' I reckon that's what
-aggravates Mark. He was goin' on jest now about yore stuck-up way o'
-eatin with yore pocket-handkerchief spread out in yore lap."
-
-King looked past her at the full moon rising above the trees on the
-mountain-top.
-
-"Mother," said he, abruptly, and he put his arm impulsively around her
-neck, and his eyes filled--"mother, I can't stay here but a few days. I
-have work to do in Atlanta. Your health is bad, and you are not
-comfortable; the others are strong and can stand it, but you can't. Come
-down there with me for a while, anyway. I'll put you under a doctor and
-bring back your health."
-
-She looked up into his eyes steadily for a moment, then she slapped him
-playfully on the breast and drew away from him. "How foolish you talk
-fer a grown-up man!" she laughed; "why, you know I can't leave Mark and
-the children. He'd go stark crazy 'thout me around to grumble at, an'
-then the rest ud be without my advice an' counsel. La me, what makes you
-think I ain't comfortable? This cabin is a sight better 'n the last one
-we had, an' drier an' a heap warmer inside when fire-wood kin be got.
-Hard times like these now is likely to come at any time an' anywhar. It
-strikes rich an' pore alike. Thar's Dickerson offerin' that fine old
-farm, with all the improvements, fer a mere song to raise money to go
-into business whar he kin hope to pay out o' debt. They say now that the
-place--lock, stock, and barrel--kin be had fer ten thousand. Why, when
-you was a boy he would have refused twenty. Now, ef we-all had it
-instead o' him, Mark an' Jake could make it pay like rips, fer they are
-hard workers."
-
-"You think they could, mother?" His heart bounded suddenly, and he stood
-staring thoughtfully into her eyes.
-
-"Pay?--of course they could. Fellers that could keep a roof over a
-family's head on what they've had to back 'em could get rich on a place
-like that. But, la me, what's the use o' pore folks thinkin' about the
-property o' the rich an' lucky? It's like dreamin' you are a queen at
-night an' wakin' up in hunger an' rags."
-
-"I remember the farm and the old house very well," King remarked,
-reflectively, the queer light still in his earnest eyes.
-
-"The _old_ one! Huh, Dickerson got on a splurge the year you left, an'
-built a grand new one with some money from his wife's estate. He turned
-the old one into a big barn an' stable an' gin. You must see the new
-house 'fore you go away, Luke. It's jest splendid, with green blinds to
-the winders, a fancy spring-house with a tin rooster on top that p'ints
-the way the wind blows, and on high stilts like thar's a big tank and a
-windmill to keep the house supplied with water. I hain't never been in
-it, but they say they've got wash-tubs long enough to lie down in handy
-to every sleepin'-room, and no end of fancy contraptions."
-
-"We'd better go in, mother," he said, abruptly. "You'll catch your death
-of cold out here in the dew."
-
-She laughed as they walked back to the cabin, side by side. A thick
-smoke and its unpleasant odor met them at the door.
-
-"It's Mark burnin' rags inside to oust the mosquitoes so he kin sleep,"
-she explained. "They are wuss this year than I ever seed 'em. Seems like
-the general starvation has tackled them, too, fer they look like they
-will eat a body up whether or no. Jake an' the gals grease their faces
-with lamp-oil when they have any, but I jest kiver up my head with a rag
-an' never know they are about. I reckon we'd better go to bed. Jake has
-fixed him a pallet on the fodder in the loft, so you kin lie by
-yoreself. He's been jowerin' at his pa ever since supper about treatin'
-you so bad. I thought once they'd come to blows."
-
-The next morning, after breakfast, Jake threw a bag of shelled corn on
-the back of his mare, and, mounting upon it as if it were a saddle, he
-started off down the valley to the mill, and his father shouldered an
-axe and went up on the hill to cut wood.
-
-"Whar you going?" Mrs. Bruce asked, as she followed Luke to the door.
-
-His eyes fell to the ground. "I thought," he answered, "that I'd walk
-over to the Dickerson farm and take a look at the improvements. I used
-to hunt over that land."
-
-"Well, whatever you do, be sure you get back to dinner," she said. "Me
-an' Jane took a torch last night after you went to bed an' blinded a hen
-on the roost and pulled her down; I'm goin' to make you an' old-time
-chicken-pie like you used to love on Christmas."
-
-Half a mile up the road, which ran along the side of the hill from which
-the slow, reverberating clap, clap of Mark Bruce's axe came on the still
-air, King came into view of the rich, level lands of the Dickerson
-plantation. He stood in the shade of a tall poplar and looked
-thoughtfully at the lush green meadows, the well-tilled fields of corn,
-cotton, and sorghum, and the large, two-storied house, with its
-dormer-windows, tall, fluted columns, and broad verandas--at the
-well-arranged out-houses, barns, and stables, and the white-gravelled
-drives and walks from the house to the main road. Then he turned and
-looked back at the cabin--the home of his nearest kin.
-
-The house was hardly discernible in the gray morning mist that lingered
-over the little vale in which it stood. He saw Jake, far away, riding
-along, in and out, among the sassafras and sumach bushes that bordered a
-worn-out wheat-field, his long legs dangling at the sides of the mare.
-There was a bent, blurred figure at the wood-pile in the yard; it was
-his mother or one of the girls.
-
-"Poor souls!" he exclaimed; "they have been in a dreary tread-mill all
-their lives, and have never known the joy of one gratified ambition. If
-only I could conquer my own selfish desires, I could lay before them
-that which they never dreamed of possessing--a glorious taste of genuine
-happiness. It would take my last dollar of ready money, but I'd still
-have my interest in the new paper and this brain and will of mine. Aunt
-Ann would never see it my way, and she might throw me over for doing it,
-but why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I do it when my very soul cries out
-for it? Why have I been preaching this thing all this time and making
-converts right and left if I am to draw back the first time a real
-opportunity confronts me? It may be to test my mettle. Yes, that's what
-it is. I've got to do one or the other--keep the money--or give it to
-them."
-
-
-
-
-XVI
-
-
-King turned towards the Dickerson place and walked on, a great weight of
-indecision on him. He had always held up Ann Boyd as his highest human
-example. She would laugh the idea to scorn--the idea of putting old Mark
-Bruce and his "lay-out" into such a home and circumstances; and yet,
-estimable as she was in many things, still she was not a free woman. She
-showed that by her slavery to the deepest hatred that ever burned in a
-human breast. No, it was plain to the young philosopher that in some
-things, at least, she was no guide for him. Rather might it not
-eventually result in the hate-hardened woman's learning brighter walks
-of life from him, young as he was? And yet, he told himself, the money
-was his, not theirs, and few really succeeded in life who gave away
-their substance.
-
-The road led him past Jane Hemingway's cottage, and at the fence, in the
-barn-yard, he saw Virginia. He saw her, bareheaded, with her wonderful
-hair and exquisite profile and curve of neck, shoulder, and breast,
-before she was aware of his approach, and the view brought him to a
-stand behind some bushes which quite hid him from her view.
-
-"It is Virginia--it must be--yes, it is Virginia!" he said,
-ecstatically. "She has become what I knew she would become, the
-loveliest woman in the world; she is exactly as I have fancied her all
-these years--proud, erect--and her eyes, oh! I must look into her eyes
-again! Ah, now I know what brought me home! Now I know why I was not
-content away. Yes, this was the cause--Virginia--my little friend and
-pupil--Virginia!"
-
-She had turned her head, and with the startled look of a wild young fawn
-on the point of running away, she stood staring at him.
-
-"Have you entirely forgotten me, Virginia?" he asked, advancing almost
-with instinctive caution towards her.
-
-"Oh no, now I know you," she said, with, he thought, quite the girlish
-smile he had taken with him in his roaming, and she leaned over the
-fence and gave him her hand. He felt it pulsing warmly in his, and a
-storm of feeling--the accumulation of years--rushed over him as he
-looked into the eyes he had never forgotten, and marvelled over their
-wonderful lights and shadows. It was all he could do to steady his voice
-when he next spoke.
-
-"It has been several years since I saw you," he said, quite aimlessly.
-"In fact, you were a little girl then, Virginia, and now you are a
-woman, a full-grown woman--just think of that! But why are you looking
-at me so steadily from head to foot?"
-
-"I--I can hardly realize that it really is you," Virginia said. "You
-see, Luke--Mr. King, I mean--I thought you were--really, I thought you
-were dead. My mother has said it many times. She quite believed it, for
-some reason or other."
-
-"She _wanted_ to believe it, Virginia, with all respect to your mother.
-She hates Aunt Ann--Mrs. Boyd, you know--and it seems she almost hoped
-I'd never amount to anything, since it was Mrs. Boyd's means that gave
-me my education."
-
-"Yes, that's the way it must have been," admitted the girl, "and it
-seems strange for you to be here when I have thought I'd perhaps never
-see you again."
-
-"So you really thought I was done for?" he said, trying to assume a
-calmness he was far from feeling under the titillating spell her beauty
-and sweet, musical voice had cast over him.
-
-"Yes, mother often declared it was so, and then--" She broke off, her
-color rising slightly.
-
-"And, then, Virginia--?" he reminded her, eagerly.
-
-She looked him frankly in the eyes; it was the old, fearless, childlike
-glance that had told him long ago of her strong, inherent nobility of
-character.
-
-"Well, I really thought if you _had_ been alive you'd have come back to
-your mother. You would have written, anyway. She's been in a pitiful
-condition, Mr. King."
-
-"I know it now, Virginia," he said, his cheeks hot with shame. "I'm
-afraid you'll never understand how a sane man could have acted as I
-have, but I went away furious with her and her husband, and I never
-allowed my mind to dwell in tenderness on her."
-
-"That was no excuse," the girl said, still firmly, though her eyes were
-averted. "She had a right to marry again, and, if you and her husband
-couldn't get along together, that did not release you from your duty to
-see that she was given ordinary comfort. I've seen her walk by here and
-stop to rest, when it looked like she could hardly drag one foot after
-another. The thought came to me once that she was starving to give what
-she had to eat to the others."
-
-"You needn't tell me about it," he faltered, the flames of his shame
-mounting high in his face--"I stayed there last night. I saw enough to
-drag my soul out of my body. Don't form hasty judgment yet, Virginia.
-You shall see that I'll do my duty now. I'll work my hands to the bone."
-
-"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk that way," the girl answered. "It would
-make her so happy to have help from you."
-
-"Your ideas of filial duty were always beautiful, Virginia," he said,
-his admiring eyes feasting on her face. "I remember once--I shall never
-forget it--it was the day you let me wade across the creek with you in
-my arms. You said you were too big to be carried, but you were as light
-as a feather. I could have carried you that way all day and never been
-tired. It was then that you told me in all sincerity that you would
-really die for your mother's sake. It seemed a strangely unselfish thing
-for a little girl to say, but I believe now that you'd do it."
-
-"Yes, in my eyes it is the first, almost the _whole_ of one's duty in
-life," Virginia replied. "I hardly have a moment's happiness now, owing
-to my mother's failing health."
-
-"Yes, I was sorry to hear she was afflicted," said King. "She's up and
-about, though, I believe."
-
-"Yes, but she is suffering more than mere bodily pain. She has her
-trouble on her mind night and day. She's afraid to die, Luke. That's
-queer to me. Even at my age I'd not be afraid, and she is old, and
-really ought not to care. I'd think she would have had enough of life,
-such as it has been from the beginning till now, full of strife, anger,
-and envy. I hear her calling me now, and I must go in. Come see her,
-won't you?"
-
-"Yes, very soon," King said, as she turned away. He stood at the fence
-and watched her as she moved gracefully over the grass to the gate near
-the cottage. At the door she turned and smiled upon him, and then was
-gone.
-
-"Yes, I now know why I came back," he said. "It was Virginia--little
-Virginia--that brought me. Oh, God, isn't she beautiful--isn't she
-strong of character and noble? Away back there when she wore short
-dresses she believed in me. Once" (he caught his breath) "I seemed to
-see the dawn of love in her eyes, but it has died away. She has
-out-grown it. She thought me dead; she didn't want to think me alive and
-capable of neglecting my mother. Well, she shall see. She, too, looks on
-me as an idle drift-about; in due time she shall know I am more serious
-than that. But I must go slowly; if I am too impulsive I may spoil all
-my chances, and, Luke King, if that woman does not become your wife you
-will be a failure--a dead failure at everything to which you lay your
-hands, for you'd never be able to put your heart into anything
-again--you couldn't, for it's hers for all time and eternity."
-
-It was dusk when he returned to his mother's cabin. Jake sat on his warm
-bag of meal just inside the door. Old Mark had taken off his shoes, and
-sat under a persimmon-tree "cooling off" and yelling impatiently at his
-wife to "hurry up supper."
-
-When she heard Luke had returned, she came to the door where he sat
-talking to Jake. "We didn't know what had become of you," she said, as
-she emerged from the cabin, bending her head to pass through the low
-doorway.
-
-"I got interested in looking over the Dickerson farm," he replied, "and
-before I realized it the sun was almost down."
-
-"Oh, it don't matter; I saved you a piece of pie; I'm just warming it
-over now. I'll bet you didn't get a bite o' dinner."
-
-"Yes, I did. The fact is, Dickerson remembered me, and made me go to
-dinner with him; but I'm ready to eat again."
-
-As they were rising from the table a few minutes later, King said, in a
-rather constrained tone, "I've got something to say to you all, and I
-may as well do it now."
-
-With much clatter they dragged their chairs after him to the front room
-and sat down with awkward ceremony--the sort of dignified quiet that
-usually governed them during the visit of some strolling preacher or
-benighted peddler. They stared with ever-increasing wonder as he placed
-his own chair in front of them. Old Mark seemed embarrassed by the
-formality of the proceedings, and endeavored to relieve himself by
-assuming indifference. He coughed conspicuously and hitched his chair
-back till it leaned against the door-jamb.
-
-There was a queer, boyish tremor in Luke King's voice when he began to
-speak, and it vibrated there till he had finished.
-
-"Since I went away from you," he began, his eyes on the floor, "I have
-studied hard and closely applied myself to a profession, and, though
-I've wandered about a good deal, I've made it pay pretty well. I'm not
-rich, now, but I'm worth more than you think I am. In big cities the
-sort of talent I happen to have brings a sort of market-price, and I
-have profited by my calling. You have never had any luck, and you have
-worked hard and deserve more than has fallen to your lot. You'd never be
-able to make anything on this poor land, even if you could buy your
-supplies as low as those who pay cash, but you have not had the ready
-money at any time, and the merchants have swindled you on every deal
-you've made with them. The Dickerson plantation is the sort of place you
-really need. It is worth double the price he asked for it. I happened to
-have the money to spare, and I bought it to-day while I was over there."
-
-There was a profound silence in the room. The occupants of the row of
-chairs stared at him with widening eyes, mute and motionless. A sudden
-breeze came in at the door and turned the oblong flame of the candle on
-the mantel towards the wall, and caused black ropes of smoke from the
-pine-knots in the chimney to curl out into the room like pyrotechnic
-snakes. Mrs. Bruce bent forward and peered into King's motionless face
-and smiled and slyly winked, then she glanced at the serious faces of
-the others, and broke into a childish laugh of genuine merriment.
-
-"La me! ef you-uns ain't settin' thar with mouths open like bull-frogs
-swallowin' down ever'thing that boy says, as ef it was so much law an'
-gospel."
-
-But none of them entered her mood; indeed, they gave her not so much as
-a glance. Without replying to her, King rose and took the candle from
-the mantel-piece. He stood it on the table and laid a folded document
-beside it. "There's the deed," he said. "It's made out to mother as long
-as she lives, and to fall eventually to her step-daughters and step-son,
-Jake."
-
-He left the paper on the table and went back to his chair. An awkward
-silence ensued. It was broken by old Mark. He coughed and threw his
-tobacco-quid out at the door, and, smiling to hide his half-sceptical
-agitation, he moved to the table. His gaunt back was to them, and his
-grizzled face went out of view when he bent to hold the paper in the
-light.
-
-"By Jacks, that's what it is!" he blurted out. "There's no shenanigan
-about it. The Dickerson place is Mariar Habersham Bruce's, ef _I_ kin
-read writin'."
-
-With a great clatter of heavy shoes and tilted chairs falling back into
-place, they rose and gathered about him, leaving their benefactor
-submerged in their combined shadow. Each took the paper, examined it in
-reverent silence, and then slowly fell back, leaving the document on the
-table. Mark Bruce started aimlessly towards the next room, but finally
-turned to the front door, where he stood irresolute, staring out at the
-night-wrapped mountain road. Mrs. Bruce looked at Luke helplessly and
-went into the next room, and, exchanging glances of dumb wonder with
-each other, the girls followed. Jake noticed that the wind was blowing
-the document from the table, and he rescued it and silently offered it
-to his step-brother.
-
-King motioned it from him. "Give it to mother," he said. "She'll take
-care of it; besides, it's been recorded at the court-house. By-the-way,
-Dickerson will get out at once; the transfer includes all the furniture,
-and the crops, which are in a good condition."
-
-King had Jake's bed to himself again that night. For hours he lay awake
-listening to the insistent drone of conversation from the family, which
-had gathered under the apple-trees in front of the cabin. About eleven
-o'clock some one came softly into his room. The moon had risen, and its
-beams fell in at the open door and through a window with a sliding
-wooden shutter. It was Mrs. Bruce, and she was moving with catlike
-caution.
-
-"Is that you, mother?" he asked.
-
-For an instant she was so much startled at finding him awake that she
-made no reply. Then she stammered: "Oh, I was tryin' so hard not to wake
-you! I jest wanted to make shore yore bed was comfortable. We put new
-straw in the tick to-day, and sometimes new beds lie lumpy and uneven."
-
-"It's all right," he assured her. "I wasn't asleep, anyway."
-
-He could feel her still trembling in excitement as she sat down on the
-edge of the bed. "I reckon you couldn't sleep, nuther," she said. "Thar
-hain't a shut eye in this cabin. They've all laid down, an' laid down,
-an' got up over an' over." She laughed softly and twisted her hands
-nervously in her lap. "We are all that excited we don't know which end
-of us is up. Why, Luke, boy, it will be the talk of the whole county,
-and it'll be a big feather in old Ann Boyd's cap--you goin' off an'
-makin' money so fast after she give you your schoolin', an' they all
-predicted it ud come to no good end. Sech luck hain't fell to any family
-as pore as we are sence I kin remember. I don't know as I ever heard o'
-such a thing in my life. La me, it ud make you split your sides laughin'
-to set out thar an' listen to all the plans them children are a-makin'.
-But Mark, he has the least to say of all, an', Luke, as happy as I am,
-I'm sorter sorry fer that pore old fellow. He feels bad about the way
-he's always treated you, an' run down yore kind o' work. He's too
-back'ard an' shamefaced to ax yore pardon, an' in a sheepish sort of a
-way, jest now, he hinted he'd like fer me to plaster it over fer 'im.
-He's a good man, Luke, but he's gittin' old an' childish, an' has been
-hounded to death by debt an' circumstances."
-
-"He's all right," King said, strangely moved. "Tell him I have not the
-slightest ill-will against him, an' I hope he'll get along well on the
-new place."
-
-"Somehow you keep talkin' like you don't intend to stay long," she said,
-tentatively.
-
-"I know, but I sha'n't be far away," he replied. "I can run up from my
-work in Atlanta every now and then, and it would be great to rest up on
-a farm among home folks, here in the mountains."
-
-"Well, I'll be glad of that," Mrs. Bruce said, plaintively. "I have got
-sorter used to my step-children, but they ain't the same as a body's own
-flesh and blood. I'm proud of you, Luke," she added, tremulously. "After
-all my fears that you'd not come to much, you've turned out to be my
-main-stay. You'll be a great man before you die. Anybody that kin make
-an' throw away ten thousand dollars as easy as you have, ain't no small
-potato as men go these days. I reckon the trouble with us all is that
-none of us had brains enough to comprehend what yore aims was. But Ann
-Boyd did. She's the most wonderful woman that ever lived in this part of
-the country, anyhow--kicked an' shoved about, hated an' hatin', an' yet
-ever' now an' then hittin' the nail square on the head an' doin'
-somethin' big an' grand--something Christ-like an' holy--like what she
-done when she with-drawed her suit agin Gus Willard, simply because it
-would throw Mark out of a job to go on with it."
-
-"Yes, she's a good woman, mother."
-
-Mrs. Bruce went out, so that her son might go to sleep, but he slept
-very little. All night, at intervals, the buzz of low voices and sudden
-outbursts of merriment reached him and found soothing lodgment in his
-satisfied soul. Then, too, he was revelling in the memory of Virginia
-Hemingway's eyes and voice, and a dazzling hope that his meeting with
-her had inspired.
-
-His mother stole softly into his room towards the break of day. This
-time it was to bring an old shawl, full of holes and worn to shreds,
-which she cautiously spread over him, for the mountain air had grown
-cool. She thought him asleep, but as she was turning away he caught her
-hand and drew her down and kissed her.
-
-"Why, Luke!" she exclaimed; "don't be foolish! What's got in you? I--"
-But her voice had grown husky, and her words died away in an
-irrepressible sob. She did not stir for an instant, then she put her
-arms round his neck and kissed him.
-
-
-
-
-XVII
-
-
-It was in the latter part of August. Breezes with just a touch of
-autumnal crispness bore down from the mountain-sides, clipping from
-their stems the first dead and dying leaves, and swept on across Ann
-Boyd's level cotton-fields, where she was at work at the head of a score
-of cotton-pickers--negro men, boys, women, and girls. There were certain
-social reasons why the unemployed poor white females would not labor
-under this strange woman, though they needed her ready money as badly as
-the blacks, and that, too, was a constant thorn in the flesh of Ann's
-pride. She could afford to pay well for work, inasmuch as her planting
-and harvesting were invariably profitable. She had good agricultural
-judgment, and she used it. Even her cotton picking would average up
-better to the acre than any other farmer's, for she saw to it that her
-workers put in good time and left no white, fluttering scrap on stalk,
-leaf, or bole to attract the birds looking for linings for their
-winter's nests. When her black band had left a portion of her field, it
-was as if a forest fire had swept over it, leaving it brown and bare.
-The negroes were always ready to work for her, for the best of them were
-never criticised for having done so. The most fault-finding of her
-enemies had even been glad of the opportunity to call attention to the
-fact that only negroes would sink so low as to toil by her side. But the
-blacks didn't care, and in their taciturn fidelity they never said aught
-against her. As a rule, the colored people had contempt for the "pore
-white trash," and reverenced the ex-slave-holder and his family; but Ann
-Boyd was neither one nor the other. She was rich, and therefore
-powerful--a creature to be measured by no existing standards. When they
-worked for their old owners and others of the same impoverished class,
-they were asked to take in payment old clothing, meat--and not the
-choicest--from the smoke-house, and grain from the barn, or a
-questionable order to some store-keeper who, being dubious about the
-planter's account himself, usually charged double in self-protection.
-But on Ann's place it was different. At the end of each day, hard,
-jingling cash was laid into their ready palms, and it was symbolic of
-the freedom which years before had been talked about so much, but which
-somehow had appeared in name only. Yes, Ann Boyd was different. Coming
-in closer contact with her than the whites, they knew her better and
-felt her inherent worth. They always addressed her as "Miss Ann," and as
-"Miss Ann" she was known among them far and near--a queer, powerful
-individuality about whose private life--having naught to lose or gain by
-it--they never gossiped.
-
-On the present day, when the sun dipped below the mountain-top, Ann
-raised the cow's horn, which she always wore at her belt, and blew a
-resounding blast upon it. This was the signal that the day's toil was
-ended, and yet so faithful were her black allies that each tried to
-complete the row he happened to be on before he brought in his bag. The
-crop for the year was good over all that portion of the state, and the
-newspapers, which Ann read carefully by candle-light at night, were
-saying that, owing to the little cotton being produced in other parts of
-the South, the price was going to be high. And that meant that Ann Boyd
-would be a "holder" in the market--not needing ready money, her bales
-would remain in a warehouse in Darley till the highest price had been
-reached in the long-headed woman's judgment, which in this, too, was
-always good--so good, in fact, that the Darley cotton speculators were
-often guided by it to their advantage.
-
-The gathering-bags all in the cotton-house, Ann locked the rusty
-padlock, paid the toilers from her leather bag, and trudged home to her
-well-earned supper. When that was prepared and eaten, she moved her
-chair to the front porch and sat down; but the air was cool to
-unpleasantness, and she moved back into the gracious warmth of the big,
-open fire. All the afternoon her heart had thrilled over a report that
-Jane Hemingway's small cotton crop was being hastily and carelessly
-gathered and sold at the present low price by the man who held a
-mortgage on it. It pleased Ann to think that Jane would later hear of
-her own high receipts and be stung by it. Then, too, she had heard that
-Jane was more and more concerned about her bodily affliction and the
-inability to receive proper treatment. Yes, Jane was getting payment for
-what she had done in such an underhanded way, and Ann was glad of it.
-
-Other things had not gone to please Ann of late. She had tried her best
-to be in sympathy with Luke King's action in paying out his last dollar
-of ready money for a farm for his family, whom she heartily despised for
-their treatment of her, but she could not see it from the young man's
-sanguine and cheerful stand-point. She had seen the Bruce family driving
-by in one of the old-fashioned vehicles the Dickersons had owned, and
-the sight had seemed ludicrous to her. "The boy will never amount to
-anything," she said. "He'll be poor all his life. He'll let anybody
-impose on him." And yet she loved him with a strange, insistent
-affection she could hardly understand. Even when she had bitterly
-upbraided him for that amazing act of impulsive generosity, as he sat in
-her doorway the next morning, and she saw the youthful blaze of
-enthusiasm in his eyes as he essayed to justify his course by the
-theories of life which had guided him in his professional career--even
-then an impulse was tugging at her heart to listen and believe the
-things he was so ardently declaring would free her from her bondage to
-hate and avarice. She could have kissed him as she might have kissed a
-happy, misguided son, and yet her coldness, her severity, she argued,
-was to be for his ultimate good. He had sent her copies of his new
-paper, with his editorials proudly marked in blue pencil. They were all
-in the same altruistic vein, and, strange to say, the extracts printed
-from leading journals all over the South in regard to his work were full
-of hearty approval. He had become a great factor for good in the world.
-He was one man who had the unfaltering courage of his convictions. Ann
-laughed to herself as she recalled all she had said to him that day. No
-wonder that he had thrown it off with a smile and a playful kiss, when
-such high authorities were backing him up. True, he might live in such a
-way as never to need the money which had been her weapon of defence, and
-he might finally rise to a sort of penniless greatness. Besides, his
-life was one thing, hers another. No great calamity had come to him in
-youth, such as she had known and so grimly fought; no persistent enemy
-was following his track with the scent and bay of a blood-hound, night
-and day seeking to rend him to pieces.
-
-These reflections were suddenly disturbed by a most unusual sound at
-that time of night. It was the sharp click of the iron gate-latch. Ann's
-heart sprang to her throat and seemed to be held there by taut suspense.
-She stood up, her hand on the mantel-piece, bending her ears for further
-sounds. Then she heard a heavy, even tread approaching. How could it be?
-And yet, though a score of years had sped since it had fallen on her
-ears, she knew it well. "It can't be!" she gasped. "It's somebody else
-that happens to walk like him; he'd never dare to--"
-
-The step had reached the porch. The sagging floor bent and creaked. It
-was Joe Boyd. She knew it now full well, for no one else would have
-paused like that before rapping. There was silence. The visitor was
-actually feeling for the door-latch. It was like Joe Boyd, after years
-of absence, to have thought to enter her house as of old without the
-formality of announcing himself. He tried the latch; the door was fast.
-He paused another moment, then rapped firmly and loudly. Ann stood
-motionless, her face pale and set almost in a grimace of expectancy.
-Then Boyd stalked heavily to the window at the end of the porch; she saw
-his bushy head and beard against the small square of glass. As one
-walking in sleep, Ann stepped close to the window, and through the glass
-their eyes met in the first visual greeting since he had gone away.
-
-"Open the door, Ann," he said, simply. "I want to see you."
-
-"Huh, you _do_, do you?" she cried. "Well, you march yourself through
-that gate an' come round here in daytime. I see myself opening up at
-night for you or anybody else."
-
-He pressed his face closer to the glass. His breath spread moisture upon
-it, and he raised his hands on either side of his head that he might
-more clearly see within.
-
-"I want to see you, Ann," he repeated, simply. "I've been riding since
-dinner, and just got here; my hoss is lame."
-
-"Huh!" she sniffed. "I tell you, Joe Boyd, I'll not--" She went no
-further. Something in his aging features tied her tongue. He had really
-altered remarkably; his face was full of lines cut since she had seen
-him. His beard had grown rough and bristly, as had his heavy eyebrows.
-How little was he now like the once popular beau of the country-side who
-had been considered the best "catch" among young farmers! No, she had
-not thought of him as such a wreck, such an impersonation of utter
-failure, and even resignation to it.
-
-"I reckon you'd better open the door an' let me in, Ann," he said. "I
-won't bother you long. I've just a few words to say. It's not about me.
-It's about Nettie."
-
-"Oh, it's about the child!" Ann breathed more freely. "Well, wait a
-minute, till I make a light."
-
-He saw her go to the mantel-piece and get a candle and bend over the
-fire. There was a sudden flare of bluish flame as the dripping tallow
-became ignited in the hot ashes, then she straightened up and placed the
-light on a table. She moved slowly to the door and opened it. They stood
-face to face. He started--as if from the habit of general greeting--to
-hold out his rough hand, but changed his mind and rubbed it awkwardly
-against his thigh as his dumb stare clung to hers.
-
-"Yes," he began, doggedly, "it's about Nettie." He had started to close
-the door after him, but, grasping the shutter firmly, Ann pushed it back
-against the wall.
-
-"Let the door stand open," she said, harshly.
-
-"Oh," he grunted, stupidly, "I didn't know but somebody passin' along
-the road might--"
-
-"Well, let 'em pass and look in, too," Ann retorted. "I'd a sight rather
-they'd pass and see you here in open candle-light than to have the door
-of my house closed with us two behind it. Huh!"
-
-"Well," he said, a blear in his big, weary eyes, "you know best, I
-reckon. I admit I don't go deep into such matters. It's sorter funny to
-see you so particular, though, and with--with _me_."
-
-He walked to the fire and mechanically held out his hands to the warmth.
-Then, with his back to the red glow, he stood awkwardly, his eyes on the
-floor. After a pause, he said, suddenly: "If you don't mind, Ann, I'd
-rather set down. I'm tired to death, nearly, from that blasted long
-ride. Coming down-hill for five or six miles on a slow, stiff-jointed
-hoss is heavy on a man as old as I am."
-
-She reached behind her and gave him a chair, but refused to sit down
-herself, standing near him as he sank into the chair; and, quite in his
-old way, she noticed he thrust out his pitifully ill-shod feet to the
-flames and clasped his hair-grown hands in his lap--that, too, in the
-old way, but with added feebleness.
-
-"You said it was about the child," Ann reminded him. "Ain't she well?"
-
-"Oh yes, she's well an' hearty," Boyd made haste to reply. "I reckon you
-may think it's odd fer me to ride away over here, but, Ann, I'm a man
-that feels like I want to do my full duty if I can in this life, and
-I've been bothering a lots here lately--a lots. I've lost sleep over a
-certain delicate matter, but nothing I kin do seems to help me out. It's
-a thing, you see, that I couldn't well ask advice on, and so I had to
-tussle with it in private. Finally I thought I'd just ride over and lay
-the whole thing before you."
-
-"Well, what is it?" Ann asked.
-
-"It's about the hardest thing to talk about that I ever tried to
-approach," Boyd said, with lowered glance, "but I reckon I'll have to
-get it out and be done with it, one way or another. You see, Ann, when
-the law gave me the custody of the child I was a younger man, with more
-outlook and health and management, in the judgment of the court, than
-I've got now, and I thought that what I couldn't do for my own flesh and
-blood nobody else could, and so I took her off."
-
-"_Yes, you took her off!_" Ann straightened up, and a sneer touched her
-set features; there was a sarcastic, almost triumphant cry of
-vindictiveness in her tone.
-
-"Yes, I thought all that," Boyd continued. "And I meant well, but
-miscalculated my own capacity and endurance. Instead of making money
-hand over hand as folks said almost any man could do out West, I sunk
-all I put in. We come back this way then, and I located in Gilmer,
-thinking I'd do better on soil I understood, and among the kind o' folks
-and religion I was used to, but it's been down-hill work ever since
-then. When Nettie was little it didn't seem like so much was demanded,
-but now, Ann, she's like all the balance o' young women of her age. She
-wants things like the rest around her, an' she pines for them, an'
-sulks, and--and makes me feel awful. It's a powerful hard matter for me
-to dress her like some o' the rest about us, and she's the proudest
-thing that ever wore shoe-leather."
-
-"Oh, I see!" said Ann. "She's going about, too, with--she's bein'
-courted by some feller or other."
-
-"Yes, Sam Lawson, over there, a likely young chap, has taken a big fancy
-to her, and he's good enough, too, but I reckon a little under the
-influence of his daddy, who is a hard-shell Baptist, a man that believes
-in sanctification and talks it all the time. Well, to come down to it,
-things between Nettie and Sam is sorter hanging fire, and Nettie's
-nearly crazy for fear it will fall through. And that's why, right now, I
-screwed up to the point of coming to see you."
-
-"You thought I could help her out in her courting?" Ann sneered, and yet
-beneath her sneer lay an almost eager curiosity.
-
-"Well, not that exactly"--Joe Boyd spread out his rough fingers very
-wide to embrace as much of his dust-coated beard as possible; he pulled
-downward on a rope of it, and let his shifting glance rest on the
-fire--"not that exactly, Ann."
-
-"Well, then, I don't understand, Joe Boyd," Ann said; "and let me tell
-you that no matter what sort of young thing I was when we lived
-together, I'm now a _business_ woman, and a _successful_ one, and I have
-a habit of not beating about the bush. I talk straight and make others
-do the same. Business is business, and life is short."
-
-"Well, I'll talk as straight as I can," Boyd swallowed. "You see, as I
-say, old Lawson is a narrow, grasping kind of a man, and he can't bear
-the idea of his only boy not coming into something, even if it's very
-little, and I happen to know that he's been expecting my little farm
-over there to fall to Nettie."
-
-"Well, _won't_ it?" Ann demanded.
-
-Boyd lowered his shaggy head. There was a piteous flicker of despair in
-the lashes of the eyes Ann had once loved so well.
-
-"It's mortgaged to the hilt, Ann," he gulped, "and next Wednesday if I
-can't pay down five hundred to Carson in Darley, it will go under the
-hammer. That will bust Nettie's love business all to flinders. Old
-Lawson's got Sam under his thumb, and he'll call it off. Nettie knows
-all about it. She's no fool for a girl of her age; she found out about
-the debt; she hardly sleeps a wink, but mopes about with red eyes all
-day long. I thought I had trouble away back when me 'n' you--away back
-there, you know--but I was younger then, and this sorter seems to be
-_my_ fault."
-
-Ann fell to quivering with excitement as she reached for a chair and
-leaned upon it, her stout knee in the seat, her strong, bare arms
-resting on the back.
-
-"Right here I want to ask you one question, Joe Boyd, before we go a
-step further. Did Mary Waycroft make a proposal to Nettie--did Mary
-Waycroft hint to Nettie that maybe I'd be willing to help her along in
-some substantial way?"
-
-The farmer raised a pair of shifting eyes to the piercing orbs above
-him, and then looked down.
-
-"I believe she did something of the sort, Ann," he said, reluctantly,
-"but, you see--"
-
-"I see nothing but _this_," Ann threw into the gap left by his sheer
-inability to proceed--"I see nothing but the fact that my proposition
-scared her nearly to death. She was afraid it would get out that she was
-having something to do with me, and now, if I do rescue this land from
-public sale, I must keep in the background, not even let her know where
-the money is coming from."
-
-"I didn't say _that_," Boyd said, heavily stricken by the combined force
-of her tone and words. "The--the whole thing's for _you_ to decide on.
-I've tussled with it till I'm sick and tired. I wouldn't have come over
-if I hadn't thought it was my bounden duty to lay it before you. The
-situation has growed up unforeseen out of my trouble and yours. If you
-want the girl's land to go under hammer and bust up her marriage, that's
-all right. I won't cry about it, for I'm at the end of my rope. You see,
-law or no law, she's yore natural flesh and blood, jest as she is mine,
-an' she wasn't--the girl wasn't responsible fer what you an' me tuck a
-notion to do away back there. The report is out generally that
-everything you touch somehow turns to gold--that you are rolling in
-money. That's the reason I thought it was my duty--by God, Ann
-Lincoln"--his eyes were flashing with something like the fire which had
-blazed in them when he had gone away in his health and prime--"I
-wouldn't ask you for a red cent, for myself, not if I was dying for a
-mouthful of something to eat. I'm doing this because it seems right
-according to my poor lights. The child's happiness is at stake; you can
-look at it as you want to and act as you see fit."
-
-Ann bit her lip; a shudder passed over her strong frame from head to
-foot. She lowered her big head to her hands. "Sometimes," she groaned,
-"I wish I could actually curse God for the unfairness of my lot. The
-hardest things that ever fell to the fate of any human being have been
-mine. In agony, Jesus Christ prayed, they say, to let His cup pass if
-possible. _His_ cup! What _was_ His cup? Just death--that's all; but
-_this_ is a million times worse than death--this here crucifixion of
-pride--this here forcing me to help and protect people who deny me, who
-shiver at a hint of my approach, yelling 'Unclean, unclean!' like the
-lepers outside the city gates--beyond the walls that encompass accepted
-humanity. Joe Boyd"--she raised her face and stared at him--"you don't
-no more know me than you know the stars above your head. I am no more
-the silly girl that you married than I am some one else. I learned the
-lesson of life away back there when you left in that wagon with the
-child of my breast. I have fought a long battle, and I'm still fighting.
-To me, with all my experience, you--you poor little thing--are a baby of
-a man. You had a wife who, if she _does_ say it, had the brain of a
-dozen such men as you are, and yet you listened to the talk of a weak,
-jealous, disappointed woman and came and dared to wipe your feet on me,
-spit in my face, and drag my name into the mire of public court. I made
-no defence then--I don't make any now. I'll never make any. My life
-shall be my defence before God, and Him only. I wish it could be a
-lesson to all young women who are led into misfortune such as mine. To
-every unfortunate girl I'd say, 'Never marry a man too weak to
-understand and appreciate you.' I loved you, Joe Boyd, as much as a
-woman ever loved a man, but it was like the love of a strong man for a
-weak, dependent woman. Somehow I gloried in your big, hulking
-helplessness. What I have since done in the management of affairs I
-wanted to do for you."
-
-"Oh, I know all that, Ann, but this is no time or place to--"
-
-"But it's _got_ to be the time and place," she retorted, shaking a stiff
-finger in his face. "I want to show you one side of this matter. I won't
-mention names, but a man, an old man, come to me one day. He set there
-on my door-step and told me about his life of his own free will and
-accord, because he'd heard of mine, and wanted to comfort me. He'd just
-buried his wife--a woman he'd lived with for thirty-odd years, and big
-tears rolled down his cheeks while he was talking. He said he was going
-to tell me what he'd never told a living soul. He said away back, when
-he was young, he loved his wife and courted her. He saw that she loved
-him, but she kept holding off and wouldn't give in till he was nearly
-distracted; then he said her mother come to him and told him what the
-trouble was. It was because the girl had had bad luck like I did. She
-loved him and wanted to make him a good wife, but was afraid it would be
-wrong. He said he told the girl's mother that it made no difference to
-him, and that he then and there promised never on this earth to mention
-it to her, and he never did. She was the woman he lived with for a third
-of a century in holy wedlock, and who he couldn't speak of without
-shedding tears. Now, Joe Boyd, here's my point--the only difference I
-can see in that woman's conduct and mine is that I would have told you,
-but I didn't think you was the kind of a man to tell a thing like that
-to. I didn't think you was strong enough, as a man, but I thought your
-happiness and mine depended on our marriage, and so after you had dogged
-my steps for years I consented. So you see, if--if, I say--you had gone
-and let the old matter drop, you wouldn't have been in the plight you
-are now, and our child would have had more of the things she needed."
-
-"There are two sides to it," Boyd said, raising a sullen glance to her
-impassioned face. "And that reminds me of an old man I knew about. He
-was the best husband that ever walked the earth. He loved his wife and
-children, and when he was seventytwo years of age he used to totter
-about with his grandchildren all day long, loving them, with his whole
-heart. Then one day proof was handed him--actual proof--that not a speck
-of his blood flowed in their veins. He was hugging one of the little
-ones in his arms when he heard the truth. Ann, it killed him. That's
-t'other side. You nor me can't handle a matter as big and endless as
-that is. The Lord God of the universe is handling ours. We can talk and
-plan, but most of us, in a pinch, will do as generations before us have
-done in sech delicate matters."
-
-"I suppose so." Ann's lips were white; there was a wild, hunted look in
-her great, staring eyes.
-
-"I tried to reason myself out of the action I finally took," Boyd went
-on, deliberately, "but there was nothing else to do. I was bothered nigh
-to death. The thing was running me stark crazy. I had to chop it off,
-and I'm frank to say, even at this late day, that I don't see how I
-could have done otherwise. But I didn't come here to fetch all this up.
-It was just the other matter, and the belief that it was my duty to give
-you a chance to act on it as you saw fit."
-
-"If her wedding depends on it, the farm must be saved," Ann said,
-quietly. "I give away money to others, why shouldn't I to--to her? I'll
-get a blank and write a check for the money."
-
-He lowered his head, staring at the flames. "That's for you to decide,"
-he muttered. "When the debt is paid the land shall be deeded to her.
-I'll die rather than borrow on it again."
-
-Ann went to the clock on the mantel-piece and took down a pad of blank
-checks and a pen and bottle of ink. Placing them on the table, she sat
-down and began to write with a steady hand and a firm tilt of her head
-to one side.
-
-"Hold on!" Boyd said, turning his slow glance upon her. "Excuse me, but
-there's one thing we haven't thought of."
-
-Ann looked up from the paper questioningly. "What is that?"
-
-"Why, you see, I reckon I'd have to get that check cashed somewhere,
-Ann, and as it will have your name on it, why, you see, in a country
-where everybody knows everybody else's business--"
-
-"I understand," Ann broke in--"they would know I had a hand in it."
-
-"Yes, they would know that, of course, if I made use of that particular
-check."
-
-Ann Boyd rested her massive jaw on her hand in such a way as to hide her
-face from his view. She was still and silent for a minute, then she
-rose, and, going to the fire, she bent to the flame of a pine-knot and
-destroyed the slip of paper.
-
-"I don't _usually_ keep that much money about the house," she said,
-looking down on him, "but I happen to have some hidden away. Go out and
-get your horse ready and I'll bring it to you at the fence."
-
-He obeyed, rising stiffly from his chair and reaching for his worn
-slouch hat.
-
-He was standing holding his bony horse by the rein when she came out a
-few minutes later and gave him a roll of bills wrapped in a piece of
-cloth.
-
-"Here it is," she said. "You came after it under a sense of duty, and I
-am sending it the same way. I may be made out of odd material, but I
-don't care one single thing about the girl. If you had come and told me
-she was dead, I don't think I'd have felt one bit different. It might
-have made me a little curious to know which of us was going next--you,
-me, or her--that's all. Good-bye, Joe Boyd."
-
-"Good-bye, Ann," he grunted, as he mounted his horse. "I'll see that
-this matter goes through right."
-
-
-
-
-XVIII
-
-
-Colonel Preston Chester and his son Langdon were at breakfast two days
-after this. The dining-room of the old mansion was a long, narrow
-chamber on the first floor, connected with the brick kitchen outside by
-a wooden passage, roofed, latticed at both sides, and vine-grown. The
-dining-room had several wide windows which opened on a level with the
-floor of the side veranda. Strong coffee, hot biscuits, and birds
-delicately browned were brought in by a turbaned black woman, who had
-once been a slave in the family, and then she discreetly retired.
-
-The old gentleman, white-haired, pink and clear of complexion, and
-wearing a flowing mustache and an imperial, which he nervously clutched
-and twisted in his soft fingers, was not in a good humor.
-
-"Here I am ready to go to Savannah, as I promised, to pay a visit and
-bring your mother back," he fumed, "and now find that you have taxed my
-credit at the bank so heavily with your blasted idleness and poker debts
-that they actually gave me a lecture about my financial condition. But
-I've certainly headed you off, sir. I left positive orders that no check
-of yours is to be honored during my absence."
-
-"You did that, father? Why--"
-
-"Of course I did it. I can't put up with your extravagance and damnable
-habits, and I don't intend to."
-
-"But, father, I've heard you say you cost your parents on an average of
-four thousand dollars a year before you got married, and--"
-
-"Don't begin that twaddle over again," roared the Colonel in his
-coffee-cup. "What my father did for me in those easy times has nothing
-to do with our condition in the present day. Besides, it was the custom
-of the times to live high, while now it's coming to be a disgrace to be
-idle or to have luxuries. We've got to work like the rest at something
-or other. Here's that Luke King back from the West with enough money to
-install his whole gang of white trash in one of the best places in the
-entire river valley, and is conducting a paper in Atlanta that everybody
-is talking about. Why, blast it all, I heard Governor Crawford say at
-the Capital City Club the other day that if he--mind you, the governor
-of the State--if he could get King's influence he would be re-elected
-sure. Think of that, when I put a fortune into your education. You are
-doing nothing for your name, while he's climbing like that on the poor
-chances he had."
-
-"Oh, he had education, such as he needed," Langdon replied, with a
-retaliatory glance at his father. "Ann Boyd sent him to school, you
-know."
-
-The old man's eyes wavered; he drank from his cup silently, and then
-carefully wiped his mustache on his napkin. It was not the first time
-Langdon had dared to pronounce the woman's name in his presence, and it
-looked as if the Colonel dreaded further allusions.
-
-"Well, I've got to make the trip to Savannah," he said, still avoiding
-his son's glance, and trying to keep up his attitude of cold reproof. He
-was becoming convinced that Langdon was acquiring a most disagreeable
-habit of justifying his own wild conduct by what he had heard of his
-father's past, and this was decidedly irritating to the planter, who
-found enough to reproach himself with in reflecting upon what he had
-gone through without being held accountable for another career which
-looked quite as bad in the bud and might bear even worse fruit.
-
-"Yes, I think myself, all jokes aside, that you ought to go," Langdon
-said. "I'll do the best I can to keep things straight here. The hunting
-will be good, and I can manage to kill time. You'll want to take along
-some spending money, father. Those old chums of yours down there will
-draw you into a poker game sure."
-
-"I'll cut that out, I reckon"--the Colonel smiled in spite of himself.
-Langdon was such a copy of what he had been at the same age that it
-seemed, under stress of certain memories, almost wrong to reprove him.
-"No, I've sworn off from cards, and that's one thing I want you to let
-alone. I don't want to hear of your having any more of those all-night
-carouses here, leaving bullet-holes in your grandfather's portrait, as
-you and your dissolute gang did the last time I was away. It's a wonder
-to me you and those fellows didn't burn the house down."
-
-At this juncture Langdon was glad to see the overseer of the plantation
-on the veranda, and the Colonel went out to give him some instructions.
-
-Two nights later, when he had seen his father off at the door and turned
-back into the great, partly lighted house, Langdon set about thinking
-how he could spend the evening and rid himself of the abiding sense of
-loneliness that had beset him. He might stroll over to Wilson's store,
-but the farmers he met there would be far from congenial, for he was not
-popular with many of them, and unless he could meet, which was unlikely
-at night, some drummer who would play poker freely with the funds of the
-house he represented against Langdon's ready promises to pay, his walk
-would be fruitless. No, he would not go to the store, he decided; and
-still he was in no mood, at so early an hour, for the solitude of his
-room or the antiquated library, from the shelves of which frowned the
-puritanical books of his Presbyterian ancestors. Irresolute, he had
-wandered to the front veranda again, and as he stood looking eastward he
-espied, through the trees across the fields and meadows, a light. It was
-Jane Hemingway's kitchen candle, and the young man's pulse beat more
-rapidly as he gazed at it. He had occasionally seen Virginia outside the
-house of evenings, and had stolen chats with her. Perhaps he might have
-such luck again. In any case, nothing would be lost in trying, and the
-walk would kill time. Besides, he was sure the girl was beginning to
-like him; she now trusted him more, and seemed always willing to talk to
-him. She believed he loved her; who could doubt it when he himself had
-been surprised at his tenderness and flights of eloquence when inspired
-by her rare beauty and sweetness? Sometimes he believed that his feeling
-for the beautiful, trustful girl was a love that would endure, but when
-he reflected on the difference in their stations in life he had grave
-and unmanly doubts. As he walked along the road, the light of Jane's
-candle, like the glow of a fire-fly, intermittently appearing and
-disappearing ahead of him through the interstices of the trees and
-foliage, the memory of the gossip about his father and Ann Boyd flashed
-unpleasantly upon him. Was he, after all, following his parent's early
-bent? Was family history repeating itself? But when the worst was said
-about that affair, who had been seriously injured? Certainly not the
-easy-going Colonel, surely not the sturdy pariah herself, who had,
-somehow, turned her enforced isolation to such purpose that she was rich
-in the world's goods and to all appearances cared not a rap for public
-opinion.
-
-                                  ----
-
-That day had been the gloomiest in Virginia's life. Early in the morning
-Jane had gone to Darley for the twentieth time to try to borrow the
-money with which to defray her expenses to Atlanta. She had failed
-again, and came home at dusk absolutely dejected.
-
-"It's all up with me!" she groaned, as she sank heavily into a chair in
-front of the cheerful fire Virginia had in readiness, and pushed her
-worn shoes out to the flames. "I went from one old friend to another,
-telling them my condition, but they seemed actually afraid of me,
-treating me almost like a stranger. They all told tales of need,
-although they seemed to have plenty of everything. Judge Crane met me in
-Main Street and told me I could appeal to the county fund and get on the
-pauper list, but without offering to help me; he said he knew I'd almost
-rather die than fall so low. No, I'll not do that, Virginia. That's what
-would tickle Ann Boyd and some others powerfully."
-
-With lagging steps and a heart like lead, Virginia went about preparing
-the simple meal. Her mother ate only hot buttered toast with boiled milk
-on it to soften it for her toothless gums, but the fair cook scarcely
-touched food at all. Her mother's grewsome affliction was in the
-sensitive girl's mind all through each successive day, and even at night
-her sleep was broken by intermittent dreams of this or that opportunity
-to raise the coveted money. Sometimes it was the jovial face of a crude,
-penniless neighbor who laughed carelessly as he handed her a cumbersome
-roll of bank-bills; again she would find a great heap of gold glittering
-in the sun, only to wake with her delicate fingers tightly clasped on
-nothing at all--to wake that she might lie and listen to Jane's sighs
-and moans as the old woman crouched over the ash-buried coals to light a
-tallow-dip to look, for the thousandth time, at the angry threat of fate
-upon her withered breast.
-
-To-night, greatly wearied by her long ride and being on her feet so
-long, Jane went to bed early, and, when she was alone, Virginia, with a
-mental depression that had become almost physical pain, went out and sat
-on the front door-step in the moonlight. That very day a plan of her own
-in regard to the raising of the money had fallen to earth. She had heard
-of the munificent gift Luke King had made to his mother, and she
-determined that she would go to him, lay the case before him, and pledge
-herself to toil for him in any capacity till he was repaid; but when she
-had gone as far in the direction of the newly purchased farm as the
-Hincock Spring, she met Mary Bruce in a new dress and hat, and
-indirectly discovered that King had given up his last dollar of ready
-money to secure the property for his people. No, she would not take her
-own filial troubles to a young man who was so nobly battling with his
-own. At any other moment she might have had time to admire King's
-sacrifice, but her mind was too full of her own depressing problem to
-give thought to that of another. Her sharp reproof to him for his
-neglect of his mother during his absence in the West flitted through her
-memory, and at a less troubled moment she would have seen how
-ridiculously unjust her childish words must have sounded.
-
-As she sat, weighted down with these things, she heard a step down the
-road. It was slow and leisured, if not deliberately cautious. It was
-accompanied by a persistent spark of fire which flitted always on a
-straight line, in view and out, among the low bushes growing close to
-the fence along the roadside. A moment later a handsome face in the
-flare of a burning cigar appeared, smiling confidently at the gate. It
-was Langdon Chester.
-
-"Come out here," he said, in a soft, guarded voice. "I want to see you."
-
-Virginia rose, listened to ascertain if her mother was still asleep, and
-then, drawing her light shawl about her shoulders, she went to the
-fence. He reached over the gate and took her hand and pressed it warmly.
-"I was awfully afraid I'd not see you," he said. "I've failed so many
-times. My father left to-day, and I am very lonely in that big house
-with not a soul nearer than the negro-quarter."
-
-"It must be lonely," Virginia said, trying to be pleasant and to throw
-off her despondency.
-
-"Your mother went to town to-day, didn't she?" Chester pursued, still
-holding the hand which showed an indifferent inclination to quit his
-clasp. "I think I saw her coming back. Did she get what she went for?"
-
-"No, she failed utterly," Virginia sighed. "I don't know what to do.
-She's suffering awfully--not in bodily pain, you know, for there is none
-at all, but in the constant and morbid fear of death. It is an awful
-thing to be face to face, day after day, night after night, with a
-mother who is in such agony. I never dreamed such a fate could be in
-store for any young girl. It is actually driving me crazy."
-
-"Yes, yes," Langdon said, hesitatingly. "I want to tell you something. I
-had a talk with my father about her just before he left. I've worried
-over it, too, little girl. Folks may run me down, you know, but I've got
-real feelings; and so, as a last resort, as I say, I told him about it.
-He's hard up himself, as you may know, along with our heavy family
-expenses, and interest on debts, and taxes, but I managed to put it in
-such a way as to get him interested, and he's promised to let me have
-the money provided he can make a certain deal down at Savannah. But he
-says it must be kept absolutely quiet, you understand. If he sends me
-this money, you must not speak of it to any one--the old man is very
-peculiar."
-
-Virginia's heart bounded, the hot blood of a dazzling new hope pulsed
-madly in her veins. The tensity of her hand in his warm clasp relaxed;
-her eyes, into which his own passionate ones were melting, held kindling
-fires of gratitude and trust.
-
-"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried, "if he only _would_!"
-
-"Well, there is a splendid chance of his doing it," Langdon said. "I was
-awfully afraid to mention the subject to him, you know, for fear that he
-would suspect my interest was wholly due to you, but it happens that he
-has never seen us together, and so he thought it was simply my sympathy
-for one of our neighbors. I had to do something, Virginia. I couldn't
-stay idle when my beautiful little sweetheart was in such downright
-trouble."
-
-With a furtive glance towards the house and up and down the road,
-Langdon drew her towards him. Just one instant she resisted, and then,
-for the first time in her life, she allowed him to kiss her without open
-protest. She remained thus close to him, permitting him to stroke her
-soft, rounded cheeks gently. Never before were two persons impelled by
-diverse forces so closely united.
-
-"When do you--you think your father will write?" she asked, her voice
-low, her soul almost shrieking in joy.
-
-"That depends," said Chester. "You see, he may not get at the matter
-_the very day_ he arrives in Savannah, for he is a great old codger to
-let matters slide in the background while he is meeting old friends.
-But, little girl, I don't intend to let it slip out of his mind. I'll
-drop him a line and urge him to fix it up if possible. That, I think,
-will bring him around. Your mother is sound asleep," he added,
-seductively; "let's walk a little way down the road. I sha'n't keep you
-long. I feel awfully happy with you all to myself."
-
-She raised no objection as he unfastened the latch of the gate with
-deft, noiseless fingers and, smiling playfully, drew her after him and
-silently closed the opening.
-
-"Now, this is more like it," he said. "Lovers should have the starry
-skies above them and open fields about. Forget your mother a little
-while, Virginia. It will all come out right, and you and I will be the
-happiest people in the world. Great Heavens! how perfectly lovely you
-are in the moonlight! You look like a statue of Venus waking to life."
-
-They had reached the brook which rippled on brown stones across the road
-at the foot of the slight rise on which the cottage stood, when they saw
-some one approaching. It was Ann Boyd driving her cow home, her heavy
-skirts pinned up half-way to her stout knees. With one sharp, steady
-stare at them, Ann, without greeting of any kind, lowered her bare,
-dew-damp head and trudged on.
-
-"It's that miserly old hag, Ann Boyd," Langdon said, lightly. "I don't
-like her any more than she does me. I reckon that old woman has
-circulated more lies about me than all the rest of the country put
-together."
-
-At the first sight of Ann, Virginia had withdrawn her hand from
-Langdon's arm and passionate clasp of fingers, but the action had not
-escaped Ann's lynx eyes.
-
-"It's coming, thank God, it's coming as fast as a dog can trot!" she
-chuckled as she plodded along after her waddling cow. "Now, Jane
-Hemingway, you'll have something else to bother about besides your
-blasted cancer--something that will cut your pride as deep as that does
-your selfish flesh. It won't fail to come, either. Don't I know the
-Chester method? Huh, if I don't, it isn't known. With his head bent that
-way, and holding her hand with hand and arm both at once, he might have
-been his father over again. Huh, I felt like tearing his eyes out, just
-now--the young beast! I felt like she was me, and the old brink was
-yawning again right at my feet. Huh, I felt that way about Jane
-Hemingway's daughter--that's the oddest thing of all! But she _is_
-beautiful; she's the prettiest thing I ever saw in all my life. No
-wonder he is after her; she's the greatest prize for a Chester in
-Georgia. Jane's asleep right now, but she'll wake before long and she'll
-wonder with all her wounded pride how God ever let her close her eyes.
-Yes, my revenge is on the way. I see the light its blaze has cast on
-ahead. It may be Old Nick's torch--what do I care? He can wave it, wave
-it, wave it!"
-
-She increased her step till she overtook her cow. Laying her hand on the
-animal's back, she gently patted it. "Go on home to your calf, you
-hussy," she laughed. "The young of even _your_ sort is safer, according
-to the plan that guides the world, than Jane Hemingway's. She's felt so
-safe, too, that she's made it her prime object in life to devil a person
-for exactly what's coming under her own roof--_exactly to a gnat's
-heel_!"
-
-
-
-
-XIX
-
-
-One evening, about four days later, Mrs. Waycroft hurried in to see Ann.
-The sharp-sighted woman, as she nodded indifferently to the visitor, and
-continued her work of raking live coals under a three-legged pot on the
-hearth, saw that Mrs. Waycroft was the fluttering bearer of news of some
-sort, but she made no show of being ready to listen to it. The widow,
-however, had come to be heard, she had come for the sheer enjoyment of
-recital.
-
-"Ann," she panted, "let that oven alone and listen to me. I've got about
-the biggest piece of news that has come your way in many a long day."
-
-"You say you have?" Ann's brass-handled poker rang as she gave a parting
-thrust at a burning chunk, and struck the leg of the pot.
-
-"Yes, and I dropped on to it by the barest accident. About an hour after
-sunset to-day, I was in the graveyard, sitting over Jennie's grave, and
-planning how to place the new stones. I looked at the spot where I'd
-been sitting afterwards, and saw that it was well sheltered with thick
-vines. I was completely covered from the sight of anybody passing along
-the road. Well, as I was sitting there kind o' tired from my work and
-the walk, I heard a man's voice and a woman's. It was Langdon Chester
-and Virginia Hemingway. He seemed to be doing most of the talking, and
-since God made me, I never heard such tender love-making since I was
-born. I knew I had no business to listen, but I just couldn't help it.
-It took me back to the time I was a girl and used to imagine that some
-fine young man was coming to talk to me that way and offer me a happy
-home and all heart could desire. I never dreamed such tender words could
-fall from a man's tongue. I tried to see Virginia's face, but couldn't.
-He went on to say that his folks was to know nothing at present about
-him and her, but that everything would finally be satisfactorily
-arranged."
-
-"Huh, I reckon so!" Ann ejaculated, off her usual guard, and then she
-lapsed into discreet silence again.
-
-"But I got on to the biggest secret of all," Mrs. Waycroft continued.
-"It seems that Langdon has been talking in a roundabout way to his
-father about Jane's sad plight, and that Colonel Chester had agreed to
-send the money for the operation from Savannah."
-
-"Huh! he's got no money to give away," slipped again from Ann's too
-facile lips, "and if he _did_ have it, he wouldn't--"
-
-"Well, that may be, or it may not," said Mrs. Waycroft; "but Langdon
-said he wasn't going to wait for the check. He said a man in Darley had
-been bantering him for a long time to buy his fine horse, Prince, and as
-he didn't care to keep the animal, he had sent him by one of the negroes
-on the place this morning."
-
-"Oh, he did that!" Ann panted. She carefully leaned the poker against
-the jamb of the fireplace and sat staring, her rugged face working under
-stress of deep and far-reaching thought.
-
-"So I heard him say as plainly as you and me are talking right now. He
-said the negro couldn't possibly make the transfer and get back with the
-money till about ten o'clock to-night. And that, to me, Ann--just
-between us two, was the oddest thing of all. For he was begging her to
-slip away from home at that hour and come to his house for the money, so
-she could surprise her ma with it the first thing in the morning."
-
-"He was, was he? huh!" Ann rose and went to the door and looked out.
-There she stood stroking her set face with a steady hand. She was
-tingling with excitement and trying to hide it. Then she turned back and
-bent low to look at the coals under her pot. "Well, I reckon she was
-willing to grant a little favor like that under the circumstances."
-
-"She had to be begged powerful," said the visitor. "I never in all my
-life heard such pleading. Part of the time he'd scold her and reproach
-her with not caring for him like he did for her. Then he'd accuse her of
-being suspicious of him, even when he was trying his level best to help
-her out of trouble. Finally, he got to talking about how folks died,
-slow-like, from cancers, and what her real duty was to her mother. It
-was then that she give in. I know she did, though I didn't hear what she
-said, for he laughed out sudden, and gladlike, and I heard him kiss her
-and begin over again, about how happy they were going to be and the
-like. I reckon, Ann, he really _does_ mean to marry her."
-
-"I reckon so," Ann said. "I reckon so. Such things have been known to
-happen."
-
-"Well, we'll wait and see what comes of it," said Mrs. Waycroft.
-"Anyway, Jane will get her cancer-money, and that's all she cares for.
-They say she's in agony day and night, driving Virginia distracted. I'm
-sorry for that pore little thing. I don't like her mammy, for treating
-you as she has so long and persistent, but I can't hold Virginia
-accountable."
-
-Ann shrugged her broad shoulders. There was a twinkling light of dawning
-triumph in each of her non-committal eyes, and unwonted color in her
-cheeks, all of which escaped the widow's notice.
-
-"Well, that wasn't the end," she said, tentatively.
-
-"I couldn't hear any more, Ann. They walked on. I stood up and watched
-them as they went on through the bushes, arm in arm, towards her home.
-I'm sure he loves her. Anybody would know it that heard him talk;
-besides she is pretty--you know that, Ann. She is the most beautiful
-girl I have ever seen anywhere. They looked fine, too, walking side by
-side. They say he's a spendthrift and got bad habits, but maybe his
-folks will be glad to have him settle down with such a sensible girl if
-she is poor. She'll keep him straight. I'd rather nothing is said about
-where Jane's money is coming from, Ann. That seems to be their secret,
-and I have no right to circulate it."
-
-"I'll not talk it," Ann said. "It will be safe with me."
-
-When the widow had left, Ann became a changed creature in outward
-appearance. She stood on the porch till her guest had disappeared in the
-dusk, and then she paced the floor of her sitting-room in a spasm of
-ecstasy, now and then shaken by a hearty laugh.
-
-"I see through him," she chuckled. "He is trying to ease his dirty
-conscience by paying money down. It's a slick trick--on a par with a
-promise to marry. He's telling his filthy soul that he's saving her
-mother's life. The girl's as blind as a bat--the average woman can only
-see one thing at a time; she's simply bent on getting that money, and
-thinks of nothing else. But, Jane Hemingway--old lady--I've got you
-where I want you at last. It won't be long before your forked tongue
-will be tied fast in a knot. You can't keep on after me publicly for
-what is in your own dirty flesh. And when you know the truth you'll
-know, too, that it all come about to save your worthless life. You'll
-get down on your knees then and beg the Lord to have mercy on you. Maybe
-you'll remember all you've done against me from your girl-days till now
-as you set with your legs dangling in the grave. Folks will shun your
-house, too, unless you rid it of contagion. But you _bet I'll_ call.
-I'll send in _my_ card. Me'n' you'll be on a level then, and we'll owe
-it to the self-same high and mighty source."
-
-Ann suddenly felt a desire for the open air, as if the very walls of her
-house checked the pleasurable out-pourings of her triumph, and she went
-outside and strode up and down in the yard, fairly aflame with joy. All
-at once she paused; she was confronting the sudden fear that she might
-be fired by a false hope. Virginia, it was true, had agreed to go to
-Chester's at the appointed hour, but might she not, in calmer moments,
-when removed from Langdon's persistent influence, think better of it and
-stay at home? Ah, yes, there was the chance that the girl might fail to
-keep the appointment, and then--
-
-Cold from head to foot, Ann went back into the cottage and stood before
-the fire looking at the clock. It was fifteen minutes of ten, and ten
-was the hour. Why not make sure of the outcome? Why not, indeed? It was
-a good idea, and would save her days and days of suspense.
-
-Going out, Ann trudged across the dewy meadow, her coarse skirt clutched
-in her hands till she stood in one of the brier-grown fence-corners near
-the main road. Here, quite hidden from the open view of any one passing,
-by the shade of a young mulberry-tree, whose boughs hung over her like
-the ribs of an umbrella, she stood and waited. She must have been there
-ten minutes or more, her tense gaze on the road leading to Jane
-Hemingway's cottage, when she was sure she heard soft footsteps coming
-towards her. Yes, it was some one, but could it be--? It was a woman's
-figure; she could see that already, and, yes, there could be no mistake
-now--it _was_ Virginia. There was no one in the neighborhood quite so
-slight, light of foot, and erect. Ann suddenly crouched down till she
-could peer between the lower rails of the fence. She held her breath
-while the girl was passing, then she clasped her hands over her knees
-and chuckled. "It's _her_!" she whispered. "It's her, and she's headed
-for everlasting doom if ever a creature walked into a net of damnation."
-
-When Virginia was thirty or forty yards away, Ann cautiously climbed
-over the fence, almost swearing in impatience as she pulled her skirts
-from the detaining clutch of thorns, briers, and splinters, and with her
-head down she followed.
-
-"I'll make dead sure," she said, between pressed lips. "This is a matter
-I don't want to have a shadow of a doubt about."
-
-Presently, the long, white palings comprising the front fence at the
-Chesters' appeared into view, and the dark, moving figure of the girl
-outlined against it could be seen more clearly.
-
-Virginia moved onward till she had reached the gate. The smooth, steel
-latch clicked; there was a rip of darkness in the ribbon of white; the
-hinges creaked; the gate closed with a slam, as if it had slipped from
-nerveless fingers, and the tall boxwood bordering the walk to the door
-of the old house swallowed Virginia from the sight of her grim pursuer.
-
-"That will do me," Ann chuckled, as she turned back, warm with content
-in every vein. On her rapid walk to her house she allowed her fancy to
-play upon scores of situations in which the happening of that night
-would bring dire humiliation and shame to her enemy. Ann well knew what
-was coming; she had only to hold the album of her own life open and let
-the breeze of chance turn the pages to view what Jane Hemingway was to
-look upon later.
-
-
-
-
-XX
-
-
-Ann had just closed her gate, and was turning towards her door, when she
-heard a sound on the porch, and a man stepped down into the yard. It was
-Luke King.
-
-"Why, hello, Aunt Ann!" he cried out, cheerily. "Been driving hogs out
-of your field I'll bet. You need me here with my dog Pomp, who used to
-be such a dandy at that job."
-
-"Oh, it's you, Luke!" Ann cried, trying to collect herself, after the
-start he had given her.
-
-"Yes, I didn't mean to come at this hour of night, but as I was riding
-by just now, on my way home to see my mother, who is not exactly well, I
-noticed your door open, and not seeing you in sight, I hitched my horse
-up the road a piece and came back and watched at the gate. Then not
-hearing any sound, and knowing you never go to bed with your door open,
-I went in. Then you bet I _was_ scared. Things do once in a while happen
-here in the mountains, and--"
-
-"Oh, well, nothing was the matter with me," Ann smiled. "Besides, I can
-take care of myself."
-
-"I know that, too," he said. "I'm glad to get this chance to talk to
-you. I understand that mother is not as ill as they thought she was, and
-I'll have to catch the first train back to Atlanta in the morning. I'm
-doing pretty well down there, Aunt Ann."
-
-"I know it, Luke, and I'm glad," Ann said, her mind still on the things
-she had just witnessed.
-
-"But you haven't yet forgiven me for giving my people that farm. I can
-see that by your manner."
-
-"I thought it was foolish," she replied.
-
-"But that's because you simply don't know all about it, Aunt Ann," he
-insisted. "I don't want to make you mad again; but really I would do
-that thing over again and again. It has helped me more than anything I
-ever did. You see, you've been thinking on one line all your life and,
-of late years, I have been on quite another. You are a great woman, Aunt
-Ann, but you still believe that the only way to fight is to hit back.
-You have been hitting back for years, and may keep on at it for a while,
-but you'll see the truth one of these days, and you'll actually love
-your neighbors--even your vilest enemies. You'll come to see--your big
-brain will simply _have_ to grasp it--that your retaliation, being
-obedient to bad life-laws, is as blamable as the antagonism of your
-enemies. The time will come when your very suffering will be the medium
-through which you will view and pity their sordid narrowness. Then
-you'll appear to them in their long darkness as a blazing light; they
-will look up to you as a thing divine; they will fall blinded at your
-feet; they will see your soul as it has always been, pure white and
-dazzlingly bright, and look upon you as the very impersonation of--"
-
-"Huh, don't be a fool!" Ann sank on the edge of the porch, her eyes
-fixed angrily on the ground. "You are ignorant of what you are talking
-about--as ignorant as a new-born baby. You are a silly dreamer, boy.
-Your life is an easy, flowery one, and you can't look into a dark,
-rugged one like mine. If God is at the head of all things, he put evil
-here as well as the good, and to-night I'm thankful for the evil. I'm
-tasting it, I tell you, and it's sweet, sweet, sweet!"
-
-"Ah, I know," King sighed. "You are trying to make yourself believe you
-are glad Mrs. Hemingway is in such agony over her affliction."
-
-"I didn't say anything about her affliction." Ann stared half fearfully
-into his honest face.
-
-"But I know you well enough to see that's what you are driving at." King
-sat down beside her, and for a moment rested his hand on her shoulder.
-"But it's got to end. It shall not go on. I am talking to you, Aunt Ann,
-with the voice of the New Thought that is sweeping the face of the world
-to-day--only that mountain in the east and that one in the west have
-dammed its flow and kept it from this benighted valley. I did not intend
-yet to tell you the great overwhelming secret of my life, but I want to
-do it to-night. You love me as a son. I know that, and I love you as a
-mother. You are in a corner--in the tightest place you've ever been in
-in all your life. I'm going to ask you to do something for my sake that
-will tear your very soul out by the roots. You'll have to grant my wish
-or refuse--if you refuse, I shall be miserable for life."
-
-"Luke, what's the matter with you?" Ann shook his hand from its
-resting-place on his shoulder, and with bated breath leaned towards him.
-
-King was silent for a moment, his brows drawn together, his head
-lowered, his strong, manly hands clasped between his knees. A buggy
-passed along the road. In it sat Fred Masters and another man. Both were
-smoking and talking loudly.
-
-"Well, listen, and don't break in, Aunt Ann," King said, in a calm,
-steady voice. "I'm going to tell you something you don't yet know. I'm
-going to tell you of my first and only great love."
-
-"Oh, is _that_ it?" Ann took a deep breath of relief. "You've been roped
-in down there already, eh? Well, I thought that would come, my boy, with
-the papers full of you and your work."
-
-"Wait, I told you not to break in," he said. "I don't believe I'm a
-shallow man. To me the right kind of love is as eternal as the stars,
-and every bit as majestic. Mine, Aunt Ann, began years ago, here in the
-mountains, on the banks of these streams, in the shadow of these green
-hills. I loved her when she was a child. I went far off and met women of
-all sorts and ranks, and in their blank faces I always saw the soulful
-features of my child sweetheart. I came back here--_here_, do you
-understand, to find her the loveliest full-grown human flower that ever
-bloomed in God's spiritual sunshine."
-
-"You mean--great God, you mean--? Look here, Luke King." Ann drew her
-body erect, her eyes were flashing fire. "Don't tell me it is Virginia
-Hemingway. Don't, don't--"
-
-"That's who it is, and no one else this side of heaven!" he cried, in an
-impassioned voice. "That's who it is, and if I lose her--if I lose her
-my life will be a total failure. I could never rise above it, _never_!"
-
-Their eyes met in a long, steady stare.
-
-"You love that girl!" Ann gasped; "_that girl!_"
-
-"With all my soul and body," he answered, fervidly. "Life, work,
-success, power, nothing under high heaven can knock it out of me. She
-has got to be mine, and you must never interfere, either. I love you as
-a son loves his mother, and you must not take her from me. You must do
-more--you must help me. I've never asked many things of you. I ask only
-this one--give her to me, help me to win her. That's all. Now we
-understand each other. She's the whole world to me. She's young; she may
-be thoughtless; her final character is just forming; but she is destined
-to be the grandest, loveliest woman on the face of the earth. She is to
-be my wife, Aunt Ann--_my wife_!"
-
-Ann's head sank till her massive brow touched her crossed arms; he could
-see that she was quivering from head to foot. There was a long pause,
-then the woman looked up, faint defiance struggling in her face.
-
-"You _are_ a fool," she said. "A great, big, whimpering fool of a man.
-She's the only one, eh? Jane Hemingway's daughter is an angel on earth,
-above all the rest. Huh! and just because of her pretty face and slim
-body and high head. Huh, oh, you _are_ a fool--an idiot, if there ever
-was one!"
-
-"Stop, talk sense, if you _will_ talk," he said, sternly, his eyes
-flashing. "Don't begin to run her down. I won't stand it. I know what
-she is. I know she was made for me!"
-
-"She's not a whit better than the average," Ann retorted, her fierce
-eyes fixed on his face. "She's as weak as any of the rest. Do you
-know--do you know--" Ann looked away from him. "Do you know Langdon
-Chester has his eye on her, that he is following her everywhere, meeting
-her unbeknownst to her old mammy?"
-
-"Yes, I know that, too," King surprised her with the statement; "and
-between you and me, that as much as my mother's sickness made me lay
-down my work and come up here to-night. It is the crisis of my whole
-life. She is at the turning-point of hers, just as you were at yours
-when you were a young and happy girl. She might listen to him, and love
-him; it is as natural for her to believe in a well-acted lie, as it is
-for her to be good and pure. Listen and don't get mad--the grandest
-woman I ever knew once trusted in falseness, and suffered. Virginia
-might, too; she might enter the life-darkness that you were led into by
-sheer faith in mankind, and have a life of sorrow before her. But if it
-should happen, Aunt Ann, my career in the right way would end."
-
-"You wouldn't let a--a thing like that--" Ann began, anxiously, "a thing
-like that ruin your whole life, when--"
-
-"Wouldn't I? You don't know me. These two hands would be dyed to the
-bone with the slow death-blood of a certain human being, and I would go
-to the gallows with both a smile and a curse. That's why it's my crisis.
-I don't know how far it has gone. I only know that I want to save her
-from--yes, from what you've been through, and lay my life and energy at
-her feet."
-
-"Jane Hemingway's _daughter_!" Ann Boyd groaned.
-
-"Yes, Jane Hemingway's daughter. You hate her, I know, with the
-unreasonable hatred that comes from despising her mother, but you've got
-to help me, Aunt Ann. You put me where I am, in education and standing,
-and you must not see me pulled down."
-
-"How could I help you, even--even--oh, you don't know, you don't know
-that at this very minute--"
-
-"Oh yes, he may be with her right now, for all I know," King broke in,
-passionately. "He may be pouring his lies into her confiding ear at this
-very minute, as you say, but Fate would not be cruel enough to let them
-harm her. You must see her, Aunt Ann. For my sake, you must see her. You
-will know what to say. One word from you would open her eyes, when from
-me it would be an offence. She would know that you knew; it would shock
-her to her very soul, but it would--if she's actually in danger--save
-her; I know her well enough for that; it would save her."
-
-"You are asking too much of me, Luke," Ann groaned, almost in piteous
-appeal. "I can't do it--I just _can't_!"
-
-"Yes, you will," King said. "You have got a grand soul asleep under that
-crust of sordid hatred and enmity, and it will awake, now that I have
-laid bare my heart. You, knowing the grim penalty of a false step in a
-woman's life, will not sit idle and see one of the gentlest of your kind
-blindly take it. You can't, and you won't. You'll save her for me.
-You'll save me, too--save me from the fate of a murderer."
-
-He stood up. "I'm going now," he finished. "I must hurry on home. I
-won't have time to see you in the morning before I leave, but you now
-know what I am living for. I am living only for Virginia Hemingway. Men
-and women are made for each other, we were made for each other. She may
-fancy she cares for that man, but she doesn't, Aunt Ann, any more than
-you now care for--but I won't say it. Good-bye. You are angry now, but
-you will get over it, and--and, you will stand by me, and by her."
-
-
-
-
-XXI
-
-
-Left alone, still crouching on her door-step, Ann, with fixed eyes and a
-face like carved stone, watched him move away in the soft moonlight, the
-very embodiment of youth and faith. She twisted her cold hands between
-her knees and moaned. What was the matter with her, anyway? Was it
-possible that the recent raging fires of her life's triumph were already
-smouldering embers, half covered with the ashes of cowardly indecision?
-Was she to sit quaking like that because a mere youth wanted his toy?
-Was she not entitled to the sweet spoils of victory, after her long
-struggle and defence? Yes, but Virginia! After all, what had the
-innocent, sweet-natured girl to do with the grim battle? Never, in all
-Ann had heard of the constant gossip against her, had one word come from
-Virginia. Once, years ago, Ann recalled a remark of Mrs. Waycroft that
-the girl had tried to keep her mother from speaking so harshly of the
-lone brunt of general reproach, and yet Virginia was at that very moment
-treading the crumbling edge of the self-same precipice over which Ann
-had toppled.
-
-The lone woman rose stiffly and went into the house to go to bed--to go
-to bed--to sleep! with all that battle of emotion in her soul and brain.
-The clock steadily ticking and throwing its round, brass pendulum from
-side to side caught her eye. It was too dark to see the hands, so she
-lighted a tallow-dip, and with the fixed stare of a dying person she
-peered into the clock's face. Half-past ten! Yes, there was perhaps time
-for the rescue. If she were to get to Chester's in time, her judgment of
-woman's nature told her one word from her would complete the rescue--the
-rescue of Jane Hemingway's child--Jane's chief hope and flag of virtue
-that she would still wave defiantly in her eyes. Without
-undressing--why, she could not have explained--Ann threw herself on her
-bed and buried her face in the pillow, clutching it with tense, angry
-hands.
-
-"Oh, what's the matter with me?" she groaned. "Why did that fool boy
-come here to-night, telling me that it would bring him to the gallows
-stained to the bone with the dye of hell, and that _I_ must keep her in
-the right road--me? Huh, me keep a girl in the right track, so they can
-keep on saying I'm the only scab on the body of the community? I won't;
-by all the powers above and below, _I won't_! She can look out for
-herself, even if it _does_ ruin an idiot of a man and pull him--It
-really _would_ ruin him, though. Maybe it would ruin _me_. Maybe he's
-right and I ought to make a life business of saving others from what
-I've been through--saving even my enemies. Christ said it; there is no
-doubt about that. He said it. He never had to go through with what I
-have, though, for He was free from the desire to fight, but He meant
-that one thing, as the one great law of life--_the only law of life_!
-Oh, God, I must do something! I must either save the girl or let it go
-on. I don't know which to do, as God is my creator, I don't actually
-know which to do. I don't--I don't--I don't--really--know--which--I
-_want_ to do. That's it--I don't know which I _want_ to do. I'm simply
-crazy to-night. I've never felt this way before. I've always been able
-to tell whether I wanted, or didn't want, a thing, but now--"
-
-She turned over on her side. Then she sat up, staring at the clock. Next
-she put her feet on the floor and stood erect. "I won't," she said,
-between set teeth. "I won't. Before God, and all the imps of hell I'll
-not meddle with it. It's Jane Hemingway's business to look after her
-silly girl, and not mine."
-
-She went again to the porch and stood staring out into the white
-moonlight. The steady beat of the hoofs of Luke King's horse, dying out
-on the still night, came to her. Dear, dear boy! he did love the girl
-and he never would be the same again--never. It would mean his downfall
-from the glorious heights he had climbed. He would grapple as a wild
-beast with the despoiler, and, as he said, go willingly to his own end?
-Yes, that was Luke King; he had preached of the rugged road to heaven,
-he would take the easier way to hell, and laugh in his despair at the
-whole thing as a joke of fate.
-
-Before she knew it, Ann found herself out at her gate. Forces within her
-raised her hand to the latch and pushed her body through.
-
-"I'll not meddle," she said, and yet she moved on down the road. She met
-no one, heard nothing save the dismal croakings of the frogs in the
-marshes. On she went, increasing her speed at every step. Yes, she
-realized now that she must try to save the girl, for Virginia had done
-her no personal injury. No, she must abide another time and seek some
-other means for revenge against the mother. Chance would offer
-something. Why, the cancer--why hadn't she thought of that? Wasn't that
-enough for any human being to bear? Yes, Jane would get her reward. It
-was fast on the road. And for Luke's sake--for the sake of the brave,
-good-hearted, struggling boy, she would try to save his sweetheart. Yes,
-that seemed inevitable. The long, white fence of the Chester place
-suddenly cut across her view. Near the centre Ann descried the tall,
-imitation stone gate-posts, spanned at the top by a white crescent, and
-towards this portal she sped, breathing through her big nostrils like a
-laboring ox.
-
-Reaching the gate and opening it, she saw a buggy and a pair of horses
-hitched near the door. Ann paused among the boxwood bushes and stared in
-perplexity. What could it mean? she asked herself. Had Colonel Chester
-suddenly returned home, or was Langdon recklessly planning to flee the
-country with the thoughtless girl? Mystified, Ann trudged up the
-gravelled walk, seeing no one, till she stood on the veranda steps. The
-big, old-fashioned drawing-room on the right of the dark entrance-hall
-was lighted up. Loud, masculine laughter and bacchanalian voices burst
-through the half-open windows. Ann went up the steps and peered in at
-one of them, keeping her body well back in the shadow. There were three
-men within--two drummers, one of whom was Fred Masters, and Langdon
-Chester. The latter, calm and collected, and yet with a look of
-suppressed fury on his face, was reluctantly serving whiskey from an
-ancient cut-glass decanter. Ann saw that he was on the verge of an angry
-outburst, and began to speculate on the cause. Ah! she had an idea, and
-it thrilled her through and through. Quietly retracing her steps to the
-lawn, she inspected the exterior of the great, rambling structure. She
-was now sure that the visit of the men had come in the nature of an
-unwelcome surprise to the young master of the house, and she found
-herself suddenly clinging to the warm hope that the accident might have
-saved the girl.
-
-"Oh, God, let it be so!" Ann heard herself actually praying. "Give the
-poor young thing a chance to escape what I've been through!"
-
-But where was the object of her quest? Surely, Virginia had not gone
-back home, else Ann would have met her on the way. Looking long and
-steadily at the house, Ann suddenly descried a dim light burning
-up-stairs in the front room on the left-hand side of the upper hall.
-Instinct told her that she ought to search there, and, going back to the
-house, the determined rescuer crossed the veranda, walked boldly through
-the open doorway, and tiptoed to the foot of the broad, winding
-stairway. Loud laughter, the clinking of glasses, and blatant voices
-raised in harsh college-songs burst upon her. The yawning space through
-which the stairs reached upward was dark, but with a steady hand on the
-smooth walnut balustrade, Ann mounted higher and higher with absolutely
-fearless tread. She had just gained the first landing, and stood there
-encompassed in darkness, when the door of the drawing-room was suddenly
-wrenched open and Langdon and Masters, in each other's arms, playfully
-struggled into view.
-
-"You really must go now, boys," Chester was saying, in a persuasive
-voice. "I don't want to be inhospitable, you know, but I have that
-important work to do, and it must be done to-night. It is a serious
-legal matter, and I promised to mail the papers to my father the first
-thing in the morning."
-
-"Papers nothing!" Masters cried, in a drink-muffled tone. "This is the
-first time I ever honored your old ancestral shack with my presence, and
-I won't be sent off like a tramp from the door. Besides, you are not
-open and above-board--you never were so at college. That was your great
-forte, freezing your friends out of asking questions where your private
-devilment was concerned. That, and the reputation of your family for
-fighting duels, kept the whole school afraid of you. On my honor, Dick,"
-he called out to the man in the drawing-room, "I tell you I'm sure I saw
-a woman with him on the steps of the veranda as we drove up. He had hold
-of her hand and was pulling her into the hall."
-
-"Ah, don't be absurd," Ann heard Chester say, with a smooth, guarded
-laugh. "Get in your rig, boys, and drive back to the hotel. I'll see you
-in the morning."
-
-"Get in the rig nothing!" Masters laughed. "We are going to spend the
-night here, aren't we, Dick?"
-
-"You bet; that's what I came for," a voice replied from within. "But let
-him go do his work, Fred. You and I can finish the game, and empty his
-decanter. You can't walk off with my money and not give me a chance to
-win it back."
-
-"Yes, yes, that's a bang-up idea," Masters laughed, and he pushed
-Chester by main force back into the light. "You go burn the midnight
-oil, old man, and I'll make this tenderfoot telegraph his house for more
-expense money."
-
-With a thunderous slam, the door was closed. Loud voices in hot argument
-came from the room, and then there was silence. Chester had evidently
-given up in despair of getting rid of his guests. Ann moved on up the
-steps. In the room on the left the light was still burning, she could
-see a pencil of it under the door-shutter. To this she groped and softly
-rapped, bending her ear to the key-hole to listen. There was no sound
-within. Ann rapped again, more loudly, her hand on the latch. She
-listened again, and this time she was sure she heard a low moan. Turning
-the bolt, she found the door locked, but at the same instant noticed
-that the key had been left in the door on the outside. Turning the key,
-Ann opened the door, went in, and softly closed the opening after her. A
-lamp, turned low, stood on the mantel-piece, and in its light she saw a
-crouching figure in a chair. It was Virginia, her face covered with her
-hand, moaning piteously.
-
-"Let me go home, for God's sake, let me go home!" she cried, without
-looking up. "You said I was to get the money, if I came only to the
-door, and now--oh, oh!" The girl buried her face still deeper in her
-apron and sobbed.
-
-Ann, an almost repulsive grimace on her impassive face, stood over her
-and looked about the quaintly furnished room with its quiet puritanical
-luxury of space, at the massive mahogany centre-table, with carved legs
-and dragon-heads supporting the polished top, the high-posted bed and
-rich, old, faded canopy, the white counterpane and pillows looking like
-freshly fallen snow.
-
-"Thank God," Ann said, aloud.
-
-Virginia heard, sat as if stunned for an instant, and then with a stare
-of bewilderment looked up.
-
-"Oh!" she gasped. "I thought it was--"
-
-"I know, huh, child! nobody could know better than I do. Don't ask me
-what I come here for. I don't know any better than you do, but I come,
-and I'm going to get you out of it--that is, if I'm in time to do any
-good at all. Oh, you understand me, Virginia Hemingway. If I'm in time,
-you'll march out of here with me, if not, God knows you might as well
-stay here as anywhere else."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, how can you ask me such an awful--"
-
-"Well, then, I won't!" Ann said, more softly. "Besides, I can see the
-truth in your young face. The Almighty has put lights in the eyes of
-women that only one thing can put out. Yours are still burning."
-
-Virginia rose to her feet and clutched Ann's strong arm convulsively.
-
-"Oh, if you only knew _why_ I came, you'd not have the heart to think me
-absolutely bad. Mrs. Boyd, as God is my Judge, I came because he--"
-
-"You needn't bother to tell me anything about it," Ann grunted, with a
-shrug of her shoulders. "I know why you come; if I hadn't suspicioned
-the truth I'd have let you alone, but I ain't going to tell you why I
-come. I come, that's all. I come, and if we are going to get out of here
-without a scandal we've got to be slick about it. Those devils are still
-carousing down there. Let's go now while the parlor door is shut."
-
-They had reached the threshold of the chamber when Virginia drew back
-suddenly.
-
-"He told me not to dare to go that way!" she cried. "He said I'd be seen
-if I did. He locked me in, Mrs. Boyd--_he_ locked the door!"
-
-"I know that, too," Ann retorted, impatiently. "Didn't I have to turn
-the key to get in? But we've _got_ to go this way. We've got to go down
-them steps like I come, and past the room where they are holding high
-carnival. We've got to chance it, but we must be quick about it. We
-haven't time to stand here talking."
-
-She turned the carved brass knob and drew the shutter towards her. At
-the same instant she shrank back into Virginia's arms, for the
-drawing-room door was wrenched open, and Masters's voice rang out loudly
-in the great hall.
-
-"We will see where he bunks, won't we, Dick? By George, the idea of an
-old college-chum refusing to let a man see his house! I want to look at
-the photographs you used to stick up on the walls, you sly dog! Oh,
-you've got them yet! You don't throw beauties like them away when they
-cost a dollar apiece."
-
-"Go back to your game, boys!" Langdon commanded, with desperate
-coolness. "I'll show you the house after a while. Finish your game!"
-
-"The cold-blooded scoundrel!" Ann exclaimed, under her breath. "Not a
-drop has passed his lips to-night, as much as he likes a dram." She
-closed the door gently and stood looking about the room. On the edge of
-the mantel-piece she saw something that gleamed in the dim lamplight,
-and she went to it. It was a loaded revolver.
-
-"He threatened you with this, didn't he?" Ann asked, holding it before
-her with the easy clasp of an expert.
-
-"No, he didn't do that," Virginia faltered, "but he told me if--if I
-made a noise and attracted their attention and caused exposure, he'd
-kill himself. Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I didn't mean to come here to this room at
-first. I swear I didn't. He begged me to come as far as the front door
-to get the money the man had brought back from Darley, then--"
-
-"Then those drunken fools drove up, and he persuaded you to hide here,"
-Ann interrupted, her mind evidently on something else. "Oh, I
-understand; they played into his hands without knowing it, and it's my
-private opinion that they saved you, silly child. You can't tell me
-anything about men full of the fire of hell. You'd 'a' gone out of this
-house at break of day with every bit of self-respect wrung out of you
-like water out of a rag. You'd 'a' done that, if I hadn't come."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd--"
-
-"Don't oh Mrs. Boyd me!" Ann snapped out. "I know what I'm talking
-about. That isn't the point. The point is getting out to the road
-without a row and a scandal that will ring half-way round the world. Let
-a couple of foul-mouthed drummers know a thing like this, and they would
-actually pay to advertise it in the papers. I tell you, child--"
-
-Ann broke off to listen. The door of the drawing-room seemed to be
-opened again, and as quickly closed.
-
-"Come on." Ann held the revolver before her. "We've got to make a break
-for freedom. This ain't no place for a pure young woman. You've got what
-the highfaluting society gang at Darley would call a chaperon, but she
-isn't exactly of the first water, according to the way such things are
-usually graded. Seems like she's able to teach you tricks to-night."
-
-Virginia caught Ann's arm. "You are not going to shoot--" she began,
-nervously.
-
-"Not unless I _have_ to," Ann said. "But only hell knows what two
-drunken men and a cold, calculating devil of that brand will do in a
-pinch. I'll see you down them steps, and out into God's moonlight, if I
-have to drag you over enough corpses to make a corduroy road. I know how
-to shoot. I killed a squirrel once in a high tree with a pistol. Come
-on; they happen to be quiet right now."
-
-Ann opened the door and led the quaking girl across the upper corridor
-to the stairs, and they began to grope down the steps, Ann's revolver
-harshly scratching as it slid along the railing. The voices in the
-drawing-room, as they neared the door, grew more boisterous. There was a
-spasmodic and abortive effort at song on the part of Masters, a dash of
-a deck of playing-cards on the floor, angry swearing, and the calm
-remonstrance of the master of the house. Down the steps the two women
-went till the drawing-room door was passed. Then the veranda was gained,
-and the wide lawn and gravelled walks stretched out invitingly in the
-moonlight.
-
-"Thank God," Ann muttered, as if to herself. "Now come on, let's hustle
-out into the shelter of the woods."
-
-Speeding down the walk, hand-in-hand, they passed through the gate and
-reached the road. "Slick as goose-grease," Ann chuckled. "Now we are
-plumb safe--as safe as we'd be anywhere in the world."
-
-Drawing Virginia into the shadow of the trees bordering the road, she
-continued, more deliberately: "I could take you through the woods and
-across my meadows and fields, but it's a rough way at night, and it
-won't be necessary. We can take the main road and dodge out of the way
-if we hear anybody coming."
-
-"I'm not afraid now," Virginia sighed. "I'm not thinking about that. I'm
-only worried about what you think--what you think, Mrs. Boyd."
-
-"Never you mind what _I_ think, child," Ann said, quietly. "God knows I
-never would blame you like other folks, for I know a thing or two about
-life. I've learned my lesson."
-
-Virginia laid her hand firmly on Ann's strong one. "He promised me the
-money to have mother's operation performed. Oh, I couldn't let the
-chance escape, Mrs. Boyd--it meant so much to the poor woman. You have
-no idea what torture she is in. He wouldn't give it to me unless--unless
-I went all the way to his house for it. I hardly knew why, but--yes, I
-_knew_--"
-
-"That's right," Ann broke in, "it won't do any good to tell a story
-about it. You knew what he wanted; any girl of your age with
-common-sense would know."
-
-"Yes, I knew," Virginia confessed again, her head hanging, "but it was
-the only chance to get the money, and I thought I'd risk it. I _did_
-risk it, and have come away empty-handed. I'm safe, but my poor
-mother--"
-
-"Put that woman out of it for one minute, for God's sake!" Ann hurled at
-her. "And right here I want it understood I didn't leave a warm bed
-to-night to do her a favor. I done it, that's all there is about it, but
-keep her out of it."
-
-"All right," the girl gave in. "I don't want to make you mad after what
-you have done, but I owe it to myself to show you that I was thinking
-only of her. I am not bad at heart, Mrs. Boyd. I wanted to save my
-mother's life."
-
-"And you never thought of yourself, poor child!" slipped impulsively
-from Ann's firm lips. "Yes, yes, I believe that."
-
-"I thought only of her, till I found myself locked there in his room and
-remembered what, in my excitement, I had promised him. I promised him,
-Mrs. Boyd, to make no outcry, and--and--" Virginia raised her hands to
-her face. "I promised, on my word of honor, to wait there till he came
-back. When you knocked on the door I thought it was he, and when you
-opened it and came in and stood above me, I thought it was all over.
-Instead, it was you, and--"
-
-"And here we are out in the open air," Ann said, shifting the revolver
-to the other hand. She suddenly fixed her eyes on Virginia's thin-clad
-shoulders. "You didn't come here a cool night like this without
-something around you, did you?"
-
-"No, I--oh, I've left my shawl!" the girl cried. "He took it from me,
-and kept it. He said it was to bind me to my promise to stay till he got
-back."
-
-"The scoundrel!--the wily scamp!" Ann muttered. "Well, there is only one
-thing about it, child. I'm going back after that shawl. I wouldn't leave
-a thing like that in the hands of a young devil beat in his game; he'd
-make use of it. You go on home. I'll get your shawl by some hook or
-crook. You run over to my house on the sly to-morrow morning and I'll
-give it back to you."
-
-"But, Mrs. Boyd, I--"
-
-"Do as I tell you," the elder woman commanded, "and see that you keep
-this thing from Jane Hemingway. I don't want her to know the part I've
-taken to-night. Seems to me I'd rather die. What I've done, I've done,
-but it isn't for her to know. I've helped her daughter out of trouble,
-but the fight is still on between me and her, and don't you forget it.
-Now, go on; don't stand there and argue with me. Go on, I tell you. What
-you standing there like a sign-post with the boards knocked off for? Go
-on home. I'm going back for that shawl."
-
-Virginia hesitated for a moment, and then, without speaking again, and
-with her head hanging down, she turned homeward.
-
-
-
-
-XXII
-
-
-As Ann Boyd reached the veranda, on her return to the house, loud and
-angry voices came from the parlor through an open window.
-
-"Blast you, I believe it _was_ some woman," she heard Masters say in a
-maudlin tone, "and that's why you are so anxious to hurry us away. Oh,
-I'm onto you. George Wilson told me you were hanging round the girl you
-refused to introduce me to, and for all I know--"
-
-"That's no business of yours," Chester retorted, in a tone of sudden
-fury. "I've stood this about as long as I'm going to, Masters, even if
-you are drunk and don't know what you are about. Peterkin, you'd better
-take your friend home; my house is not a bar-room, and my affairs are my
-own. I want that understood."
-
-"Look here, Masters," a new voice broke in, "you _are_ going too far,
-and I'm not going to stand for it. Chester's right. When you are full
-you are the most unreasonable man alive. This is my turnout at the
-door--come on, or I'll leave you to walk to Springtown."
-
-"Well, I'll go all right," threatened Masters, "but I am not done yet.
-I'll see you again, my boy. What they used to say in college is true;
-you won't tote fair. You are for number one every time, and would
-sacrifice a friend for your own interests at the drop of a hat."
-
-"Take him on, take him on!" cried Chester.
-
-"Oh, I'm going all right!" growled Masters. "And I'm not drunk either.
-My judgment of you is sober-headed enough. You--"
-
-They were coming through the hall to gain the door, and Ann quickly
-concealed herself behind one of the tall Corinthian columns that
-supported the massive, projecting roof of the veranda. She was standing
-well in the shadow when Masters, drawn forcibly by his friend, staggered
-limply out and down the steps. Langdon followed to the edge of the
-veranda, and stood there, frowning sullenly in the light from the
-window. He was pale and haggard, his lip quivering in the rage he was
-trying to control as he watched Peterkin half lifting and almost roughly
-shoving Masters into the vehicle.
-
-"The puppy!" Ann heard him muttering. "I ought to have slapped his
-meddlesome mouth."
-
-Several minutes passed. Ann scarcely dared to breathe freely, so close
-was she to the young planter. Masters was now in the buggy, leaning
-forward, his head lolling over the dashboard, and Peterkin was getting
-in beside him. The next moment the impatient horses had turned around
-and were off down the drive in a brisk trot.
-
-"Yes, I ought to have kicked the meddling devil out and been done with
-it!" Ann heard Langdon say. "She, no doubt, has heard all the racket and
-been scared to death all this time, poor little thing!"
-
-Chester was on the point of turning into the hall when a step sounded at
-the corner of the house nearest the negro quarter, and a short, portly
-figure emerged into the light.
-
-"Marse Langdon, you dar?" a voice sounded.
-
-"Yes, Aunt Maria." The young planter spoke with ill-disguised
-impatience. "What is it?"
-
-"Nothin', Marse Langdon, 'cep' dem rapscallions kept me awake, an' I
-heard you stormin' out at um. I tol' yo' pa, Marse Langdon, ef dey was
-any mo' night carouses while he was gone I'd let 'im know, but I ain't
-gwine mention dis, kase I done see how hard you tried to oust dat low
-white trash widout a row. You acted de plumb gentleman, Marse Langdon.
-Is de anything I kin do fer you, Marse Langdon?"
-
-"No, Aunt Maria." Chester's tone betrayed impatience even with the
-consideration of the faithful servant. "No, I don't want a thing. I'm
-going to bed. I've got a headache. If any one should call to-night,
-which is not likely at this hour, send them away. I sha'n't get up."
-
-Ann was now fearful lest in turning he would discover her presence
-before the negro had withdrawn, and, seeing her opportunity while his
-attention was still on the road, from which the trotting of the
-departing horses came in a steady beat of hoofs, she noiselessly glided
-into the big hall through the open door and stood against a wall in the
-darkness.
-
-"Now, I reckon, they will let me alone!" she heard Chester say, as he
-came into the hall and turned into the parlor. The next instant he had
-blown out the tall prismed lamp, lowered a window, and come out to close
-and lock the front door.
-
-His hand was on the big brass handle when, in a calm voice, Ann
-addressed him:
-
-"I want a word with you, Mr. Chester," she said, and she moved towards
-him, the revolver hanging at her side.
-
-She heard him gasp, and he stood as if paralyzed in the moonbeams which
-fell through the open doorway and the side-lights of frosted glass.
-
-"Who are you?" he managed to articulate.
-
-"Oh, you know me, I reckon, Mr. Chester. I'm Ann Boyd. I want to see you
-on a little private business, just between you and me, you know. It
-needn't go any further."
-
-"Oh, Ann Boyd!" he exclaimed, and the thought ran through his bewildered
-brain that she had mistaken him for his father, and that he was
-accidentally running upon evidence of an intercourse between the two
-that he had thought was a thing of the past. "But, Mrs. Boyd," he said,
-"you've made a mistake. My father is away; he left for Savannah--"
-
-"I didn't want to see your father," Ann snarled, angrily. "My business
-is with you, my fine young man, and nobody else."
-
-"Me?" he gasped, in growing surprise. "Me?"
-
-"Yes, you. I've come back for Virginia Hemingway's shawl. She says you
-kept it. Just between you and me," she went on, "I don't intend to leave
-a thing like that in the hands of a man of your stamp to hold over the
-poor girl and intimidate her with."
-
-"You say--you say--" He seemed unable to formulate expression for his
-abject astonishment, and he left the door and aimlessly moved to the
-railing of the stairs and stood facing her. His eyes now fell on the
-revolver in her hand, and the sight of it increased his wondering
-perturbation.
-
-"I said I wanted her shawl," Ann repeated, firmly, "and I don't see no
-reason why I should stand here all night to get it. You know what you
-did with it. Hand it to me!"
-
-"Her shawl?" he muttered, still staring at her wide-eyed and bewildered,
-and wondering if this might not be some trap the vindictive recluse was
-setting for him.
-
-"Oh, I see," Ann laughed--"you think the poor, frail thing is still up
-there locked in that room; but she ain't. I saw her coming this way
-to-night, and, happening to know what you wanted her for, I come after
-her. You was busy with them galoots in the parlor, and I didn't care to
-bother you, so I went up and fetched her down without waiting to send in
-a card. She's in her bed by this time, poor little thing! And I come
-back for the shawl. I wasn't afraid of you, even without this gun that I
-found in your room. Thank God, the girl's as pure as she was the day she
-drew milk from her mother's breast, and I'll see to it that you won't
-never bother her again. This night you have sunk lower than man ever
-sunk--even them in your own family. You tried everything hell could
-invent, and when you failed you went to heaven for your bribes. You knew
-how she loved her wretched old hag of a mammy and what she wanted the
-money for. Some sensible folks argue that there isn't no such place as a
-hell. I tell you, Langdon Chester, there _is_ one, and it's full to
-running over--packed to the brink--with your sort. For your own low and
-selfish gratification you'd consign that beautiful flower of a girl to a
-long life of misery. You dirty scamp, I'm a good mind to--Look here, get
-me that shawl! You'll make me mad in a minute." She suddenly advanced
-towards him, the revolver raised half threateningly, and he shrank back
-in alarm.
-
-"Don't, don't point that thing at me!" he cried. "I don't want trouble
-with you."
-
-"Well, you get that shawl then, and be quick about it."
-
-He put a foot on the lower step of the stairs. "It's up at the door of
-the room," he said, doggedly. "I dropped it there just for a joke. I was
-only teasing her. I--I know she's a good girl. She--she knew I was going
-to give it back to her. I was afraid she'd get frightened and run down
-before those men, and--"
-
-"And your hellish cake would be dough!" Ann sneered. "Oh, I see, but
-that isn't getting the shawl."
-
-He took another slow step, his eyes upon her face, and paused.
-
-"You are trying to make it out worse than it is," he said, at the end of
-his resources. "I promised to give her the money, which I had locked in
-the desk in the library for safe-keeping, and asked her to come get it.
-She and I were on the steps when those men drove up. I begged her to run
-up-stairs to that room. I--I locked the door to--to keep them out more
-than for--for any other reason."
-
-"Oh yes, I know you did, Langdon Chester, and you took her shawl for the
-same reason and made the poor, helpless, scared thing agree to wait for
-you. A good scamp pleases me powerful, but you are too good a sample for
-any use. Get the shawl."
-
-"I don't want to be misunderstood," Chester said, in an all but
-conciliatory tone, as he took a slow, upward step.
-
-"Well, you bet there's no danger of me not understanding you," Ann
-sneered. "Get that shawl."
-
-Without another word he groped up the dark steps. Ann heard him walking
-about on the floor above, striking matches and uttering exclamations of
-anger. Presently she heard him coming. When half-way down the stairs he
-paused and threw the shawl to her.
-
-"There it is," he said, sullenly. "Leave my revolver on the steps."
-
-Ann caught the shawl, which, like some winged thing, swooped down
-through the darkness, and the next instant she had lowered the hammer of
-the revolver and laid it on the lowest step of the stairs.
-
-"All right, it's an even swap," she chuckled--"your gun for our shawl.
-Now go to your bed and sleep on this. It's my opinion that, bad as you
-are, young man, I've done you a favor to-night."
-
-"There's one thing I'll try to find out," he summoned up retaliatory
-courage to say, "and that is why you are bothering yourself so much
-about the daughter of a woman you are doing all you can to injure."
-
-Ann laughed from the door as she crossed the threshold, the shawl under
-her arm. "It will do you good to study on that problem," she said. "You
-find that out, and I'll pay you well for the answer. I don't know that
-myself."
-
-From the window of his room above, Langdon watched her as she passed
-through the gate and disappeared on the lonely road.
-
-"She won't tell it," he decided. "She'll keep quiet, unless it is her
-plan to hold it over Jane Hemingway. That may be it--and yet if that is
-so, why didn't she--wait?"
-
-
-
-
-XXIII
-
-
-The sun had just risen the next morning, and its long, red streamers
-were kindling iridescent fires in the jewels of dew on the dying grass
-of the fields. White mists, like tenderly caressing clouds, hung along
-the rocky sides of the mountains. Ann Boyd, her eyes heavy from unwonted
-loss of sleep, was at the barn feeding her horses when she saw Virginia
-coming across the meadows. "She wants her shawl, poor thing!" Ann mused.
-"I'll go get it."
-
-She went back into the house and brought it out just as the beautiful
-girl reached the barn-yard fence and stood there wordless, timid, and
-staring. "You see, I kept my word," the elder woman said, with an effort
-at a smile. "Here is your shawl." Virginia reached out for it. She said
-nothing, simply folding the shawl on her arm and staring into Ann's eyes
-with a woe-begone expression. She had lost her usual color, and there
-were black rings round her wonderful eyes that gave them more depth and
-seeming mystery than ever.
-
-"I hope your mother wasn't awake last night when you got back," Ann
-said.
-
-"No, she wasn't--she was sound asleep," Virginia said, without change of
-expression. It was as if, in her utter depression, she had lost all
-individuality.
-
-"Then she don't know," Ann put in.
-
-"No, she don't suspect, Mrs. Boyd. If she did, she'd die, and so would
-I."
-
-"Well, I don't see as she is likely to know--_ever_, as long as she
-lives," Ann said, in a crude attempt at comfort-giving.
-
-"I fancied you'd _want_ her to know," said the girl, looking at Ann
-frankly. "After I thought it over, I came to the conclusion that maybe
-you did it all so you could tell her. I see no other reason for--for you
-being so--so good to--to me."
-
-"Well, I don't know as I've been good to anybody." Ann's color was
-rising in spite of her cold exterior. "But we won't talk about that.
-Though I'll tell you one thing, child, and that is that I'll never tell
-this to a living soul. Nobody but you and me an' that trifling scamp
-will ever know it. Now, will _that_ do you any good? It's the same, you
-see, as if it had never really taken place."
-
-"But it _did_ take place!" Virginia said, despondently.
-
-"Oh yes, but you don't know when you are in luck," Ann said, grimly. "In
-things like that a miss is as good as a mile. Study my life awhile, and
-you'll fall down on your knees and thank God for His mercy. Huh, child,
-don't be silly! I know when a young and good-looking girl that has gone
-a step too far is fortunate. Look here--changing the subject--I saw your
-mammy standing in the back door just now. Does she know you left the
-house?"
-
-"Yes, I came to look for the cow," said Virginia.
-
-"Then she don't suspicion where you are at," said Ann. "Now, you see,
-she may have noticed that you walked off without a shawl, and you'd
-better not wear one home. Leave it with me and come over for it some
-time in the day when she won't miss you."
-
-"I think I'd better take it back," Virginia replied. "She wears it
-herself sometimes and might miss it."
-
-"Oh, I see!" Ann's brows ran together reflectively. "Well, I'll tell
-you. Tote it under your arm till you get near the house, and then drop
-it somewhere in the weeds or behind the ash-hopper, and go out and get
-it when she ain't looking."
-
-"I'll do that, then," the girl said, wearily. "I was thinking, Mrs.
-Boyd, that not once last night did I remember to thank you for--"
-
-"Oh, don't thank _me_, child!" Had Ann been a close observer of her own
-idiosyncrasies, her unwary softness of tone and gentleness to a daughter
-of her sworn enemy would have surprised her. "Don't thank me," she
-repeated. "Thank God for letting you escape the lot of others just as
-young and unsuspecting as you ever were. I don't deserve credit for what
-I done last night. In fact, between you and me, I tried my level best
-not to interfere. Why I finally gave in I don't know, but I done it, and
-that's all there is to it. I done it. I got started and couldn't stop.
-But I want to talk to you. Come in the house a minute. It won't take
-long. Jane--your mother--will think the cow has strayed off, but there
-stands the cow in the edge of the swamp. Come on."
-
-Dumbly, Virginia followed into the house and sank into a chair, holding
-her shapely hands in her lap, her wealth of golden-brown hair massed on
-her head and exquisite neck. Ann shambled in her untied, dew-wet shoes
-to the fireplace and poured out a cup of coffee from a tin pot on the
-coals.
-
-"Drink this," she said. "If what I hear is true, you don't get any too
-much to eat and drink over your way."
-
-Virginia took it and sipped it daintily, but with evident relish.
-
-"I see you take to that," Ann said, unconscious of the genuine, motherly
-delight she was betraying. "Here, child, I'll tell you what I want you
-to do. These spiced sausages of mine, dry as powder in the corn-shuck,
-are the best and sweetest flavored that ever you stuck a tooth in. They
-fry in their own grease almost as soon as they hit a hot pan when they
-are sliced thin."
-
-"Oh no, I thank you," Virginia protested; "I really couldn't."
-
-"But I know you _can_," Ann insisted, as she cut down from a rafter
-overhead one of the sausages and deftly sliced it in a pan already hot
-on the coals. "You needn't tell me you ain't hungry. I can see it in
-your face. Besides, do you know it's a strange fact that a woman will
-eat just the same in trouble as out, while a man's appetite is gone the
-minute he's worried?"
-
-The girl made no further protest, and Ann soon brought some hot slices
-of the aromatic food, with nicely browned toast, and placed them in a
-plate in her lap. "How funny all this seems!" Ann ran on.
-
-"Here I am feeding you up and feeling sorry for you when only last night
-I--well, I've got to talk to you, and I'm going to get it over with.
-I'll have to speak of the part of my life that has been the cud for
-every idle woman in these mountains to chaw on for many, many years, but
-I'm going to do it, so you will know better what you escaped last night;
-but, first of all, I want to ask you a straight question, and I don't
-mean no harm nor to be meddling where I have no business. I want to know
-if you love this Langdon Chester as--well, as you've always fancied
-you'd love the man you became a wife to."
-
-There was a moment's hesitation on the part of the girl. Her cheeks took
-on color; she broke a bit of the sausage with her fork, but did not
-raise it to her lips.
-
-"I'm asking you a simple, plain question," Ann reminded her.
-
-"No, I don't," Virginia answered, haltingly;--"that is, not now, not--"
-
-"Ah, I see!" the old woman cried. "The feeling died just as soon as you
-saw straight down into his real nature, just as soon as you saw that
-he'd treat you like a slave, that he'd abuse you, beat you, lock you up,
-if necessary--in fact, do anything a brute would do to gain his aims."
-
-"I'm afraid, now, that I never really loved him," Virginia said, a catch
-in her voice.
-
-"Humph!" Ann ejaculated. "I see. Then you went all the way over that
-lonely road to his house with just one thought in your mind, and that
-was to get that money for your mother."
-
-"As God is my Judge, Mrs. Boyd, that's all I went for," Virginia said,
-her earnest eyes staring steadily at her companion.
-
-"Well, I'm glad it was that way," Ann mused. "There was a time when I
-thought you were a silly girl whose head could easily be turned, but
-I've been hearing fine things about you, and I see you are made of good,
-solid, womanly stuff. Now, I want to tell you the whole truth, and then,
-if you want to consider me a friend and a well-wisher, all right. I'm no
-better-hearted than the average mortal woman. The truth is, Virginia
-Hemingway, I hate your mother as much as one human being can hate
-another this side of the bad place. She's been a thorn in my side the
-biggest part of my life. Away back when I was about your age, I got into
-just such a tight as you was in last night. For a long time afterwards I
-was nearly crazy, but when the prime cause of my trouble went off and
-married I begun to try to live again. I fell in love with a real
-good-natured, honest man. I wanted him to know the truth, but I never
-knew how to tell him, and so I kept holding off. He was a great beau
-among the girls of that day, making love to all of them, your mother
-among the rest. Finally, I give in. I couldn't resist his begging, my
-friends advised it, and me and him was married. That was the beginning
-of your mammy's enmity. It kept up, and when the truth about me finally
-leaked out she saw to it that my husband would not overlook the
-past--she saw to it that I was despised, kicked, and sneered at by the
-community--and my husband left with my only child. I sent up a daily
-prayer to be furnished with the means for revenge, but it didn't do any
-good, and then I got to begging the devil for what the Lord had refused.
-That seemed to work better, for one day a hint came to me that Langdon
-Chester was on your trail. That gave me the first glimpse of hope of
-solid revenge I'd had. I kept my eyes and ears open day and night. I saw
-your doom coming--I lived over what I'd been through, and the thought
-that you were to go through it was as sweet to me as honey in the comb.
-Finally the climax arrived. I saw you on the way to his house last
-night, and understood what it meant. I was squatting down behind a fence
-at the side of the road. I saw you pass, and followed you clean to the
-gate, and then turned back, at every step exulting over my triumph. The
-very sky overhead was ablaze with the fire of your fall to my level. But
-at my gate I was halted suddenly. Virginia--to go back a bit--there is a
-certain young man in this world that I reckon is the only human being
-that I love. I love him, I reckon, because he always seemed to love me,
-and believe me better than I am, and, more than that, he was the only
-person that ever pointed out a higher life to me. He was the poor boy
-that I educated, and who went off and done well, and has just come back
-to this country."
-
-"Luke King!" Virginia exclaimed, softly, and then she impulsively placed
-her hand on her lips and sat staring at the speaker, almost breathlessly
-alert.
-
-"Yes, Luke King," said Ann, with feeling. "Strange to say, he has always
-said the day would come when I'd rise above hatred and revenge; he has
-learned some queer things in the West. Well, last night when I met him
-he said he'd come up to see his mother, who he heard was a little sick,
-but he finally admitted that her sickness wasn't all that fetched him.
-He said he was worried. He was more downhearted than I ever saw him
-before. Virginia Hemingway, he said he was worried about _you_."
-
-"About _me_? Oh no," Virginia gasped.
-
-"Yes, about you," Ann went on. "The poor fellow sat down on the
-door-step and laid bare his whole young heart to me. He'd loved you, he
-said, ever since you was a little girl. He'd taken your sweet face off
-with him on that long stay, and it had been with him constantly. It was
-on your account he yielded to the temptation to locate in Georgia again,
-and when he come back and saw you a full-grown woman he told me he felt
-that you and he were intended for one another. He said he knew your
-beautiful character. He said he'd been afraid to mention it to you,
-seeing you didn't feel the same way, and he thought it would be wiser to
-let it rest awhile; but then he learned that Langdon Chester was going
-with you, and he got worried. He was afraid that Langdon wouldn't tote
-fair with you. I may as well tell you the truth, Virginia. I never was
-so mad in all my life, for there I was right at that minute gloating
-over your ruin. I was feeling that way while he was telling me, with
-tears in his eyes and voice, that if--if harm came to a hair of your
-bonny head he'd kill Langdon Chester in cold blood, and go to the
-gallows with a smile on his lips. He didn't know anything wrong, he was
-just afraid--that was all, just afraid--and he begged me--just think of
-it, _me_, who was right then hot with joy over your plight--he begged me
-to see you some day soon and try to get you to care for him. I was so
-mad I couldn't speak, and he went off, his last word being that he knew
-I wouldn't fail him."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I can't stand this!" Virginia bowed her head and began
-to sob. "He was always a good friend, but I never dreamed that he cared
-for me that way, and now he thinks that I--thinks that I--oh!"
-
-"Well," Ann went on, disregarding the interruption, "I was left to
-tussle with the biggest situation of my life. I tried to fight it. I
-laid down to sleep, but rolled and tossed, unable to close my eyes, till
-at last, as God is my Judge, something inside of me--a big and swelling
-something I'd never felt before--picked me up and made me go to that
-house. You know the rest. Instead of standing by in triumph and seeing
-the child of my enemy swept away by my fate, I was praying God to save
-her. I don't know what to make of my conduct, even now. Last night, when
-I come back to my house, I seemed all afire with feelings like none I
-ever had. As the Lord is my holy Guide, I felt like I wished I'd
-comforted you more--wished I'd taken you in my poor old arms there in
-the moonlight and held you to my breast, like I wish somebody had done
-me away back there before that dark chasm opened in front of me. I'm
-talking to you now as I never dreamt I could talk to a female, much less
-a daughter of Jane Hemingway; but I can't help it. You are Luke's chosen
-sweetheart, and to cast a slur on you for what took place last night
-would be to blight my own eternal chances of salvation; for, God bless
-your gentle little soul, you went there blinded by your mother's
-suffering, an excuse I couldn't make. No, there's just one thing about
-it. Luke is right. You are a good, noble girl, and you've had your cross
-to bear, and I want to see you get what I missed--a long, happy life of
-love and usefulness in this world. You will get it with Luke, for he is
-the grandest character I ever knew or heard about. I don't know but what
-right now it is his influence that's making me whirl about this odd way.
-I don't know what to make of it. As much as I hate your mother, I almost
-feel like I could let her stand and abuse me to my face and not talk
-back. Now, dry your eyes and finish that sausage. I reckon I hain't the
-virago and spitfire you've been taught to think I am. Most of us are
-better on the inside than out. Stop--stop now! crying won't do any
-good."
-
-"I can't help it," Virginia sobbed. "You are so good to me, and to think
-that it was from my mother that you got all your abuse."
-
-"Well, never mind about that," Ann said, laying her hand almost with
-shamefaced stealth on the girl's head and looking towards the swamp
-through the open door. "I see your cow is heading for home on her own
-accord. Follow her. This is our secret; nobody need know but us two.
-Your mammy would have you put in a house of detention if she knew it.
-Slip over and see me again when her back is turned. Lord, Lord, I wonder
-why I never thought about pitying you all along, instead of actually
-hating you for no fault of yours!"
-
-Virginia rose, put the plate on the table, and, with her face full of
-emotion, she impulsively put her arms around Ann's neck.
-
-"You are the best woman on earth," she said, huskily, "and I love you--I
-can't help it. I love you."
-
-"Oh, I reckon you don't do _that_," Ann said, coloring to the roots of
-her heavy hair. "That wouldn't be possible."
-
-"But I _do_, I tell you, I _do_," Virginia said again, "and I'll never
-do an unwomanly thing again in my life. But I don't want to meet Luke
-King again. I couldn't after what has happened."
-
-"Oh, you let that take care of itself," Ann said, accompanying Virginia
-to the door.
-
-She stood there, her red hands folded under her apron, and watched the
-girl move slowly across the meadow after the plodding cow.
-
-"What a pretty trick!" Ann mused. "And to think she'd actually put her
-arms round my old neck and hug me, and say she--oh, that was odd, very,
-very odd! I don't seem to be my own boss any longer."
-
-An hour later, as she stood in her front porch cutting the dying vines
-from the strings which held them upward, she saw Mrs. Waycroft hastening
-along the road towards her. "There, I clean forgot that woman," Ann
-said, her brow wrinkled. "She's plumb full of what she heard that scamp
-saying to Virginia at the graveyard. I'll have to switch her off the
-track some way, the Lord only knows how, but off she goes, if I have to
-lie to my best friend till I'm black in the face."
-
-"I've been wanting to get over all morning," the visitor said, as she
-opened the gate and hurried in. "I had my breakfast two hours ago, but
-Sally Hinds and her two children dropped in and detained me. They
-pretended they wanted to talk about the next preaching, but it was
-really to get something to eat. The littlest one actually sopped the
-gravy from the frying-pan with a piece of bread-crust. I wanted to slip
-out last night and come over here to watch the road to see if Virginia
-Hemingway kept her promise, but just about that hour Jim Dilk--he lives
-in my yard, you know--he had a spasm, and we all thought he was going to
-die."
-
-"Well, I reckon," Ann said, carelessly, as she pulled at a rotten piece
-of twine supporting a dead vine, and broke it from its nail under the
-eaves of the porch--"I reckon you'd 'a' had your trip for nothing, and
-maybe feel as sneaking about it as I confess I do."
-
-"Sneaking?" echoed Mrs. Waycroft.
-
-"Yes, the truth is, I was mean enough, Mary, to hold watch on the road
-in that chill night air, and got nothing but a twitch of rheumatism in
-my leg as a reward. The truth is, Virginia Hemingway is all right. She
-wanted that money bad enough, but it was just on old Jane's account, and
-she wasn't going to be led into sech a trap as that. I reckon Langdon
-Chester was doing most of the talking when you saw them together. She
-may be flirting a little with him, as most any natural young girl would,
-but, just between me 'n' you--now, see that this goes no further,
-Mary--there is a big, big case up between Virginia and Luke King."
-
-"You _don't say_! How did you drop onto that?" gasped Mrs. Waycroft.
-
-"Well, I don't feel at liberty exactly to tell how I got onto it," Ann
-said, pulling at another piece of twine; "but it will get out before
-long. Luke has been in love with her ever since she wore short dresses."
-
-"Huh, that _is_ a surprise!" said Mrs. Waycroft. "Well, she is
-fortunate, Ann. He's a fine young man."
-
-
-
-
-XXIV
-
-
-Towards sunset that afternoon, as Ann was returning from her
-cotton-house, she came upon Virginia in a thicket on the roadside
-picking up pieces of fallen tree-branches for fire-wood. Ann had
-approached from the rear, and Virginia was unaware of her nearness. To
-the old woman's surprise, the girl's eyes were red from weeping, and
-there was a droop of utter despondency on her as she moved about, her
-apron full of sticks, her glance on the ground. Ann hesitated for a
-minute, and then stepped across the stunted grass and touched her on the
-arm.
-
-"What's the matter _now_, child?" she asked.
-
-The girl turned suddenly and flushed to the roots of her hair, but she
-made no response.
-
-"What's gone wrong?" Ann pursued, anxiously. "Don't tell me your mother
-has found out about--"
-
-"Oh no, it's not that," Virginia said, wiping her eyes with her
-disengaged hand. "It's not that. I'm just miserable, Mrs. Boyd, that's
-all--thoroughly miserable. You mustn't think I'm like this all the time,
-for I'm not. I've been cheerful at home all day--as cheerful as I could
-be under the circumstances; but, being alone out here for the first
-time, I got to thinking about my mother, and the sadness of it all was
-too much for me."
-
-"She hain't worse, is she?" Ann asked.
-
-"Not that anybody could see, Mrs. Boyd," the girl replied; "but the
-cancer must be worse. Two doctors from Springtown, who were riding by,
-stopped to ask for a drink of water, and my uncle told them about
-mother's trouble. It looked like they just wanted to see it out of
-professional curiosity, for when they heard we had no money and were
-deeply in debt they didn't offer any advice. But they looked very much
-surprised when they made an examination, and it was plain that they
-didn't think she had much chance. My mother was watching their faces,
-and knew what they thought, and when they had gone away she fairly
-collapsed. I never heard such pitiful moaning in all my life. She is
-more afraid of death than any one I ever saw, and she just threw herself
-on her bed and prayed for mercy. Oh, it was awful! awful! Then my uncle
-came in and said the doctors had said the specialist in Atlanta could
-really cure her, if she had the means to get the treatment, and that
-made her more desperate. From praying she turned almost to cursing in
-despair. My uncle is usually indifferent about most matters, but the
-whole thing almost made him sick. He went out to the side of the house
-to keep from hearing her cries. Some of his friends came along the road
-and joked with him, but he never spoke to them. He told me there was a
-young doctor at Darley who was willing to operate on her, but that he
-would be doing it only as an experiment, and that nobody but the Atlanta
-specialist would be safe in such a case."
-
-"And the cost, if I understood right," said Ann--"the cost, first and
-last, would foot up to about a hundred dollars."
-
-"Yes, that's what it would take," Virginia sighed.
-
-Ann's brow was furrowed; her eyes flashed reminiscently. "She ought to
-have been laying by something all along," she said, "instead of making
-it her life business to harass and pull down a person that never did her
-no harm."
-
-"Don't say anything against her!" Virginia flared up. "If you do, I
-shall be sorry I said what I did this morning. You have been kind to me,
-but not to her, and she is my mother, who is now lying at the point of
-death begging for help that never will come."
-
-Ann stared steadily, and then her lashes began to flicker. "I don't know
-but I think more of you for giving me that whack, my girl," she said,
-simply. "I deserve it. I've got no right on earth to abuse a mother to
-her only child, much less a mother in the fix yours is in. No, I went
-too far, my child. You are not in the fight between me and her."
-
-"You ought to be ashamed to be in it, when she's down," said Virginia,
-warmly.
-
-"Well, I _am_," Ann admitted. "I _am_. Come on to my gate with me. I
-want to talk to you. There is a lot of loose wood lying about up there,
-and you are welcome to all you pick up; so you won't be losing time."
-
-With her apron drawn close up under her shapely chin, her eyes still red
-and her cheeks damp, Virginia obeyed. If she had been watching her
-companion closely, she might have wondered over the strange expression
-of Ann's face. Now and then, as she trudged along, kicking up the back
-part of her heavy linsey skirt in her sturdy strides, a shudder would
-pass over her and a weighty sigh of indecision escape her big chest.
-
-"To think this would come to me!" she muttered once. "_Me!_ God knows it
-looks like my work t'other night was far enough out of my regular track
-without--huh!"
-
-Reaching the gate, she told Virginia to wait a minute at the fence till
-she went into the house. She was gone several minutes, during which time
-the wondering girl heard her moving about within; then she appeared in
-the doorway, almost pale, a frown on her strong face.
-
-"Look here, child," she said, coming out and leaning her big, bare
-elbows on the top rail of the fence, "I've thought this all over and
-over till my head spins like a top, and I can see but one way for your
-mother to get out of her trouble. I'm the greatest believer you ever run
-across of every human being doing his or her _full_ duty in every case.
-Now, strange as it may sound, I left my home last night and deliberately
-made it my special business to step in between you and the only chance
-of getting the money your mother stands in need of. I thought I was
-doing what was right, and I still believe I was, as far as it went, but
-I was on the point of making a botched job of it. I'd get mighty few
-thanks, I reckon, for saving you from the clutches of that scamp if I
-left your mother to die in torment of body and soul. So, as I say, there
-ain't but one way out of it."
-
-Ann paused; she was holding something tightly clasped in her hand, and
-not looking at Virginia.
-
-"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," the girl said, wonderingly. "If
-you see any way out, it is more than I can."
-
-"Well, your mother's got to go to Atlanta," Ann said, sheepishly; "and,
-as I see it, there isn't but one person whose duty it is to put up the
-cash for it, _and that person is me_."
-
-"You? Oh no, Mrs. Boyd!"
-
-"But I know better, child. The duty has come on me like a load of bricks
-dumped from a wagon. The whole thing has driven me slap-dab in a corner.
-I know when I'm whipped--that's one of the things that has helped me
-along in a moneyed way in this life--it was always knowing when to let
-up. I've got to wave the white flag in this battle till my enemy's on
-her feet, then the war may go on. But"--Ann opened her hand and
-displayed the bills she was holding--"take this money home with you."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I couldn't think of--"
-
-"Well, don't think about it; take it on, and don't argue with a woman
-older than you are, and who knows better when and how a thing has to be
-done."
-
-Most reluctantly Virginia allowed Ann to press the money into her
-unwilling hand. "But remember this," Ann said, firmly: "Jane Hemingway
-must never know where you got it--never! Do you understand? It looks
-like I can stand most anything better than letting that woman know I put
-up money on this; besides, bad off as she is, she'd peg out before she'd
-let me help her."
-
-Virginia's face was now aflame with joy. "I tell you what I'll do," she
-said. "I'll accept it as a loan, and I'll pay it back some day if I have
-to work my hands to the bone."
-
-"Well, you can do as you like about that," Ann said. "The only thing I
-absolutely insist on is that she isn't told who sent it. It wouldn't be
-hard to keep her in the dark; if you'll promise me right here, on your
-word, not to tell, then you can say you gave your sacred promise to that
-effect, and that would settle it."
-
-"Well, I'll do that," Virginia finally agreed. "I know I can do that."
-
-"All right," Ann said. "It may set the old thing to guessing powerful,
-and she may bore you to tell, promise or no promise, but she'll never
-suspicion _me_--never while the sun shines from the sky."
-
-"No, she won't suspect you," Virginia admitted, and with a grateful,
-backward look she moved away.
-
-Ann stood leaning against the fence, her eyes on the receding figure as
-the girl moved along the sunlit road towards the dun cottage in the
-shadow of the mountain.
-
-"I reckon I'm a born idiot," she said; "but there wasn't no other way
-out of it--no other under the sun. I got my foot in it when I laid in
-wait watching for the girl to walk into that trap. If I hadn't been so
-eager for that, I could have left Jane Hemingway to her fate. Good Lord,
-if this goes on, I'll soon be bowing and scraping at that old hag's
-feet--_me!_ huh! when it's been _her_ all this time that has been at the
-bottom of the devilment."
-
-
-
-
-XXV
-
-
-During this talk Jane Hemingway had gone out to the fence to speak to
-Dr. Evans, who had passed along the road, a side of bacon on his left
-shoulder, and she came back, and with a low groan sat down. Sam
-Hemingway, who sat near the fire, shrugged his shoulders and sniffed.
-"You are making too much of a hullabaloo over it," he said. "I've been
-thinking about the matter a lots, and I've come to the final conclusion
-that you are going it entirely too heavy, considering the balance of us.
-Every man, woman, and child, born and unborn, is predestinated to die,
-and them that meet their fate graceful-like are the right sort. Seeing
-you takin' on after them doctors left actually turned _me_ sick at the
-stomach, and that ain't right. I'll be sick enough when my own time
-comes, I reckon, without having to go through separate spells for all my
-kin by marriage every time they have a little eruption break out on
-them. Then here's Virginia having her bright young life blighted when it
-ought to be all sunshine and roses, if I may be allowed to quote the
-poets. I'll bet when you was a young girl your cheeks wasn't kept wet as
-a dish-rag by a complaining mother. No, what you've got to do, Sister
-Jane, is to pucker up courage and face the music--be resigned."
-
-"Resigned! I say, resigned!" was the rebellious reply--"I say, resigned!
-with a slow thing like this eating away at my vitals and nothing under
-high heaven to make it let go. You can talk, sitting there with a pipe
-in your mouth, and every limb sound, and a long life ahead of you."
-
-"But you are openly disobeying Biblical injunction," said Sam, knocking
-his exhausted pipe on the heel of his shoe. "You are kicking agin the
-pricks. All of us have to die, and you are raising a racket because your
-turn is somewhere in sight. You are kicking agin something that's as
-natural as a child coming into the world. Besides, you are going back on
-what you preach. You are eternally telling folks there's a life in front
-of us that beats this one all hollow, and, now that Providence has
-really blessed you by giving you a chance to sorter peep ahead at the
-pearly gates, you are actually balking worse than a mean mule. I say you
-ought to give me and Virginia a rest. If you can't possibly raise the
-scads to pay for having the thing cut out, then pucker up and grin and
-bear it. Folks will think a sight more of you. Being a baby at both ends
-of life is foolish--there ain't nobody willing to do the nursing the
-second time."
-
-"I want you to hush all that drivel, Sam," the widow retorted. "I reckon
-folks are different. Some are born with a natural dread of death, and it
-was always in my family. I stood over my mother and watched her breathe
-her last, and it went awfully hard with her. She begged and begged for
-somebody to save her, even sitting up in bed while all the neighbors
-were crouched about crying and praying, and yelled out to them to stop
-that and do something. We'd called in every doctor for forty miles
-about, and she had somehow heard of a young one away off, and she was
-calling out his name when she fell back and died."
-
-"Well, she must have had some load on her mind that she wasn't ready to
-dump at the throne," said Sam, without a hint of humor in his drawling
-voice. "I've always understood your folks, in the woman line at least,
-was unforgiving. They say forgiveness is the softest pillow to expire
-on. I dunno, I've never tried it."
-
-"I'm miserable, simply miserable!" groaned Jane. "Dr. Evans has just
-been to Darley. He promised to see if any of my old friends would lend
-me the money, but he says nobody had a cent to spare."
-
-"Folks never have cash for an investment of that sort," answered Sam. "I
-fetched up your case to old Milward Dedham at the store the other day.
-He'd just sold five thousand acres of wild mountain land to a Boston man
-for the timber that was on it, and was puffed up powerful. I thought if
-ever a man would be prepared to help a friend he would. 'La me, Sam,'
-said he, 'you are wasting time trying to keep a woman from pegging out
-when wheat's off ten cents a bushel. Any woman ought to be happy lying
-in a grave that is paid for sech times as these.'"
-
-The widow was really not listening to Sam's talk. With her bony elbows
-on her knee, her hand intuitively resting on the painless and yet
-insistent seat of her trouble, she rocked back and forth, sighing and
-moaning. There was a clicking of the gate-latch, a step on the gravelled
-walk, and Virginia, flushed from exercise in the cool air, came in and
-emptied her apron in the chimney corner, from which her uncle lazily
-dragged his feet. He leaned forward and critically scanned the heap of
-wood.
-
-"You've got some good, rich, kindling pine there, Virginia," he drawled
-out. "But you needn't bother after to-day, though. I'll have my wagon
-back from the shop to-morrow, and Simpson has promised to lend me his
-yoke of oxen, and let me haul some logs from his hill. Most of it is
-good, seasoned red oak, and when it gets started to burning it pops like
-a pack of fire-crackers."
-
-Virginia said nothing. Save for the firelight, which was a red glow from
-live coals, rather than any sort of flame, the big room was dark, and
-her mother took no notice of her, but Sam had his eyes on her over his
-left shoulder.
-
-"Your mother has been keeping up the same old song and dance," he said,
-dryly; "so much so that she's clean forgot living folks want to eat at
-stated times. I reckon you'll have to make the bread and fry what bacon
-is left on that strip of skin."
-
-Virginia said nothing to him, for her glance was steadily resting on her
-mother's despondent form. "Mother," she said, in a faltering, almost
-frightened tone, for she had been accustomed to no sort of deception in
-her life, and the part she was to play was a most repellent
-one--"mother, I've got something to tell you, and I hardly know how to
-do it. Down the road just a while ago I met a friend--a person who told
-me--the person told me--"
-
-"Well, what did the person tell you?" Sam asked, as both he and the
-bowed wreck at the fire stared through the red glow.
-
-"The person wants to help you out of trouble, mother, and gave me the
-hundred dollars you need. Before I got it I had to give my sacred word
-of honor that I'd never let even you know who sent it. I hardly knew
-what to do, but I thought perhaps I ought to--"
-
-"What? You mean--oh, Virginia, you don't mean--" Jane began, as she rose
-stiffly, her scrawny hand on the mantel-piece, and took a step towards
-her almost shrinking daughter.
-
-"Here's the money, mother," Virginia said, holding out the roll of
-bills, now damp and packed close together by her warm, tense fingers.
-"That's all I am allowed to tell you. I had to promise not to let you
-know who sent it."
-
-As if electrified from death to life, Jane Hemingway sprang forward and
-took the money into her quivering fingers. "A light, Sam!" she cried.
-"Make a light, and let me see. If the child's plumb crazy I want to know
-it, and have it over with. Oh, my Lord! Don't fool me, Virginia. Don't
-raise my hopes with any trick anybody wants to play."
-
-With far more activity than was his by birth, Sam stood up, secured a
-tallow candle from the mantel-piece, and bent over the coals.
-
-"Crazy?" he said. "I _know_ the girl's crazy, if she says there's any
-human being left on the earth after Noah's flood who gives away money
-without taking a receipt for it--to say nothing of a double, iron-clad
-mortgage."
-
-"It looks and feels like money!" panted the widow. "Hurry up with the
-light. I wonder if my prayer has been heard at last."
-
-"Hearing it and answering are two different things; the whole
-neighborhood has _heard_ it often enough," growled Sam, as he fumed
-impatiently over the hot coals, fairly hidden in a stifling cloud of
-tallow-smoke.
-
-"Here's a match," said Virginia, who had found one near the clock, and
-she struck it on the top of one of the dog-irons, and applied it to the
-dripping wick. At the same instant the hot tallow in the coals and ashes
-burst into flame, lighting up every corner and crevice of the great,
-ill-furnished room. Sam, holding the candle, bent over Jane's hands as
-they nervously fumbled the money.
-
-"Ten-dollar bills!" she cried. "Oh, count 'em, Sam! I can't. They stick
-together, she's wadded 'em so tight."
-
-With almost painful deliberation Sam counted the money, licking his
-rough thumb as he raised each bill.
-
-"It's a hundred dollars all right enough," he said, turning the roll
-over to his sister-in-law. "The only thing that's worrying me is who's
-had sech a sudden enlargement of the heart in this section."
-
-"Virginia, who gave you this money?" Mrs. Hemingway asked, her face
-abeam, her eyes gleaming with joy.
-
-"I told you I was bound by a promise not to tell you or anybody else,"
-Virginia awkwardly replied, as she avoided their combined stare.
-
-"Oh, I smell a great big dead rat under the barn!" Sam laughed. "I'd bet
-my Sunday-go-to-meeting hat I know who sent it."
-
-"You do?" exclaimed the widow. "Who do you think it was, Sam?"
-
-"Why, the only chap around about here that seems to have wads of cash to
-throw at cats," Sam laughed. "He pitched one solid roll amounting to ten
-thousand at his starving family awhile back. Of course, he did this,
-too. He always _did_ have a hankering for Virginia, anyway. Hain't I
-seen them two--"
-
-"He didn't send it!" Virginia said, impulsively. "There! I didn't intend
-to set you guessing, and after this I'll never answer one way or the
-other. I didn't know whether I ought to take it on those conditions or
-not, but I couldn't see mother suffering when this would help her so
-much."
-
-"No, God knows I'm glad you took it," said Jane, slowly, "even if I'm
-never to know. I'm sure it was a friend, for nobody but a friend would
-care that much to help me out of trouble."
-
-"You bet it was a friend," said Sam, "unless it was some thief trying to
-get rid of some marked bills he's hooked some'r's. Now, Virginia, for
-the love of the Lord, get something ready to eat. For a family with a
-hundred dollars in hand, we are the nighest starvation of any I ever
-heard of."
-
-While the girl was busy preparing the cornmeal dough in a wooden
-bread-tray, her mother walked about excitedly.
-
-"I'll go to Darley in the hack in the morning," she said, "and right on
-to Atlanta on the evening train. I feel better already. Dr. Evans says I
-won't suffer a particle of pain, and will come back weighing more and
-with a better appetite."
-
-"Well, I believe I'd not put myself out to improve on mine," said Sam,
-"unless this person who is so flush with boodle wants to keep up the
-good work. Dern if I don't believe I'll grow _me_ a cancer, and talk
-about it till folks pay me to hush."
-
-
-
-
-XXVI
-
-
-It was one fairly warm evening, three days after Jane had left for
-Atlanta. Virginia had given Sam his supper, and he had strolled off down
-to the store with his pipe. Then, with a light shawl over her shoulders,
-the girl sat in the bright moonlight on the porch. She had not been
-there long when she saw a man on a horse in the road reining in at the
-gate. Even before he dismounted she had recognized him. It was Luke
-King. Hardly knowing why she did so, she sprang up and was on the point
-of disappearing in the house, when, in a calm voice, he called out to
-her:
-
-"Wait, Virginia! Don't run. I have a message for you."
-
-"For me?" she faltered, and with unaccountable misgivings she stood
-still.
-
-Throwing the bridle-rein over the gate-post, he entered the yard and
-came towards her, his big felt-hat held easily in his hand, his fine
-head showing to wonderful advantage in the moonlight.
-
-"You started to run," he laughed. "You needn't deny it. I saw you, and
-you knew who it was, too. Just think of my little friend dodging
-whenever she sees me. Well, I can't help that. It must be natural. You
-were always timid with me, Virginia."
-
-"Won't you come in and have a chair?" she returned. "Mother has gone
-away to Atlanta, and there is no one at home but my uncle and me."
-
-"I knew she was down there," King said, feasting his hungry and yet
-gentle and all-seeing eyes on her. "That's what I stopped to speak to
-you about. She sent you a message."
-
-"Oh, you saw her, then!" Virginia said, more at ease.
-
-"Yes, I happened to be at the big Union car-shed when her train came in,
-and saw her in the crowd. The poor woman didn't know which way to turn,
-and I really believe she was afraid she'd get lost or stolen, or
-something as bad. When she saw me she gave a glad scream and fairly
-tumbled into my arms. She told me where she wanted to go, and I got a
-cab and saw her safe to the doctor's."
-
-"Oh, that was very good of you!" Virginia said. "I'm so glad you met
-her."
-
-"She was in splendid spirits, too, when I last saw her," King went on.
-"I dropped in there this morning before I left, so that I could bring
-you the latest news. She was very jolly, laughing and joking about
-everything. The doctor had not had time to make an examination, but he
-has a way of causing his patients to look on the bright side. He told
-her she had nothing really serious to fear, and it took a big load off
-her mind."
-
-They were now in the house, and Virginia had lighted a candle and he had
-taken a seat near the open door.
-
-"Doctors have a way of pretending to be cheerful, even before very
-serious operations, haven't they?" she asked, as she sat down not far
-from him.
-
-She saw him hesitate, as if in consideration of her feelings, and then
-he said, "Yes, I believe that, too, Virginia; still, he is a wonderful
-man, and if any one can do your mother good he can."
-
-"If _anybody_ can?--yes," she sighed.
-
-"You mustn't get blue," he said, consolingly; "and yet how can you well
-help it, here almost by yourself, with your mother away under such sad
-circumstances?"
-
-"Your own mother was not quite well recently," Virginia said,
-considerately. "I hope she is no worse."
-
-"Oh, she's on her feet again," he laughed, "as lively as a cricket,
-moving about bossing that big place."
-
-"Why, I thought, seeing you back so--so soon," the girl stammered; "I
-thought that you had perhaps heard--"
-
-"That she was sick again? Oh no!" he exclaimed, and then he saw her
-drift and paused, and, flushed and embarrassed, sat staring at the
-floor.
-
-"You didn't--surely you didn't come all the way here to--to tell me
-about my mother!" Virginia cried, "when you have important work to do
-down there?"
-
-There was a moment's hesitation on his part; then he raised his head and
-looked frankly into her eyes.
-
-"What's the use of denying it?" he said. "I don't believe in deception,
-even in small things. It never does any good. I _did_ have work to do
-down there, but I couldn't go on with it, Virginia, while you were here
-brooding as you are over your mother's condition. So I stayed at my desk
-till the north-bound train was ready to pull out. Then I made a break
-for it, catching the last car as it whizzed past the crossing near the
-office. The train was delayed on the way up, and after I got to Darley I
-was afraid I couldn't get a horse at the stable and get here before you
-were in bed; but you see I made it. Sam Hicks will blow me up about the
-lather his mare is in. I haven't long to stay here, either, for I must
-get back to Darley to catch the ten-forty. I'll reach the office about
-four in the morning, if I can get the conductor to slow up in the
-Atlanta switch-yard for me to hop off at the crossing."
-
-"And you did all that simply to tell me about my mother?" Virginia said.
-"Why, she could have written."
-
-"Yes, but seeing some one right from the spot is more satisfying," he
-said, with embarrassed lightness. "I wanted to tell you how she was, and
-I'm glad, whether you are or not."
-
-"I'm glad to hear from her," said Virginia. "It is only because I did
-not want to put you to so much trouble."
-
-"Don't bother about that, Virginia. I'd gladly do it every night in the
-week to keep you from worrying. Do you remember the day, long ago, that
-I came to you down at the creek and told you I was dissatisfied with
-things here, and was going away off to begin the battle of life in
-earnest?"
-
-"Yes, I remember," Virginia answered, almost oblivious of the clinging,
-invisible current which seemed to be sweeping them together.
-
-He drew a deep breath, as if to take in courage for what he had to say,
-and then went on:
-
-"You were only a little girl then, hardly thirteen, and yet to me,
-Virginia, you were a woman capable of the deepest feeling. I never shall
-forget how you rebuked me about leaving my mother in anger. You looked
-at me as straight and frank as starbeams, and told me you'd not desert
-your mother in her old age for all the world. I never forgot what you
-said and just the way you said it, and through all my turbulent life out
-West your lecture was constantly before me. I was angry at my mother,
-but finally I got to looking at her marriage differently, and then I
-began to want to see her and to do my filial duty as you were doing
-yours. That was one reason I came back here. The other was
-because--Virginia, it was because I wanted to see _you_."
-
-"Oh, don't, don't begin--" but Virginia's protest died away in her
-pulsing throat. She lowered her head and covered her hot face with her
-hands.
-
-"But I have begun, and I must go on," he said. "Out West I met hundreds
-of attractive women, but I could never look upon them as other men did
-because of the--the picture of you stamped on my brain. I was not
-hearing a word about you, but you were becoming exactly what I knew you
-would become; and when I saw you out there in the barn-yard that first
-day after I got back, my whole being caught fire, and it's blazing
-yet--it will blaze as long as there is a breath of my life left to fan
-it. For me there can be but one wife, little girl, and if she fails me
-I'll go unmarried to my grave."
-
-"Oh, don't! don't!" Virginia sobbed, her tones muffled by her hands
-pressed tightly over her face. "You don't know me. I'm not what you
-think I am. I'm only a poor, helpless, troubled--"
-
-"Don't! don't!" he broke in, fearfully--"don't decide against me
-hastily! I know--God knows I am unworthy of you, and if you don't feel
-as I do you will never link your young life to mine. Sometimes I fear
-that your shrinking from me as you often do is evidence against my
-hopes. Oh, dear, little girl, am I a fool? Am I a crazy idiot asking you
-for what you can't possibly give?"
-
-A sob which she was trying to suppress shook her from head to foot, and
-she rose and stepped to the door and stood there looking out on the
-moonlit road, where his impatient horse was pawing the earth and
-neighing. There was silence. King leaned forward, his elbows on his
-knees, his strong fingers locked like prongs of steel in front of him,
-his face deep cut with the chisel of anxiety. For several minutes he
-stared thus at her white profile struck into sharp clearness by the
-combined light from without and within.
-
-"I see it all," he groaned. "I've lost. While I was away out there
-treasuring your memory and seeing your face night after night, day after
-day--holding you close, pulling these rugged old mountains about you for
-protection, you were not--you were not--I was simply not in your
-thoughts."
-
-Then she turned towards him. She seemed to have grown older and stronger
-since he began speaking so earnestly.
-
-"You must not think of me that way any longer," she sighed. "You mustn't
-neglect your work to come to see me, either."
-
-"You will never be my wife, then, Virginia?"
-
-"No, I could never be that, Luke--no, not that--never on earth."
-
-He shrank together as if in sudden, sharp physical pain, and then he
-rose to his full height and reached for his hat, which she had placed on
-the table. His heavy-soled boots creaked on the rough floor; he tipped
-his chair over, and it would have fallen had he not awkwardly caught it
-and restored it to its place.
-
-"You have a good reason, I am sure of that," he said, huskily.
-
-"Yes, yes, I--I have a reason." Her stiff lips made answer. "We are not
-for each other, Luke. If you've been thinking so, so long, as you say,
-it is because you were trying to make me fit your ideal, but I am not
-that in reality. I tell you I'm only a poor, suffering girl, full of
-faults and weaknesses, at times not knowing which way to turn."
-
-He had reached the door, and he stepped out into the moonlight, his
-massive head still bare. He shook back his heavy hair in a determined
-gesture of supreme faith and denial and said: "I know you better than
-you know yourself, because I know better than you do how to compare you
-to other women. I want you, Virginia, just as you are, with every sweet
-fault about you. I want you with a soul that actually bleeds for you,
-but you say it must not be, and you know best."
-
-"No, it can't possibly be," Virginia said, almost fiercely. "It can
-never be while life lasts. You and I are as wide apart as the farthest
-ends of the earth."
-
-He bowed his head and stood silent for a moment, then he sighed as he
-looked at her again. "I've thought about life a good deal, Virginia," he
-said, "and I've almost come to the conclusion that a great tragedy must
-tear the soul of every person destined for spiritual growth. This may be
-my tragedy, Virginia; I know something of the tragedy that lifted Ann
-Boyd to the skies, but her neighbors don't see it. They are still
-beating the material husk from which her big soul has risen."
-
-"I know what she is," Virginia declared. "I'm happy to be one who knows
-her as she is--the grandest woman in the world."
-
-"I'm glad to hear you say that," King said. "I knew if anybody did her
-justice it would be you."
-
-"If I don't know how to sympathize with her, no one does," said the
-girl, with a bitterness of tone he could not fathom. "She's wonderful;
-she's glorious. It would be worth while to suffer anything to reach what
-she has reached."
-
-"Well, I didn't come to talk of her, good as she has been to me," King
-said, gloomily. "I must get back to the grind and whir of that big
-building. I shall not come up again for some time. I have an idea I know
-what your reason is, but it would drive me crazy even to think about
-it."
-
-She started suddenly, and then stared steadily at him. In the white
-moonlight she looked like a drooping figure carved out of stone, even to
-every fold of her simple dress and wave of her glorious hair.
-
-"You think you know!" she whispered.
-
-"Yes, I think so, and the pronunciation of a single name would prove it,
-but I shall not let it pass my lips to-night. It's my tragedy,
-Virginia."
-
-"And mine," she said to herself, but to him it seemed that she made no
-response at all, and after a moment's pause he turned away.
-
-"Good-bye," he said, from the gate.
-
-"Good-bye, Luke," she said, impulsively.
-
-But at the sound of his name he whirled and came back, his brow dyed
-with red, his tender eyes flashing. "I'll tell you one other thing, and
-then I'll go," he said, tremulously. "Out West, one night, after a big
-ball which had bored the life out of me--in fact, I had only gone
-because it was a coming-out affair of the daughter of a wealthy friend
-of mine. In the smoking-room of the big hotel which had been rented for
-the occasion I had a long talk with a middle-aged bachelor, a man of the
-world, whom I knew well. He told me his story. In his younger days he
-had been in love with a girl back East, and his love was returned, but
-he wanted to see more of life and the world, and was not ready to settle
-down, and so he left her. After years spent in an exciting business and
-social life, and never meeting any one else that he could care for, a
-sudden longing came over him to hear from his old sweetheart. He had no
-sooner thought of it than his old desires came back like a storm, and he
-could not even wait to hear from her. He packed up hastily, took the
-train, and went back home. He got to the village only two days after she
-had married another man. The poor old chap almost cried when he told me
-about it. Then, in my sympathy for him, I told him of my feeling for a
-little girl back here, and he earnestly begged me not to wait another
-day. It was that talk with him that helped me to make up my mind to come
-home. But, you see, I am too late, as he was too late. Poor old Duncan!
-He'd dislike to hear of my failure. But I've lost out, too. Now, I'll go
-sure. Good-bye, Virginia. I hope you will be happy. I'm going to pray
-for that."
-
-Leaning against the door-jamb, she saw him pass through the gateway,
-unhitch his restive horse, and swing himself heavily into the saddle,
-still holding his hat in his hand. Then he galloped away--away in the
-still moonlight, the--to her--peaceful, mocking moonlight.
-
-"He thinks he knows," she muttered, "but he doesn't dream the _whole_
-truth. If he did he would no longer think that way of me. What am I,
-anyway? He was loving me with that great, infinite soul while I was
-listening to the idle simpering of a fool. Ah, Luke King shall never
-know the truth! I'd rather lie dead before him than to see that wondrous
-light die out of his great, trusting eyes."
-
-She heard Sam coming down the road, and through the silvery gauze of
-night she saw the red flare of his pipe. She turned into her own room
-and sat down on the bed, her little, high-instepped feet on the floor,
-her hands clasped between her knees.
-
-
-
-
-XXVII
-
-
-The events which took place at Chesters' that adventurous night had a
-remarkable effect on the young master of the place. After Ann Boyd had
-left him he restlessly paced the floor of the long veranda. Blind fury
-and unsatisfied passion held him in their clutch and drove him to and
-fro like a caged and angry lion. The vials of his first wrath were
-poured on the heads of his meddlesome guests, who had so unceremoniously
-thrust themselves upon him at such an inopportune moment, and from them
-his more poignant resentment was finally shifted to the woman whom for
-years he, with the rest of the community, had contemptuously regarded as
-the partner in his father's early indiscretions. That she--such a
-character--should suddenly rise to remind him of his duty to his
-manhood, and even enforce it under his own roof, was the most
-humiliating happening of his whole life.
-
-These hot reflections and secret plans for revenge finally died away and
-were followed by a state of mind that, at its lowest ebb, amounted to a
-racking despair he had never known. Something told him that Ann Boyd had
-spoken grim truth when she had said that Virginia would never again fall
-under his influence, and certainly no woman had ever before so
-completely absorbed him. Up to this moment it had been chiefly her rare
-beauty and sweetness of nature that had charmed him, but now he began to
-realize the grandeur of her character and the depths to which her
-troubles had stirred his sympathies. As he recalled, word by word, all
-that had passed between them in regard to her nocturnal visit, he was
-forced to acknowledge that it was only through her absorbing desire to
-save her mother that she, abetted by her very purity of mind, had been
-blindly led into danger. He flushed and shuddered under the lash of the
-thought that he, himself, had constituted that danger.
-
-He went to bed, but scarcely closed his eyes during the remainder of the
-night, and the next morning was up before the cook had made the fires in
-the kitchen range. He hardly knew what he would do, but he determined to
-see Virginia at the earliest opportunity and make an honest and
-respectful attempt to regain her confidence. He would give her the money
-she so badly needed--give it to her without restrictions, and trust to
-her gratitude to restore her faith in him. He spent all that morning,
-after eating a hasty breakfast, on a near-by wooded hill-side, from
-which elevation he had a fair view of Jane Hemingway's cottage. He saw
-Virginia come from the house in search of the cow, and with his heart in
-his mouth he was preparing to descend to meet her, when, to his
-consternation, he saw that she had joined Ann Boyd at the barn-yard of
-the latter, and then he saw the two go into Ann's house together. This
-augured ill for him, his fears whispered, and he remained at his post
-among the trees till the girl came out of the house and hastened
-homeward. For the next two days he hung about Jane Hemingway's cottage
-with no other thought in mind than seeing Virginia. Once from the
-hill-side he saw her as she was returning from Wilson's store, and he
-made all haste to descend, hoping to intercept her before she reached
-home, but he was just a moment too late. She was on the road a hundred
-yards ahead of him, and, seeing him, she quickened her step. He walked
-faster, calling out to her appealingly to stop, but she did not pause or
-look back again. Then he saw a wagon filled with men and women
-approaching on the way to market, and, knowing that such unseemly haste
-on his part and hers would excite comment, he paused at the roadside and
-allowed her to pursue her way unmolested. The next day being Sunday, he
-dressed himself with unusual care, keenly conscious, as he looked in the
-mirror, that his visage presented a haggard, careworn aspect that was
-anything but becoming. His eyes had the fixed, almost bloodshot stare of
-an habitual drunkard in the last nervous stages of downward progress.
-His usually pliant hair, as if surcharged with electricity, seemed to
-defy comb and brush, and stood awry; his clothes hung awkwardly; his
-quivering fingers refused to put the deft touch to his tie which had
-been his pride. At the last moment he discovered that his boots had not
-been blacked by the negro boy who waited on him every morning. He did
-this himself very badly, and then started out to church, not riding, for
-the reason that he hoped Virginia would be there, and that he might have
-the excuse of being afoot to join her and walk homeward with her. But
-she was not there, and he sat through Bazemore's long-winded discourse,
-hardly conscious that the minister, flattered by his unwonted presence,
-glanced at him proudly all through the service.
-
-So it was that one thing and another happened to prevent his seeing
-Virginia till one morning at Wilson's store he heard that Jane Hemingway
-had, in some mysterious way, gotten the money she needed and had already
-gone to Atlanta. He suffered a slight shock over the knowledge that
-Virginia would now not need the funds he had been keeping for her, but
-this was conquered by the thought that he could go straight to the
-cottage, now that the girl's grim-faced guardian was away. So he
-proceeded at once to do this. As he approached the gate, a thrill of
-gratification passed over him, for he observed that Sam Hemingway was
-out at the barn, some distance from the house. As he was entering the
-gate and softly closing it after him, Virginia appeared in the doorway.
-Their eyes met. He saw her turn pale and stand alert and undecided, her
-head up like that of a young deer startled in a quiet forest. It flashed
-upon him, to his satisfaction, that she would instinctively retreat into
-the house, and that he could follow and there, unmolested even by a
-chance passer-by, say all he wanted to say, and say it, too, in the old
-fashion which had once so potently--if only temporarily--influenced her.
-But with a flash of wisdom and precaution, for which he had not given
-her credit, she seemed to realize the barriers beyond her and quickly
-stepped out into the porch, where coldly and even sternly she waited for
-him to speak.
-
-"Virginia," he said, taking off his hat and humbly sweeping it towards
-the ground, "I have been moving heaven and earth to get to see you
-alone." He glanced furtively down the road, and then added: "Let's go
-into the house. I've got something important to say to you."
-
-Still staring straight at him, she moved forward till she leaned against
-the railing of the porch. "I sha'n't do it," she said, firmly. "If I've
-been silly once, that is no reason I'll be so always. There is nothing
-you can say to me that can't be spoken here in the open sunlight."
-
-Her words and tone struck him like a material missile well-aimed and
-deliberately hurled. There was a dignity and firm finality in her
-bearing which he felt could not be met with his old shallow suavity and
-seductive flattery. From credulous childhood she seemed, in that brief
-period, to have grown into wise maturity. If she had been beautiful in
-his eyes before, she was now, in her frigid remoteness, in her thorough
-detachment from their former intimacy, far more than that.
-
-"Well, I meant no harm," he found himself articulating, almost in utter
-bewilderment. "I only thought that somebody passing might--"
-
-"Might see me with you?" she flashed out, with sudden anger. "What do I
-care? I came out here just now and gave a tramp something to eat. If
-they see you here, I suppose it won't be the first time a girl has been
-seen talking to a man in front of her own home."
-
-"I didn't mean to offend you," he stammered, at the end of his
-resources; "but I've been utterly miserable, Virginia."
-
-"Oh! is that so?" she sneered.
-
-"Yes, I have. I feel awfully bad about what took place. I wanted to give
-you that money for your mother, and that night when I finally got rid of
-those meddlesome devils and--"
-
-"In the name of Heaven, stop!" Virginia cried. "I simply will not stand
-here and talk about that."
-
-"But I have the money still," he said, feebly. "You kept your word in
-coming for it, and I want to keep mine."
-
-"I wouldn't touch a cent of it to save my life," she hurled at him. "If
-my mother lay before my eyes dying in agony and your money would save
-her, I wouldn't have it. I wouldn't take it to save my soul from
-perdition."
-
-"You are making it very hard for me," he said, desperately; and then,
-with a frankness she could not have looked for even from his coarsest
-side, he went on passionately: "I'm only a man, Virginia--a human being,
-full of love, admiration, and--passion. Young as you are, I can't blame
-you, and, still you _did_ encourage me. You know you did. I'm nearly
-insane over it all. I want you, Virginia. These meetings with you, and
-the things you have let me say to you, if you have said nothing
-yourself, have lifted me to the very sky. I simply cannot bear up under
-your present actions, knowing that that old woman has been talking
-against me. I am willing to do anything on earth to set myself right. I
-admire you more than I ever dreamed I could admire a woman, and my love
-for you is like a torrent that nothing can dam. I must have you,
-Virginia. The whole thing has gone too far. You ought to have thought of
-this before you agreed to come to my house alone at night, when you knew
-I was--when you knew I had every reason to expect that you--"
-
-"Stop!" she cried, with white lips and eyes flashing. "You are a coward,
-as well as a scoundrel! You are daring to threaten me. You have made me
-hate myself. As for you, I despise you as I would a loathsome reptile. I
-hate you! I detest you! I wake up in the night screaming in terror,
-fancying that I'm again in that awful room, locked in like a slave, a
-prisoner subject to your will--waiting for you to bid good-night to your
-drunken friends--locked in by your hand to wait there in an agony of
-death. Love you? I hate you! I hate the very low-browed emptiness of
-your face. I hate my mother for the selfish fear of death which blinded
-me to my own rights as a woman. Oh, God, I want to die and be done with
-it!"
-
-She suddenly covered her impassioned face with her hands and shook
-convulsively from head to foot.
-
-"Oh, Virginia, don't, don't make a mountain out of a molehill," he
-began, with a leaning towards his old, seductive persuasiveness. "There
-is nothing to feel so badly about. You know that Ann Boyd got there
-before I--I--"
-
-"That's all _you_ know about it," she said, uncovering eyes that flashed
-like lightning. "When I went there, with no interest in you further than
-a silly love of your honeyed words and _to get your money_, I did what
-I'll never wipe from my memory."
-
-"Virginia"--he tried to assume a light laugh--"this whole thing has
-turned your head. You will feel differently about it later when your
-mother comes back sound and well. Ann Boyd is not going to tell what
-took place, and--"
-
-"And you and I will have a secret of that nature between us!" she broke
-in, furiously. "That's got to blacken my memory, and be always before
-me! You are going to know _that_ of me when--when, yes, I'll say
-it--when another man whose shoes you are unworthy to wipe believes me to
-be as free from contact with evil as a new-born baby."
-
-Chester drew his brows together in sudden suspicion.
-
-"You are referring to Luke King!" he snapped out. "Look here, Virginia,
-don't make this matter any more serious than it is. I will not have a
-man like that held up to me as a paragon. I have heard that he used to
-hang around you when you were little, before he went off and came back
-so puffed up with his accomplishments, and I understand he has been to
-see you recently, but I won't stand his meddling in my affairs."
-
-"You needn't be afraid," Virginia said, with a bitterness he could not
-fathom. "There is nothing between Luke King and myself--absolutely
-nothing. You may rest sure that I'd never receive the attentions of a
-man of his stamp after what has passed between me and a man of your--"
-She paused.
-
-He was now white with rage. His lower lip hung and twitched nervously.
-
-"You are a little devil!" he cried. "You know you are driving me crazy.
-But I will not be thrown over. Do you understand? I am not going to give
-you up."
-
-"I don't know how you will help yourself," she said, moving back towards
-the door. "I certainly shall never, of my own free will, see you alone
-again. What I've done, I've done, but I don't intend to have it thrown
-into my face day after day."
-
-"Look here, Virginia," he began, but she had walked erectly into the
-house and abruptly closed the door. He stood undecided for a moment, and
-then, crestfallen, he turned away.
-
-
-
-
-XXVIII
-
-
-One bright, crisp morning a few days later, after her uncle had ridden
-his old horse, in clanking, trace-chain harness, off to his field to do
-some ploughing, Virginia stole out unnoticed and went over to Ann
-Boyd's. The door of the farm-house stood open, and in the sitting-room
-the girl saw Ann seated near a window hemming a sheet.
-
-"I see from your face that you've had more news," the old woman said, as
-she smiled in greeting. "Sit down and tell me about it. I'm on this job
-and want to get through with it before I put it down."
-
-"I got a letter this morning," Virginia complied, "from a woman down
-there who said she was my mother's nurse. The operation was very
-successful, and she is doing remarkably well. The surgeon says she will
-have no more trouble with her affliction. It was only on the surface and
-was taken just in time."
-
-"Ah, just in time!" Ann held the sheet in her tense hands for a moment,
-and then crushed it into her capacious lap. "Then _she's_ all right."
-
-"Yes, she is all right, Mrs. Boyd. In fact, the doctor says she will
-soon be able to come home. The simple treatment can be continued here
-under their directions till she is thoroughly restored."
-
-There was silence. Ann's face looked as hard as stone. She seemed to be
-trying to conquer some rising emotion, for she coughed, cleared her
-throat, and swallowed. Her heavy brows were drawn together, and the
-muscles of her big neck stood up under her tanned skin like tent-cords
-drawn taut from pole to stake.
-
-"I may as well tell you one particular thing and be done with it," she
-suddenly gulped. "I don't believe in deception of any sort whatever. I
-hate your mother as much as I could hate anything or anybody. I want it
-understood between us now on the spot that I done what I did for _you_,
-not for her. It may be Old Nick in me that makes me feel this way at
-such a time, but, you see, I understand her well enough to know she will
-come back primed and cocked for the old battle. The fear of death didn't
-alter her in her feelings towards me, and, now that she's on her feet,
-she will be worse than ever. It's purty tough to have to think that I
-put her in such good fighting trim, but I did it."
-
-"I am afraid you are right about her future attitude," Virginia sighed,
-"and that was one reason I did not want help to come through you."
-
-"That makes no odds now," Ann said, stoically. "What's done is done. I'm
-in the hands of two powers--good and evil--and here lately I never know,
-when I get out of bed in the morning, whether I'm going to feel the cool
-breath of one or the hot blast of the other. For months I had but one
-desire, and that was to see you, you poor, innocent child, breathing the
-fumes of the hell I sunk into; and just as my hopes were about to be
-realized the other power caught me up like a swollen river and swept me
-right the other way. Luke King really caused it. Child, since God made
-the world He never put among human beings a man with a finer soul. That
-poor, barefoot mountain boy that I picked up and sent off to school has
-come back--like Joseph that was dropped in a pit--a king among men.
-Under the lash of his inspired tongue I had to rise from my mire of
-hatred and do my duty. I might not have been strong enough in the right
-way if--if I hadn't loved him so much, and if he hadn't told me, poor
-boy, with tears in his eyes and voice, that you were the only woman in
-the world for him, and that his career would be wrecked if he lost you.
-I let him leave me without making promises. I was mad and miserable
-because I was about to be thwarted. But when he was gone I got to
-thinking it over, and finally I couldn't help myself, and acted. I
-determined, if possible, to pull you back from the brink you stood on
-and give you to him, that you might live the life that I missed."
-
-Virginia sank into a chair. She was flushed from her white, rounded neck
-to the roots of her hair.
-
-"Oh, I didn't deserve it!" she cried. "I have remained silent when my
-mother was heaping abuse upon you. I made no effort to do you justice
-when your enemies were crying you down. Oh, Mrs. Boyd, you are the best
-and most unselfish woman that ever lived."
-
-"No, I am not that," Ann declared, firmly. "I'm just like the general
-run of women, weak and wishy-washy, with dry powder in my make-up that
-anybody can touch a match to. There is no counting on what I'll do next.
-Right now I feel like being your stanch friend, but I really don't know
-but what, if your mammy hemmed me in a corner, I'd even throw up to her
-what you did that night. I say I don't know what notion might strike me.
-She can, with one word or look of hers, start perdition's fire in me. I
-don't know any more than a cat what made me go contrary to my plans that
-night. It wasn't in a thousand miles of what I wanted to do, and having
-Jane Hemingway come back here with a sound body and tongue of fire isn't
-what I saved money to pay for. If forgiveness is to be the white garment
-of the next life, mine will be as black as logwood dye."
-
-"The pretty part of it all is that you don't know yourself as you really
-are," Virginia said, almost smiling in her enthusiasm. "Since I've seen
-the beautiful side of your character I've come almost to understand the
-eternal wisdom even in human ills. But for your hatred of my mother,
-your kindness to me would not be so wonderful. For a long time I had
-only my mother to love, but now, Mrs. Boyd, somehow, I have not had as
-great anxiety about her down there as I thought I would have. Really, my
-heart has been divided between you two. Mrs. Boyd, I love you. I can't
-help it--I love you."
-
-Ann suddenly raised her sheet and folded it in her lap. Her face had
-softened; there was a wonderful spiritual radiance in her eyes.
-
-"It's powerful good and sweet of you to--to talk that way to a poor,
-despised outcast like I am. I can't remember many good things being said
-about me, and when you say you feel that way towards me, why--well, it's
-sweet of you--that's all, it's sweet and kind of you."
-
-"You have _made_ me love you," Virginia said, simply. "I could not help
-myself."
-
-Ann looked straight at the girl from her moist, beaming eyes.
-
-"I'm a very odd woman, child, and I want to tell you what I regard as
-the oddest thing about me. You say you feel kind towards me, and,
-and--love me a little. Well, ever since that night in that young scamp's
-room, when I came on you, crouched down there in your misery and fear,
-looking so much like I must 'a' looked at one time away back when not a
-spark of hope flashed in my black sky--ever since I saw you that way,
-helpless as a fresh violet in the track of a grazing bull, I have felt a
-yearning to draw you up against this old storm-beaten breast of mine and
-rock you to sleep. That's odd, but that isn't the odd thing I was
-driving at, and it is this, Virginia--I don't care a snap of my finger
-about my _own_ child. Think of that. If I was to hear of her death
-to-night it wouldn't be any more to me than the news of the death of any
-stranger."
-
-"That _is_ queer," said Virginia, thoughtfully.
-
-"Well, it's only nature working, I reckon," Ann said. "I loved her as a
-baby--in a natural way, I suppose--but when she went off from me, and by
-her going helped--child though she was--to stamp the brand on me that
-has been like the mark of a convict on my brow ever since--when she went
-off, I say, I hardened my heart towards her, and day after day I kept it
-hard till now she couldn't soften it. Maybe if I was to see her in
-trouble like you were in, my heart would go out to her; but she's
-independent of me; the only thing I've ever heard of her is that she
-cries and shudders at the mention of my name. She shudders at it, and
-she'll go down to her grave shuddering at it. She'll teach her children
-not to mention me. No, I'll never love her, and that's why it seems odd
-for me to feel like I do about you. Heaven knows, it seems like a dream
-when I remember that you are Jane Hemingway's child and the chief pride
-of her hard life. As for my own girl, she's full grown now, and has her
-natural plans and aspirations, and is afraid my record will blight them.
-I don't even know how she looks, but I have in mind a tall,
-stiff-necked, bony girl inclined to awkwardness, selfish, grasping, and
-unusually proud. But I can love as well as hate, though I've done more
-hating in my life than loving. There was a time I thought the very seeds
-of love had dried up in me, but about that time I picked up Luke King.
-Even as a boy he seemed to look deep into the problems of life, and was
-sorry for me. Somehow me and him got to talking over my trouble as if
-he'd been a woman, and he always stood to me and pitied me and called me
-tender names. You see, nobody at his home understood him, and he had his
-troubles, too, so we naturally drifted together like a mother and son
-pulled towards one another by the oddest freak of circumstances that
-ever came in two lives. We used to sit here in this room and talk of the
-deepest questions that ever puzzled the human brain. Our reason told us
-the infinite plan of the universe must be good, but we couldn't make it
-tally with the heavy end of it we had to tote. He was rebellious against
-circumstances and his lazy old step-father's conduct towards him, and he
-finally kicked over the traces and went West. Well, he had his eyes open
-out there, and came back with the blaze of spiritual glory in his manly
-face. He started in to practise what he was preaching, too. He yanked
-out of his pocket the last dollar of his savings and forked it over to
-the last people on earth to deserve it. That made me so mad I couldn't
-speak to him for a while, but now I'm forced to admit that the sacrifice
-hasn't harmed him in the least. He's plunging ahead down there in the
-most wonderful way, and content--well, content but just for one thing. I
-reckon you know what that is?"
-
-Ann paused. Virginia was looking out through the open doorway, a flush
-creeping over her sensitive face. She started to speak, but the words
-hung in her throat, and she only coughed.
-
-"Yes, you know as well as I do," Ann went on, gently. "He come over here
-the other night after he left your house. He hitched his horse at the
-gate and come in and sat down. I saw something serious had happened, and
-as he was not due here, and was overwhelmed with business in Atlanta, I
-thought he had met with money trouble. I made up my mind then and there,
-too, that I'd back him to the extent of every thimbleful of land and
-every splinter of timber in my possession; but it wasn't money he
-wanted. It was something else. He sat there in the moonlight that was
-shining through the door, with his head on his breast plumb full of
-despair. I finally got it out of him. You'd refused him outright. You'd
-decided that you could get on without the love and life-devotion of the
-grandest man that ever lived. I was thoroughly mad at you then. I come
-in an inch of turning plumb against you, but I didn't. I fought for you
-as I'd have fought for myself away back in my girlhood. I did it,
-although I could have spanked you good for making him so miserable."
-
-"You know why I refused him," Virginia said, in a low voice. "You, of
-all persons, will know that."
-
-"I don't know as I do," Ann said, with a probing expression in her eyes.
-"I don't know, unless, after all, you have a leaning for that young
-scamp, who has no more real honor than a convict in his stripes. Women
-are that way, except in very rare cases. The bigger the scoundrel and
-the meaner he treats them the more they want him. If it's that, I am not
-going to upbraid you. Upbraiding folks for obeying the laws of nature is
-the greatest loss of wind possible. If you really love that scamp, no
-power under high heaven will turn you."
-
-"Love him? I loathe him!" burst passionately from Virginia's lips.
-
-"Then what under the sun made you treat Luke King as you did?" asked
-Ann, almost sternly.
-
-"Because I could not marry him," said the girl, firmly. "I'd rather die
-than accept the love and devotion of a man as noble as he is
-after--after--oh, you know what I mean!"
-
-"Oh, I see--I see," Ann said, her brows meeting. "There comes another
-law of nature. I reckon if you feel that way, any argument I'd put up
-would fall on deaf ears."
-
-"I could never accept his love and confidence without telling him all
-that took place that night, and I'd kill myself rather than have him
-know," declared the girl.
-
-"Oh, _that's_ the trouble!" Ann exclaimed. "Well, I hope all that will
-wear away in time. It's fortunate that you are not loved by a narrow
-fool, my child. Luke King has seen a lots of the world in his young
-life."
-
-"He has not seen enough of the world to make him overlook a thing of
-that kind, and you know it," Virginia sighed. "I really believe the
-higher a man becomes spiritually the higher his ideal of a woman is. I
-know what he thinks of me now, but I don't know what he would think if
-he knew the whole truth. He must never be told that, Mrs. Boyd. God
-knows I am grateful to you for all you have done, but you must not tell
-him that."
-
-Ann put down her sheet and went to the fireplace, and with the tip of
-her coarse, gaping shoe she pushed some burning embers under a
-three-legged pot on the stone hearth. With her tongs she lifted the iron
-lid and looked at a corn-pone browning within, and then she replaced it.
-Her brow was deeply wrinkled.
-
-"You told me everything that happened that night, if I remember right,"
-she said, tentatively. "In fact, I know you did."
-
-Virginia said nothing; her thoughts seemed elsewhere.
-
-Leaning the tongs against the fireplace, Ann came forward and bent over
-her almost excitedly.
-
-"Look here, child," she said, "you told me that--that I got there in
-time. You told me--"
-
-"I told you all I thought was necessary for you to understand the
-situation," said Virginia, her eyes downcast, "but I didn't tell you all
-I'd have to tell Luke King--to be his wife."
-
-"You say you didn't." Ann sat down heavily in her chair. "Then be plain
-with me; what under the sun did you leave out?"
-
-"I left out the fact that I was crazy that night," said Virginia. "I
-read in a book once that a woman is so constituted that she can't see
-reason in anything which does not coincide with her desires. I saw only
-one thing that night that was worth considering. I saw only the awful
-suffering of my mother and the chance to put an end to it by getting
-hold of that man's money. Do you understand now? I went there for that
-purpose. I'd have laid down my life for it. When those men came he urged
-me to run and hide in his room, as he and I stood on the veranda, and it
-was not fear of exposure that drove me up the stairs holding to his
-hand. It was the almost appalling fear that the promised money would
-slip through my fingers if I didn't obey him to the letter. And when he
-whispered, with his hot breath in my ear, there in his room, as his
-friends were loudly knocking at the door below, that he would rid
-himself of them and come back, and asked me if I'd wait, I said yes, as
-I would, have said it to God in heaven. Then he asked me if it was '_a
-promise_,' and I said yes again. Then he asked me, Mrs. Boyd, he asked
-me--"
-
-Virginia's voice died out. She fell to quivering from head to foot.
-
-"Well, well, go on!" Ann said, under her breath. "Go on. What did he ask
-you?"
-
-Virginia hesitated for another minute, then, with her face red with
-shame, she said: "He asked me to prove it by--kissing him--kissing him
-of my own free will. I hesitated, I think. Yes, I hesitated, but I heard
-the steps of the men in the hall below at the foot of the stairs. I
-thought of the money, Mrs. Boyd, and I kissed him."
-
-"You did?"
-
-"Yes. I did--there, _in his room_!"
-
-"Well, I'm glad you told me that," Ann breathed, deeply. "I think I
-understand it better now. I understand how you feel."
-
-"So you see, all that's what I'd have to tell Luke King," Virginia said;
-"and I'll never do it--never on this earth. I want him always to think
-of me as he does right now."
-
-Ann locked her big hands in her lap and bent forward.
-
-"I see my greatest trouble is going to lie with you," she said. "You are
-conscientious. Millions of women have kept worse things than that from
-their husbands and never lost a wink of sleep over them, but you seem to
-be of a different stripe. I think Luke King is too grand a man to hold
-that against you, under all the circumstances. I think so, but I don't
-know men any better than they know women, and I'm not going to urge you
-one way or the other. I thought my easy-going husband would do me
-justice, but he couldn't have done it to save his neck from the loop. In
-my opinion there never will be any happy unions between men and women
-till men quit thinking so much about the weakness of women's _bodies_
-and so little of the strength of their _souls_. The view you had that
-night of the dark valley of a living death, and your escape from it, has
-lifted you into a purity undreamt of by the average woman. If Luke
-King's able to comprehend that, he may get him a wife on the open
-mountain-top; if not, he can find her in the bushes at the foot. He'll
-obey his natural law, as you and I will ours."
-
-
-
-
-XXIX
-
-
-In dire dread of facing the anger of his father, who was expected back
-from Savannah, for having sold the horse which the Colonel himself was
-fond of riding, and being in the lowest dregs of despondency and chagrin
-over the humiliating turn his affair with Virginia had taken, Langdon
-Chester packed his travelling-bag and hurried off to Atlanta.
-
-There he had a middle-aged bachelor cousin, Chester Sively, who was as
-fair an example as one could well find of the antebellum Southern man of
-the world carried forward into a new generation and a more active and
-progressive environment. Fortunately for him, he had inherited a
-considerable fortune, and he was enabled to live in somewhat the same
-ease as had his aristocratic forebears. He had a luxurious suite of
-rooms in one of the old-fashioned houses in Peachtree Street, where he
-always welcomed Langdon as his guest, in return for the hospitality of
-the latter during the hunting season on the plantation.
-
-"Another row with the head of the house?" he smiled, as he rose from his
-easy-chair at a smoking-table to shake hands with the new arrival, who,
-hot and dusty, had alighted from a rickety cab, driven by a sleepy negro
-in a battered silk top-hat, and sauntered in, looking anything but
-cheerful.
-
-"Why did you think that?" Langdon asked, after the negro had put down
-his bag and gone.
-
-"Why? Oh, because it has been brewing for a long time, old chap," Sively
-smiled; "and because it is as natural for old people to want to curb the
-young as it is for them to forget their own youth. When I was up there
-last, Uncle Pres could scarcely talk of anything but your numerous
-escapades."
-
-"We didn't actually have the _row_," Langdon sighed, "but it would have
-come if I hadn't lit out before he got back from Savannah. The truth
-is"--the visitor dropped his eyes--"he has allowed me almost no
-pocket-money of late, and, getting in a tight place--debts, you know,
-and one thing and another--I let my best horse go at a sacrifice the
-other day. Father likes to ride him, and he's going to raise sand about
-it. Oh, I couldn't stand it, and so I came away. It will blow over, you
-know, but it will do so quicker if I'm here and he's there. Besides, he
-is always nagging me about having no profession or regular business, and
-if I see a fair opening down here, I'm really going to work."
-
-"You'll never do it in this world." Sively laughed, and his dark eyes
-flashed merrily as he pulled at his well-trained mustache. "You can no
-more do that sort of thing than a cat-fish can hop about in a bird-cage.
-In an office or bank you'd simply pine away and die. Your ancestors
-lived in the open air, with other people to work for them, and you are
-simply too near that period to do otherwise. I know, my boy, because
-I've tried to work. If I didn't have private interests that pin me down
-to a sort of routine, I'd be as helpless as you are."
-
-"You are right, I reckon." Langdon reached out to the copper bowl on the
-table and took a cigar. "I know, somehow, that the few business openings
-I have heard of now and then have simply sickened me. When I get as much
-city life as is good for me down here, I like to run back to the
-mountains. Up there I can take my pipe and gun and dog and--"
-
-"And enjoy life right; you bet you can," Sively said, enthusiastically.
-"Well, after all, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. My life
-isn't all it's cracked up to be by men who say they are yearning for it.
-Between you and me, I feel like a defunct something or other when I hear
-these thoroughly up-to-date chaps talking at the club about their big
-enterprises which they are making go by the very skin of their teeth.
-Why, I know one fellow under thirty who has got every electric car-line
-in the city tied to the tips of his fingers. I know another who is about
-to get Northern backing for a new railroad from here to Asheville, which
-he started on nothing but a scrap of club writing-paper one afternoon
-over a bottle of beer. Then there is that darned chap from up your way,
-Luke King. He's a corker. He had little education, I am told, and sprang
-from the lowest cracker stock, but he's the sensation of the hour down
-here."
-
-"He's doing well, then," Langdon said, a touch of anger in his tone as
-he recalled Virginia's reference to King on their last meeting.
-
-"Well? You'd think so. Half the capitalists in Atlanta are daft about
-him. They call him a great political, financial, and moral force, with a
-brain as big as Abraham Lincoln's. I was an idiot. I had a chance to get
-in on the ground-floor when that paper of his started, but I was wise--I
-was knowing. When I heard the manager of the thing was the son of one of
-your father's old tenants, I pulled down one corner of my eye and turned
-him over to my financial rivals. You bet I see my mistake now. The stock
-is worth two for one, and not a scrap on the market at that. Do you know
-what the directors did the other day? When folks do it for you or me we
-will feel flattered. They insured his life for one hundred thousand
-dollars, because if he were to die the enterprise wouldn't have a leg to
-stand on. You see, it's all in his big brain. I suppose you know
-something about his boyhood?"
-
-"Oh yes," Langdon said, testily; "we were near the same age, and met now
-and then, but, you know, at that time our house was so full of visitors
-that I had little chance to see much of people in the neighborhood, and
-then he went West."
-
-"Ah, yes," said Sively, "and that's where his boom started. They are
-circulating some odd stories on him down here, but I take them all with
-a grain of salt. They say he sold out his Western interests for a good
-sum and gave every red cent of it to his poor old mother and
-step-father."
-
-"That's a fact," said Langdon. "I happen to know that it is absolutely
-true. When he got back he found his folks in a pretty bad shape, and he
-bought a good farm for them."
-
-"Well, I call that a brave thing," said the older man--"a thing I
-couldn't do to save my neck from the halter. No wonder his editorials
-have stirred up the reading public; he means what he says. He's the most
-conspicuous man in Atlanta to-day. But, say, you want to go to your
-room, and I'm keeping you. Go in and make yourself comfortable. I may
-not get to see much of you for two or three days. I have to run out of
-town with some men from Boston who are with me in a deal for some coal
-and iron land, but I'll see you when I return."
-
-"Oh, I can get along all right, thanks," Langdon said, as Pomp, Sively's
-negro man-servant, came for his bag in obedience to his master's ring.
-
-Three days later, on his return to town from a trip to the country,
-Sively, not seeing anything of his guest, asked Pomp where he was.
-
-"Don't know whar he is now, boss," the negro said, dryly. "I haint seed
-'im since dis mawnin', when he got out o' bed an' had me shave 'im up
-an' bresh his clothes. I tell you, Marse Sively, dat man's doin'
-powerful funny. He's certainly gone wrong somehow."
-
-"Why, what do you mean?" the bachelor asked, in alarm. "He looked all
-right when he got here."
-
-"Huh, I don't know what ails 'im, suh," the negro grunted, "but I kin
-see he's actin' curious. Dat fust mawnin' when I went in his room to
-clean up an' make de baid I come in easy like to keep fum wakin' 'im,
-but, bless you, he was already up, standin' at de window lookin' out in
-de street an' actually groanin' to hisse'f like some'n' was wrong wid
-his insides. I axed 'im what was de matter, an' if he wants me to
-telephone fer de doctor, but he lit in to cussin' me at sech a rate dat
-I seed it wasn't any ailment o' de flesh, anyway. He ordered me to go to
-de caf� fer his breakfast, an' I fetched 'im what he always did
-fancy--fried chicken, eggs on toast, an' coffee wid whipped cream--but,
-bless you, he let 'em get stone cold on de table, an' wouldn't touch a
-thing but what was in yo' decanter."
-
-"You don't tell me," Sively said, anxiously. "What has he been doing of
-evenings? Did he go to the Kimball House dance? I had Colville send him
-tickets. The Williamsons asked him to their card-party, too. Did he go?"
-
-"Not a step," Pomp replied. "He had me lay out his claw-hammer coat an'
-get it pressed at de tailor-shop dat fust night, and stirred around
-considerable, wid several drinks in 'im. He even had me clean his
-patent-leather pumps and ordered a cab fum de stable. Said he wasn't
-goin' to ride in one o' dem rickety street hacks wid numbers on 'em an'
-disgrace you. But, suh, de cab come an' I had everything out clean on de
-baid even to a fresh tube-rose for his button-hole. He sat around
-smokin' and runnin' fer de decanter ever' now and den, but wouldn't take
-off a rag of his old clothes, an' kept walkin' de flo', fust to de
-winder an' den back to de lounge, whar he'd throw hisse'f down at full
-length an' roll an' toss like he had de cramps. I went to 'im, I did, at
-ten o'clock, an' told 'im he was gwine to miss de grand promenade an'
-let all de rest of 'em fill up de ladies' cards, but he stared at me,
-suh, like he didn't know what I was talkin' about, an' den he come to
-his senses, an' told me he wasn't goin' to no dance. He went to de
-window an' ordered de cab off. De next mawnin' he had all his nice
-dress-suit stuffed in a wad in his valise. It was a sight, I'm here to
-tell you, an' he was settin' on de baid smoking. He said he'd had enough
-o' dis town, an' believed he'd take de train home; but he didn't, suh.
-De next night I was sho' oneasy, an' I watched 'im de best I could
-widout makin' 'im mad. He et a bite o' de supper I fetched 'im, and den,
-atter dark, he started out on foot. I followed 'im, kase I 'lowed you'd
-want me to ef you was here."
-
-"Yes, of course," Sively said; "and where did he go?"
-
-"Nowhar, suh--dat is, he didn't stop a single place. He just walked and
-walked everywhar and anywhar. It didn't make no odds to him, jest so he
-was movin' his laigs. He must 'a' covered five good miles in de most
-zigzag travellin' you ever seed--went clean to de gate o' de Exposition
-grounds, an' den back, an' plumb round de Capitol and out Washington
-Street, wid me on his scent like a blood-hound after a runaway nigger;
-but dar wasn't much danger o' me bein' seen, fer he didn't look round.
-Well, he finally turned an' come home an' tumbled in baid about two in
-de mawnin'. Yesterday de Williamson ladies an' deir maw driv' up to de
-do' an' axed about 'im. Dey said he was down on de list fer dinner at
-dey house, an', as he didn't come or send no word, dey 'lowed he was
-laid up sick. De lawd knows, I didn't know what to tell 'em. I've got
-myse'f in trouble befo' now lyin' fer white men widout knowin' what I
-was lyin' about, an' I let dat chance slide, an' told 'em I didn't know
-a blessed thing about it. Dey driv' off in a big huff; all three dey
-backs was as straight as a ironin'-board."
-
-"Have you any idea where he is now?" Sively inquired, anxiously.
-
-"I think he's over at de club, suh. De waiters in de caf� told me dat he
-makes a habit o' loungin' round de back smokin'-room by hisse'f."
-
-"Drinking?"
-
-"No, suh--dat is, not any mo'n he kin tote. He walks straight enough, it
-jest seems like it's some'n' wrong in his mind, Marse Sively," and Pomp
-touched his black brow significantly.
-
-"Well," Sively said, after a moment's reflection, "order the horses and
-trap. If I can find him I'll take him out to the Driving Club. I'm glad
-I got back. I'll take him in hand. Between me and you, Pomp, I think
-he's had bad news from his father. I'm afraid my uncle has really laid
-down the law to him, cut off his spending-money, or something of the
-kind."
-
-
-
-
-XXX
-
-
-In the darkest corner of the quietest room in the club, Sively found his
-cousin gloomily smoking a cigar, a bottle of brandy on a table near him,
-and a copy of Luke King's paper on the floor at his feet. As he looked
-up his eyes had a shifting glare in them, and there was an air of utter
-dejection on him, though, on recognizing his cousin, he made a valiant
-effort to appear at ease.
-
-"Oh, you are back, are you?" he said, awkwardly, flicking the ashes of
-his cigar over a tray.
-
-"Yes, just in, old boy, and I've got my horses out for a spin to the
-Driving Club. Come along. The whole town is out on wheels; the afternoon
-is perfect. The idea of your sitting cooped up here, in smoke thick
-enough to cut with an axe, when you ought to be filling your lungs with
-ozone and enjoying life!"
-
-Langdon hesitated, but it was evident that he could formulate no
-reasonable excuse for declining the invitation, and so he reluctantly
-gave in. "Let me get my hat," he said, and together they strolled down
-the wide entrance-hall to the hat-rack.
-
-"I felt rather uneasy when I missed you at my rooms," Sively remarked,
-as they were approaching the trap at the door. "Pomp could give no
-account of you, and I didn't know but what you'd skipped out for home.
-Have a good time while I was away?"
-
-"Oh yes, yes," Chester answered, as he got into the vehicle and began to
-adjust the lap-robes about him. "I got along all right. You see, old
-man, I'm sort of getting on the social retired-list. Living in the
-country, where we have few formalities, has turned me somewhat against
-your teas, dinners, and dances. I never go without feeling out of it
-somehow. You Atlanta men seem to know how to combine business and
-society pretty well; but, having no business when I'm here, I get sick
-of doing the other thing exclusively."
-
-"Oh, I see," said Sively, who was too deeply versed in human nature to
-be misled.
-
-As they sped along the smooth asphalt pavement of Peachtree Street,
-dodging trolley-cars and passing or meeting open vehicles filled with
-pleasure-seekers, Sively's hat and arm were in continual motion bowing
-to friends and acquaintances. The conversation languished. Sively found
-it very difficult to keep it going as he noted the deep lines of care
-which marked his cousin's face. He was quite sure something of a very
-serious nature had happened to Langdon, and his sympathies were deeply
-stirred.
-
-After twenty minutes' brisk driving, they reached the club-house and
-entered the throng of fashionably dressed men and women distributed
-about at the numerous refreshment-tables under the trees. The club was
-on a slight elevation, and below them stretched the beautiful greensward
-of the extensive Exposition grounds. Several of the liveried servants,
-recognizing Sively, approached and offered chairs at their respective
-tables, but, sensing his cousin's desire not to be thrown with others,
-he led the way through the laughing and chattering assemblage to a quiet
-table in a little smoking-room quite in the rear of the building.
-
-"There," he smiled, "this will suit you better, I know."
-
-"Yes, I think it will, if it's all the same to you," Chester admitted,
-with a breath of relief. "The Lord only knows what I'd talk about out
-there in that chattering gang."
-
-Sively ordered cigars, and, when the waiter had gone for them, he said,
-lightly: "No more liquor for you to-day, my boy. You hold your own all
-right, but you are too nervous to take any more."
-
-"Nervous? Do you think so? Do I look it?" Chester asked.
-
-"Oh yes, a little," said Sively. He was taking a bunch of cigars from
-the waiter, and, when he had signed his name to the accompanying slip of
-paper, he said, "Harry, pull the door to after you, and see that we are
-not disturbed."
-
-"Certainly, sir."
-
-Langdon, with widening eyes, watched the negro as he went out and closed
-the door, then he glanced at his cousin inquiringly.
-
-"I want to be alone with you, my boy," Sively said, with ill-assumed
-ease. "You can trust me, you know, and--well, the truth is, my boy, I
-want to know what you are in trouble about."
-
-"Me? Good gracious!"
-
-"Oh, don't begin that!" Sively said, firmly, as he struck a match and
-held it to the end of his cigar. "I won't stand it. You can't keep your
-feelings from me. At first, when Pomp told me about your not going out
-to those affairs when I was away, I thought your father had thrown you
-over for good and all, but it isn't that. My uncle couldn't do it,
-anyway. You are in trouble, my boy; what is it?"
-
-Langdon flushed and stared defiantly across the table into the fixed
-eyes of his cousin for a moment, and then he looked down.
-
-"No, my father is all right," he said. "He's found out about the horse,
-but he didn't take it so very hard. In fact, he went to Darley and
-bought him back for only a slight advance on what I sold him for. He is
-worried about me, and writes for me to come on home."
-
-"Then, as I supposed, it is _not_ your father," said Sively.
-
-There was a pause. Langdon, with bloodless fingers, nervously broke his
-cigar half in two. He took another and listlessly struck a match, only
-to let its flame expire without using it.
-
-"What's the trouble, my boy?" pursued Sively. "I want to befriend you if
-I can. I'm older than you."
-
-"Well, I _am_ in trouble," Langdon said, simply. Then, in a low tone,
-and with frequent pauses, he told all about his acquaintance with
-Virginia. Once started, he left out no detail, extending his confidence
-till it had included a humble confession even of his humiliation by Ann
-Boyd and the girl's bitter words of contempt a few days later. "Then I
-had to come away," Langdon finished, with a sigh that was a whispered
-groan. "I couldn't stand it. I thought the change, the life and
-excitement down here, would make me forget, but it's worse than ever.
-I'm in hell, old man--a regular hell."
-
-Sively leaned back in his chair. There was an expression of supreme
-disgust about his sensitive nose and mouth, and his eyes burned with
-indignant, spirit-fed fires.
-
-"Great God!" he exclaimed; "and it was _that_ girl--that particular
-one--Jane Hemingway's daughter!"
-
-"You've seen her, then?" Langdon said, in awakening surprise.
-
-"Seen her? Great Heavens, of course, I've seen her, and, now that I know
-all this, her sweet, young face will never go out of my mind--never as
-long as life is in me."
-
-"I don't exactly see--I don't understand--" Langdon began, but his
-cousin interrupted him.
-
-"I had a talk with her one day," he said, feelingly. "I had been hunting
-with your gun and dogs, and stopped at her mother's house to get a drink
-of water. Virginia was the only one at home, and she brought it to me in
-the little porch. I've met thousands of women, Langdon, but her beauty,
-grace, intelligence, and dazzling purity affected me as I never was
-before. I am old enough to be her father, but do you know what I thought
-as I sat there and talked to her? I thought that I'd give every dollar I
-had for the love and faith of such a girl--to leave this rotten
-existence here and settle down there in the mountains to earn my living
-by the sweat of my brow. It was almost the only silly dream I ever had,
-but it was soon over. A thousand times since that day, in the midst of
-all this false show and glitter, my mind has gone back to that wonderful
-girl. She'd read books I'd never had time to open, and talked about them
-as freely and naturally as I would about things of everyday life. No
-doubt she was famished for what all women, good or bad, love--the
-admiration of men--and so she listened eagerly to your slick tongue. Oh,
-I know what you said, and exactly how you said it. You've inherited that
-gift, my boy, but you've inherited something--perhaps from your
-mother--something that your father never had in his make-up--you've
-inherited a capacity for remorse, self-contempt, the throes of an
-outraged conscience. I'm a man of the world--I don't go to church, I
-play cards, I race horses, I've gone all the gaits--but I know there is
-something in most men which turns their souls sick when they consciously
-commit crime. _Crime!_--yes, that's it--don't stop me. I used a strong
-word, but it must go. There are men who would ten thousand times rather
-shoot a strong, able-bodied man dead in his tracks than beguile a young
-girl to the brink of doom (of all ways) as you did--blinding her to her
-own danger by the holy desire to save her mother's life, pulling her as
-it were by her very torn and bleeding heart-strings. God!"
-
-"Oh, don't--don't make it any worse than it is!" Langdon groaned.
-"What's done's done, and, if I'm down in the blackest depths of despair
-over it, what's the use to kick me? I'm helpless. Do you know what I
-actually thought of doing this morning? I actually lay in bed and
-planned my escape. I wanted to turn on the gas, but I knew it would
-never do its work in that big, airy room."
-
-"Oh, don't be a fool, Langdon!" Sively said, suddenly pulled around.
-"Never think of such a thing again. When a man that _is_ a man does a
-wrong, there is only one thing for him to do, and that is to set it
-right."
-
-"Set it right? But how?" Langdon cried, almost eagerly.
-
-"Why, there are several ways to make a stab at it, anyway," Sively said;
-"and that is better than wiping your feet on a gentle creature and then
-going off and smoking a gas-pipe. What I want to know is this: do you
-_love_ that girl, really and genuinely _love_ her?"
-
-"Why, I think I do," said Langdon; "in fact, I now _know_ it; if I
-didn't, why should I be here miserable enough to die about what has
-happened and her later treatment of me?"
-
-"I couldn't take your diagnosis of your particular malady." Sively
-puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. "You'd be the last person, really,
-that could decide on that. There are some men in the world who can't
-tell the difference between love and passion, and they are led to the
-altar by one as often as the other. But the passion-led man has walked
-through the pink gates of hell. When his temporary desire has been fed,
-he'll look into the face of his bride with absolute loathing and
-contempt. She'll be too pure, as a rule, to understand the chasm between
-them, but she will know that for her, at least, marriage is a failure.
-Now, if I thought you really loved that pretty girl--if I thought you
-really were man enough to devote the rest of your days to blotting from
-her memory the black events of that night; if I thought you'd go to her
-with the hot blood of hell out of your veins, and devote yourself to
-winning her just as some young man on her own social level would do,
-paying her open and respectful attentions, declaring your honorable
-intentions to her relatives and friends--if I thought you were man
-enough to do that, in spite of the opposition of your father and mother,
-then I'd glory in your spunk, and I'd think more of you, my poor boy,
-than I ever have in all my life."
-
-Langdon leaned forward. He had felt his cousin's contemptuous words less
-for the hope they embodied. "Then you think if I did that, she might--"
-
-"I don't know what _she'd_ do," Sively broke in. "I only know that when
-you finally saw her after that night and made no declarations of
-honorable intentions, that you simply emphasized the cold-blooded insult
-of what had already happened. She saw in your following her up only a
-desire to repeat the conduct which had so nearly entrapped her. My boy,
-I am not a mean judge of women, and I am afraid you have simply lost
-that girl forever. She has lowered herself, as she perhaps looks at it,
-in the eyes of another woman--the one who saved her--and her young eyes
-have been torn open to things she was too pure and unsuspecting even to
-dream of. However, all her life she has heard of the misfortune of this
-Mrs. Boyd, and she now realizes only too vividly what she has escaped.
-It might take you years to restore her confidence--to prove to her that
-you love her for herself alone, but if I stood in your shoes I'd do it
-if it took me a lifetime. She is worth it, my boy. In fact, I'm afraid
-she is--now pardon me for being so blunt--but I'm afraid she is superior
-to you in intellect. She struck me as being a most wonderful woman for
-her age. Given opportunity, she'd perhaps out-strip you. It is strange
-that she has had so little attention paid to her. Has she never had an
-admirer before?"
-
-Langdon exhaled a deep breath before replying. "That is something I've
-been worried about," he admitted. "From little things she has dropped I
-imagine this same Luke King used to be very fond of her before he left
-for the West. They have met since he got back, and I'm afraid she--"
-
-"Good gracious! that puts another face on the business," said Sively. "I
-don't mean any disparagement to you, but if--if there ever was any
-understanding between them, and he has come back such a success, why, it
-isn't unlikely that you'd have a rival worth giving attention to. A man
-of that sort rarely ever makes a mistake in marrying. If he is after
-that girl, you've got an interesting fight ahead of you--that is, if you
-intend to buck against him. Now, I see, I've made you mad."
-
-"Do you think I'd let a man of his birth and rearing thwart me?" Langdon
-cried--"a mountain cracker, a clodhopper, an uncouth, unrefined--"
-
-"Stop! you are going too far," said Sively, quickly. "Our old idea that
-refinement can only come from silk-lined cradles is about exploded. It
-seems to me that refinement is as natural as a love of art, music, or
-poetry. And not only has that chap got refinement of a decided sort, but
-he's got a certain sort of pride that makes him step clean over a
-reverence for our defunct traditions. When he meets a scion of the old
-aristocracy his clear eye doesn't waver as he stares steadily into the
-face as if to see if the old r�gime has left a fragment of brains there
-worth inspecting. Oh, he gets along all right in society! The Holts had
-him at the club reception and dinner the other night, and our best women
-were actually _asking_ to be introduced to him, and--"
-
-"But why are you telling all this stuff to me?" Langdon thundered, as he
-rose angrily to signify that he was ready to go.
-
-"Why do I?" Sively said, pacifically. "Because you've simply got to know
-the genuine strength of your rival, if he _is_ that, and you have to
-cross swords with him. If the fellow really intends to win that girl, he
-will perhaps display a power in the undertaking that you never saw. I'd
-as soon fight a buzz-saw with bare hands as to tackle him in a fight for
-a woman's love. Oh, I've got started, my boy, and I'll have to reel it
-all off, and be done with it. There is one thing you may get mad and
-jealous enough to do--that is, in case you are this fellow King's
-rival--"
-
-"What do you mean? What did you start to say?" Langdon glared down at
-his cousin.
-
-"Why, you might--I say might--fall low enough to try to use the poor
-girl's little indiscretion against her. But if you do, my boy, I'll go
-back on you. I'll do it as sure as there is a God in heaven. I wish you
-luck with her, but it all depends on you. If you will be a man, you may
-be happy in the end, get a beautiful, trusting wife, and wipe the mire
-off your soul which is making you so miserable. Go straight home and set
-about it in the right way. Begin with a humble proposal of marriage.
-That will show your intentions at the outset. Now, let's get out in the
-open air."
-
-They walked through the gay throng again to the carriage, and as they
-were getting in Langdon said, almost cheerfully: "I'm going to take your
-advice. I know I love her, honestly and truly, for I want her with every
-nerve in my body. I haven't slept a single night through since the thing
-happened. I've simply been crazy."
-
-"Well, the whole thing lies with you," said Sively. "The girl must have
-cared _something_ for you at one time, and you must recover your lost
-place in her estimation. A humble proposal of marriage will, in my
-judgment, soften her more than anything else. It will be balm to her
-wounded pride, too, and you may win. You've got a fair chance. Most poor
-mountain girls would be flattered by the opportunity to marry a man
-above them in social position, and she may be that way. Be a man, and
-pay no attention to your father's objections. When the proper time
-comes, I'll talk to him."
-
-
-
-
-XXXI
-
-
-After leaving Atlanta, with only her normal strength and flesh to
-regain, Jane Hemingway returned to her mountain home in most excellent
-spirits. She had heartily enjoyed her stay, and was quite in her best
-mood before the eager group of neighbors who gathered at her cottage the
-afternoon of her return.
-
-"What _I_ can't understand," remarked old Mrs. Penuckle, "is why you
-don't say more about the cutting. Why, the knife wasn't going into _me_
-at all, and yet on the day I thought the doctors would be at work on you
-I couldn't eat my dinner. I went around shuddering, fancying I could
-feel the blade rake, rake through my vitals. Wasn't you awfully afraid?"
-
-"Bless your soul, no!" Jane laughed merrily. "There wasn't a bit more of
-a quiver on me than there is right now. We was all talking in a funny
-sort of way and passing jokes to the last minute before they gave me
-ether. They gave it to me in a tin thing full of cotton that they
-clapped over my mouth and nose. I had to laugh, I remember, for, just as
-he got ready, Dr. Putnam said, with his sly grin, 'Look here, I'm going
-to muzzle you, old lady, so you can't talk any more about your
-neighbors.'"
-
-"Well, he certainly give you a bliff there without knowing it," remarked
-Sam Hemingway, dryly. "But he's a fool if he thinks a tin thing full o'
-drugs would do that."
-
-"Oh, go on and tell us about the cutting," said Mrs. Penuckle, wholly
-oblivious of Sam's sarcasm. "That's what _I_ come to hear about."
-
-"Well, I reckon getting under that ether was the toughest part of the
-job," Jane smiled. "I took one deep whiff of it, and I give you my word
-I thought the pesky stuff had burnt the lining out of my windpipe. But
-Dr. Putnam told me he'd give it to me more gradual, and he did. It still
-burnt some, but it begun to get easy, and I drifted off into the
-pleasantest sleep, I reckon, I ever had. When I come to and found nobody
-in the room but a girl in a white apron and a granny's cap, I was afraid
-they had decided not to operate, and, when I asked her if there'd been
-any hitch, she smiled and said it was all over, and I wouldn't have
-nothing to do but lie still and pick up."
-
-"It's wonderful how fine they've got things down these days," commented
-Sam. "Ten years ago folks looked on an operation like that as next to a
-funeral, but it's been about the only picnic Jane's had since she was
-flying around with the boys."
-
-The subject of this jest joined the others in a good-natured laugh.
-"There was just one thing on my mind to bother me," she said, somewhat
-more seriously, "and that was wondering who gave that money to Virginia.
-Naturally a thing like that would pester a person, especially where it
-was such a big benefit. I've been at Virginia to tell me, or give me
-some hint so I could find out myself, but the poor child looks awfully
-embarrassed, and keeps reminding me of her promise. I reckon there isn't
-but one thing to do, and that is to let it rest."
-
-"There's only one person round here that's _got_ any spare money," said
-Sam Hemingway, quite with a straight face, "and it happens, too, that
-she'd like to have a thing like that done."
-
-"Why, who do you mean, Sam?" His sister-in-law fell into his trap, as
-she sat staring at him blandly.
-
-"Why, it's Ann Boyd--old Sister Ann. She'd pay for a job like that on
-the bare chance of the saw-bones making a miss-lick and cutting too
-deep, or blood-pizen settin' in."
-
-"Don't mention that woman's name to me!" Jane said, angrily. "You know
-it makes me mad, and that's why you do it. I tried to keep a humble and
-contrite heart in me down there; but, folks, I'm going to confess to you
-all that the chief joy I felt in getting my health back was on account
-of that woman's disappointment. I never mentioned it till now, but that
-meddlesome old hag actually knew about my ailment long before I let it
-out to a soul. Like a fool, I bought some fake medicine from a tramp
-peddler one day, and let him examine me. He went straight over to Ann
-Boyd's and told her. Oh, I know he did, for she met me at the wash-hole,
-during the hot spell, when water was scarce, and actually gloated over
-my coming misfortune. She wouldn't say what the ill-luck was, but I knew
-what she was talking about and where she got her information."
-
-"I never thought that old wench was as black as she was painted," Sam
-declared, with as much firmness as he could command in the presence of
-so much femininity. "If this had been a community of men, instead of
-three-fourths the other sort, she'd have been reinstated long before
-this. I'll bet, if the Scriptural injunction for the innocent to cast
-the first stone was obeyed, there wouldn't be no hail-storm o' rocks in
-this neighborhood."
-
-"Oh, she would just suit a lot of men!" Jane said, in a tone which
-indicated the very lowest estimation of her brother-in-law's opinion.
-"It takes women to size up women. I want to meet the old thing now, just
-to show her that I'm still alive and kicking."
-
-Jane had this opportunity sooner than she expected. Dr. Putnam had
-enjoined upon her a certain amount of physical exercise, and so one
-afternoon, shortly after getting back, she walked slowly down to
-Wilson's store. It was on her return homeward, while passing a portion
-of Ann's pasture, where the latter, with pencil and paper in hand, was
-laying out some ditches for drainage, that she saw her opportunity.
-
-"Now, if she don't turn and run, I'll get a whack at her," she chuckled.
-"It will literally kill the old thing to see me walking so spry."
-
-Thereupon, in advancing, Jane quickened her step, putting a sort of
-jaunty swing to her whole gaunt frame. With only the worm fence and its
-rough clothing of wild vines and briers between them, the women met face
-to face. There was a strange, unaggressive wavering in Ann's eyes, but
-her enemy did not heed it.
-
-"Ah ha!" she cried. "I reckon this is some surprise to you, Ann Boyd! I
-reckon you won't brag about being such a wonderful health prophet now! I
-was told down in Atlanta--by _experts_, mind you--that my heart and
-lungs were as sound as a dollar, and that, counting on the long lives of
-my folks on both sides, I'm good for fifty years yet."
-
-"Huh! I never gave any opinion on how long you'd live, that I know of,"
-Ann said, sharply.
-
-"You didn't, heigh? You didn't, that day at the wash-place when you
-stood over me and shook your finger in my face and said you knew what my
-trouble was, and was waiting to see it get me down? Now, I reckon you
-remember!"
-
-"I don't remember saying one word about your cancer, if that's what you
-are talking about," Ann sniffed. "I couldn't 'a' said anything about it,
-for I didn't know you had it."
-
-"Now, I know _that's_ not so; you are just trying to take backwater,
-because you are beat. That peddler that examined me and sold me a bottle
-of medicine went right to your house, and you pumped him dry as to my
-condition."
-
-"Huh! he said you just had a stiff arm," said Ann. "I wasn't alluding to
-that at all."
-
-"You say you wasn't, then what was you talking about? I'd like to know."
-
-"Well, that's for me to know and you to find out," Ann said, goaded to
-anger. "I don't have to tell you all I know and think. Now, you go on
-about your business, Jane Hemingway, and let me alone."
-
-"I'll never let you alone as long as there's a breath left in my body,"
-Jane snarled. "You know what you are; you are a disgrace to the county.
-You are a close-fisted, bad woman--as bad as they make them. You ought
-to be drummed out of the community, and you would be, too, if you didn't
-have so much ill-gotten gains laid up."
-
-There was a pause, for Jane was out of breath. Ann leaned over the
-fence, crushing her sheet of paper in her tense fingers. "I'll tell you
-something," she said, her face white, her eyes flashing like those of a
-powerful beast goaded to desperation by an animal too small and agile to
-reach--"I'll tell you one thing. For reasons of my own I've tried to
-listen to certain spiritual advice about loving enemies. Jesus Christ
-laid the law down, but He lived before you was born, Jane Hemingway.
-There isn't an angel at God's throne to-day that could love you. I'd as
-soon try to love a hissing rattlesnake, standing coiled in my path, as
-such a dried-up bundle of devilment as you are. Could I hit back at you
-now? _Could_ I? Huh! I could tell you something, you old fool, that
-would humble you in the dust at my feet and make you crawl home with
-your nose to the earth like a whipped dog. And I reckon I'm a fool not
-to do it, when you are pushing me this way. You come to gloat over me
-because your rotten body feels a little bit stronger than it did. I
-could make you forget your dirty carcass. I could make you so sick at
-the soul you'd vomit a prayer for mercy every minute the rest of your
-life. But I won't do it, as mad as I am. I'll not do it. You go your
-way, and I'll go mine."
-
-Jane Hemingway stared wildly. The light of triumph had died out in her
-thin, superstitious face. She leaned, as if for needed support, on the
-fence only a few feet from her enemy. Superstition was her weakest
-point, and it was only natural now for her to fall under its spell. She
-recalled Ann's fierce words prophesying some mysterious calamity which
-was to overtake her, and placed them beside the words she had just had
-hurled at her, and their combined effect was deadening.
-
-"You think you know lots," she found herself saying, mechanically.
-
-"Well, I know what I _know_!" Ann retorted, still furious. "You go on
-about your business. You'd better let me alone, woman. Some day I may
-fasten these two hands around that scrawny neck of yours and shake some
-decency into you."
-
-Jane shrank back instinctively. She was less influenced, however, by the
-threat of bodily harm than by the sinister hint, now looming large in
-her imagination, that had preceded it. Ann was moving away, and she soon
-found herself left alone with thoughts which made any but agreeable
-companions.
-
-"What can the woman mean?" she muttered, as she slowly pursued her way.
-"Maybe she's just doing that to worry me. But no, she was in
-earnest--dead in earnest--both times. She never says things haphazard;
-she's no fool, either. It must be something simply awful or she wouldn't
-mention it just that way. Now, I'm going to let _this_ take hold of me
-and worry me night and day like the cancer did."
-
-She paused and stood in the road panting, her hand, by force of habit,
-resting on her breast. Looking across the meadow, she saw Ann Boyd
-sturdily trudging homeward through the waist-high bulrushes. The
-slanting rays of the sun struck the broad back of the hardy outcast and
-illumined the brown cotton-land which stretched on beyond her to the
-foot of the mountain. Jane Hemingway caught her breath and moved on
-homeward, pondering over the mystery which was now running rife in her
-throbbing brain. Yes, it was undoubtedly something terrible--but what?
-That was the question--what?
-
-Reaching home, she was met at the door by Virginia, who came forward
-solicitously to take her shawl. A big log-fire, burning in the wide
-chimney of the sitting-room, lighted it up with a red glow. Jane sank
-into her favorite chair, listlessly holding in her hands the small
-parcel of green coffee she had bought at the store.
-
-"Let me have it," Virginia said. "I must parch it and grind it for
-supper. The coffee is all out."
-
-As the girl moved away with the parcel, Jane's eyes followed her.
-"Should she tell her daughter what had taken place?" she asked herself.
-Perhaps a younger, fresher mind could unravel the grave puzzle. But how
-could she bring up the matter without betraying the fact that she had
-been the aggressor? No, she must simply nurse her new fears in secret
-for a while and hope for--well, what could she hope for, anyway? She
-lowered her head, her sharp elbows on her knees, and stared into the
-fire. Surely fate was against her, and it was never intended for her to
-get the best of Ann Boyd in any encounter. Through all her illness she
-had been buoyed up by the triumphant picture of Ann Boyd's chagrin at
-seeing her sound of body again, and this had been the result. Instead of
-humiliating Ann, Ann had filled her quaking soul with a thousand
-intangible, rapidly augmenting fears. The cloud of impending disaster
-stretched black and lowering across Jane Hemingway's horizon.
-
-Sam came in with a bundle of roots in his arms, and laid them carefully
-on a shelf. "I've dug me some sassafras of the good, red variety," he
-said, over his shoulder, to her. "You folks that want to can spend money
-at drug stores, but in the fall of the year, if I drink plenty of
-sassafras tea instead of coffee, it thins my blood and puts me in
-apple-pie order. But I reckon you don't want _your_ blood any thinner
-than them doctors left it. Right now you look as flabby and limber as a
-wet rag. What ails you, _anyway_?"
-
-"I reckon I walked too far, right at the start," Jane managed to fish
-from her confused mind. "I'm going to be more careful in the future."
-
-"Well, you'd better," Sam opined. "You may not find folks as ready to
-invest in your burial outfit as they was to prevent you from needing
-one."
-
-
-
-
-XXXII
-
-
-The following morning, in her neatest dress and white sun-bonnet,
-Virginia walked to Wilson's store to buy some sewing-thread. She was on
-her way back, and was traversing the most sequestered part of the road,
-where a brook of clear mountain water ran rippling by, and an abundance
-of willows and reeds hid the spot from view of any one approaching, when
-she was startled by Langdon Chester suddenly appearing before her from
-behind a big, moss-grown bowlder.
-
-"Don't run, Virginia--for God's sake don't run!" he said, humbly. "I
-simply _must_ speak to you."
-
-"But I told you I didn't want to meet you again," Virginia answered,
-sternly. "Why won't you leave me alone? If I've acted the fool and
-lowered myself in my estimation for all the rest of my life, that ought
-to be enough. It is as much as I can stand. You've simply got to stop
-following me up."
-
-"You don't understand, Virginia," he pleaded. "You admit you feel
-different since that night; grant the same to me. I've passed through
-absolute torment. I thought, after you talked to me so angrily the last
-time I saw you, that I could forget it if I left. I went to Atlanta, but
-I suffered worse than ever down there. I was on the verge of suicide.
-You see, I learned how dear you had become to me."
-
-"Bosh! I don't believe a word of it!" Virginia retorted, her eyes
-flashing, though her face was deathly pale. "I don't believe any man
-could really care for a girl and treat her as you did me that night. God
-knows I did wrong--a wrong that will never be undone, but I did it for
-the sake of my suffering mother. That's the only thing I have to lessen
-my self-contempt, and that is little; but you--you--oh, I don't want to
-talk to you! I want to blot it all--everything about it--from my mind."
-
-"But you haven't heard me through," he said, advancing a step nearer to
-her, his face ablaze with admiration and unsatisfied passion. "I find
-that I simply can't live without you, and as for what happened that
-awful night, I've come to wipe it out in the most substantial way a
-self-respecting man can. I've come to ask you to marry me, Virginia--to
-be my wife."
-
-"To be your wife!" she gasped. "Me--you--_we_ marry--you and I? Live
-together, as--"
-
-"Yes, dear, that's what I mean. I know you are a good, pure girl, and I
-am simply miserable without you. No human being could imagine the depth
-of my love. It has simply driven me crazy, along with the way you have
-acted lately. My father and mother may object, but it's got to be done,
-and it will all blow over. Now, Virginia, what will you say? I leave it
-all to you. You may name the place and time--I'm your slave from now on.
-Your wonderful grace and beauty have simply captured me. I'll do the
-best I can to hold up my end of the thing. My cousin, Chester Sively, is
-a good sort of chap, and, to be frank, when he saw how miserable I was
-down there, he drew it out of me. I told him my folks would object and
-make it hot for me, but that I could not live without you, and he
-advised me to come straight home and propose to you. You see, he thought
-perhaps I had offended you in not making my intentions plainer at the
-start, and that when you knew how I felt you would not be so hard on me.
-Now, you are not going to be, are you, little girl? After all those
-delicious walks we used to have, and the things you have at least let me
-believe, I know you won't go back on me. Oh, we'll have a glorious time!
-Chester will advance me some money, I am sure, and we'll take a trip.
-We'll sail from Savannah to New York and stay away, by George, till the
-old folks come to their senses. I admit I was wrong in all that
-miserable business. I ought to have given you that money and not made
-you come for it, but being a mad fool like that once doesn't prove I
-can't turn over a new leaf. Now, you try me."
-
-He advanced towards her, his hand extended to clasp hers, but she
-suddenly drew back.
-
-"I couldn't think of marrying you," she said, almost under her breath.
-"I couldn't under any possible circumstances."
-
-"Oh, Virginia, you don't mean that!" he cried, crestfallen. "You are
-still mad about being--being frightened that night, and that old hag
-finding out about it. No woman would relish having another come up at
-just such an awkward moment and get her vile old head full of all sorts
-of unfair notions. But this, you see--you are old enough to see that
-marriage actually puts everything straight, even to the bare possibility
-of anything ever leaking out. That's why I think you will act sensibly."
-
-To his surprise, Virginia, without looking at him, covered her face with
-her hands. He saw her pretty shoulders rise as if she had smothered a
-sob. Hoping that she was moved by the humility and earnestness of his
-appeal, he caught one of her hands gently and started to pull it from
-her face. But, to his surprise, she shrank back and stared straight and
-defiantly in his eyes.
-
-"That's the way _you_ look at it!" she cried, indignantly. "You think I
-hopelessly compromised myself by what I did, and that I'll have to tie
-myself to you for life in consequence; but I won't. I'd rather die. I
-couldn't live with you. I hate you! I detest you! I hate and detest you
-because you've made me detest myself. To think that I have to stand here
-listening to a proposal in--in the humiliating way you make it."
-
-"Look here, Virginia, you are going too far!" he cried, white with the
-dawning realization of defeat and quivering in every limb. "You are no
-fool, if you _are_ only a girl, and you know that a man in--well, in my
-position, will not take a thing like this calmly. I've been desperate,
-and I hardly knew what I was about, but this--I can't stand this,
-Virginia."
-
-"Well, I couldn't marry you," she answered. "If you were a king and I a
-poor beggar, I wouldn't agree to be your wife. I'd never marry a man I
-did not thoroughly respect, and I don't respect you a bit. In fact,
-knowing you has only shown me how fine and noble, by contrast, other men
-are. Since this thing happened, one man--" She suddenly paused. Her
-impulse had led her too far. He glared at her for an instant, and then
-suddenly grasped her hand and held it in such a tight, brutal clasp that
-she writhed in pain, but he held onto it, twisting it in his unconscious
-fury.
-
-"I know who you mean," he said. "I see it all now. You have seen Luke
-King, and he has been saying sweet things to you. Ann Boyd is his
-friend, too, and she hates me. But look here, if you think I will stand
-having a man of that stamp defeat me, you don't know me. You don't know
-the lengths a Chester will go to gain a point. I see it all. You've been
-different of late. You used to like him, and he has been talking to you
-since he got back. It will certainly be a dark day for him when he dares
-to step between me and my plans."
-
-"You are going entirely too fast," Virginia said, grown suddenly
-cautious. "There's nothing, absolutely nothing, between Luke King and
-myself, and, moreover, there never will be."
-
-"You may tell that to a bigger fool than I am," Chester fumed. "I know
-there is something between you two, and, frankly, trouble is brewing for
-him. He may write his long-winded sermons about loving mankind, and bask
-in the praise of the sentimental idiots who dote on him, but I'll draw
-him back to practical things. I'll bring him down to the good,
-old-fashioned way of settling matters between men."
-
-"Well, it's cowardly of you to keep me here by brute force," Virginia
-said, finally wresting her hand from his clasp and beginning to walk
-onward. "I've said there is nothing between him and me, and I shall not
-repeat it. If you want to raise a fuss over it, you will only make
-yourself ridiculous."
-
-"Well, I'll look after _that_ part of it," he cried, beside himself with
-rage. "No mountain razor-back stripe of man like he is can lord it over
-me, simply because the scum of creation is backing up his shallow ideas
-with money. _I'll_ open his eyes."
-
-And Langdon Chester, too angry and disappointed to be ashamed of
-himself, stood still and allowed her to go on her way. A boy driving a
-drove of mules turned the bend of the road, and Chester stepped aside,
-but when they had passed he stood still and watched Virginia as she
-slowly pursued her way.
-
-"Great God, how am I to stand it?" he groaned. "I want her! I want her!
-I'd work for her. I'd slave for her. I'd do anything under high heaven
-to be able to call her my own--all my own! My God, isn't she beautiful?
-That mouth, that proud poise of head, that neck and breast and form!
-Were there ever such eyes set in a human head before--such a maddening
-lip, such a--oh, I can't stand it! I wasn't made for defeat like this.
-Marry her? I'd marry her if it impoverished every member of my family.
-I'd marry her if the honeymoon ended in my death. At any rate, I would
-have lived awhile. Does Luke King intend to marry her? Of course he
-does--he has _seen_ her; but _shall_ he? No, there is one thing certain,
-and that is that I could never live and know that she was receiving
-another man's embraces. I'd kill him if it damned me eternally. And yet
-I've played my last and biggest card. She won't marry me. She would
-_once_, but she won't _now_. Yes, I'm facing a big, serious thing, but
-I'll face it. If he tries to get her, the world will simply be too small
-for both of us to live in together."
-
-
-
-
-XXXIII
-
-
-The following morning, after spending a restless, troublous night in
-reflecting over the protestations and threats of Langdon Chester,
-Virginia went frequently to the rear door of the house and looked out
-towards Ann Boyd's domicile in the hope of seeing her new friend. It was
-a cool, bleak day. The skies were veiled in thin, low-hanging, gray
-clouds which seemed burdened with snow, and sharp gusts of wind bore the
-smoke from the chimney down to the earth and around the house in
-lingering, bluish wisps. Finally her fitful watch met its reward, and
-she saw Ann emerge from her house and trudge down towards the
-cotton-field between the two farms. Hastily looking into the kitchen,
-and seeing that her mother was busily engaged mashing some boiled
-sweet-potatoes into a pulpy mixture of sugar, butter, and spices, with
-which to make some pies, Virginia slipped out of the house and into the
-cow-lot. Here she paused for a moment, her glance on the doorway through
-which she had passed, and then, seeing that her leaving had not
-attracted her mother's attention, she climbed over the rail-fence and
-entered the dense thicket near by. Through this tangle of vines, bushes,
-and briers she slowly made her way, until, suddenly, the long, regular
-rows of Ann's dead cotton-stalks, with their empty boles and withered
-leaves, stretched out before her. And there stood Ann, crumbling a
-sample of the gray soil in her big, red hand. She heard Virginia's
-approach over the dry twigs of the wood, and looked up.
-
-"Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know but what it was another
-catamount that had got out of its beat up in the mountains and strayed
-down into civilization."
-
-"I happened to see you leave your house and come this way," Virginia
-said, somewhat embarrassed, "and so I--"
-
-"Yes, I came down here to take one more look at this field and make up
-my mind whether to have it turned under for wheat or try its strength on
-cotton again. There was a lots of fertilizer put on this crop, child. I
-can always tell by the feel of the dirt. That's the ruination of farming
-interests in the South. It's the get-a-crop-quick plan that has no solid
-foundation. An industrious German or Irishman can make more off of an
-acre than we can off of ten, and be adding value to the property each
-year. But did you want to see me about--anything particular?"
-
-"It seems like I'm born to have trouble," Virginia answered, with
-heightening color and a studious avoidance of the old woman's keen
-glance.
-
-"I see; I reckon your mother--"
-
-"No, it's not about her," Virginia interrupted. "In fact, it's something
-that I could not confide in her."
-
-"Well, you go ahead and tell me about it," Ann said, consolingly, as she
-threw the sample of soil down and wiped her hand on her apron. "I think
-it's powerful odd the way things have turned around, anyway. Only a few
-days ago if anybody had told me I'd ever be half-way friendly with a
-daughter of Jane Hemingway, I'd have thought they was clean off their
-base. I'm trying to act the impartial friend to you, child, but I don't
-know that I can. The trouble is, my flesh is too weak. It's only fair to
-tell you that I come in the breadth of a hair the other day of betraying
-you outright to your mammy. She met me down the road and drove me too
-far. She caught me off my guard and came at me in her old, catlike way,
-spitting and snarling--a thing I'm not proof against. She was gloating
-over me. I'm ashamed to say it to a sweet, trusting face like yours, but
-she came charging on me at such a rate that she drove away my best
-intentions and made me plumb forget what I was trying to do for you."
-
-Ann hung her head for a moment, almost sheepishly kicking a cotton-stalk
-from its mellow hill with the toe of her shoe.
-
-"Don't bother about that," Virginia said, sweetly. "I know how she can
-exasperate any one."
-
-"Well, I'm satisfied I won't do to trust in the capacity of a friend,
-anyway," Ann said, frankly. "I reckon I would be safe with anybody but
-that woman. There is no use telling you what I said, but I come in an
-inch of giving you plumb away. I come that nigh injuring a pure,
-helpless little thing like you are to hit her one sousing lick. As it
-was, I think I cowed her considerable. She's superstitious, and she
-broods as much over an imaginary trouble as a real one. The Lord knows
-I've been busy enough in my life tackling the genuine thing."
-
-"I wanted to tell you," Virginia said, "that ever since Langdon Chester
-got back from Atlanta he has been trying to meet me, and--"
-
-"The dirty scamp!" Ann broke in, angrily. "I told him if he ever dared
-to--"
-
-"Wait a minute, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia put out her hand and touched the
-old woman's arm. "He seems awfully upset over what has happened. I never
-saw any one change so completely. He looked very thin, his eyes were
-bloodshot, and he shook all over like a man who has been on a long
-spree. Mrs. Boyd, he came--and I'm sure he was serious--to ask me to
-marry him."
-
-"Marry him? Why, child, you don't mean _that_--surely you don't mean--"
-
-"I only know what he said," Virginia declared. "He says he is absolutely
-miserable over it all and wants me to marry him. His cousin, Chester
-Sively, advised him to propose to me, and he did. He says he loves me,
-and that nothing else will satisfy him."
-
-"Well, well, well!" Ann exclaimed, as her great, astonished eyes bore
-down on Virginia's face. "I thought he was a chip off of the old block,
-but maybe he's got a little streak of good in him, and yet, let me study
-a minute. Let's walk on down to the spring. I want to see if it doesn't
-need a new gum--the old one is about rotted out. Well, well, well!"
-
-They strolled along the fence, side by side, neither speaking till the
-spring was reached. There was a rustic bench near by, and Ann sat down
-on it, putting out her hand and drawing the girl to a seat at her side.
-
-"Yes, there may be a streak of good," she went on. "And yet that may be
-just another phase of bad. You must be very careful, child. You have no
-idea how beautiful you are. He may mean what he says, all right enough,
-but maybe he isn't being led by the best motive. I know men, I reckon,
-about as well as any other woman of my age. Now, you see, it may be like
-this: Langdon Chester brought to his aid all the _foul_ means he could
-command to carry his point and failed. Maybe, now, he's just reckless
-enough and his pride is cut deep enough to make him resort to fair means
-rather than be plumb beat to a finish. If that's so, marrying him would
-be a very risky thing, for as soon as his evil fires smouldered he'd
-leave you high and dry. He'd convince himself he'd married below his
-standard, and go to the dogs--or some other woman. Sometimes I think
-there isn't no real love, like we read about in story-books. I believe a
-man or a woman will love their own offspring in a solid,
-self-sacrificing way, but the sort of love that makes a continuous happy
-dream of marriage is powerful rare. It's generally one-sided and like a
-damp fire that takes a lot of fanning and fresh kindling-wood to keep
-going. But what did you tell him, I wonder?"
-
-"Why, I refused him," Virginia answered.
-
-"You did? You don't tell me! And how did his high and mighty lordship
-take that, I wonder?"
-
-"It made him awfully mad. He almost swore at me, and took hold of my
-hand roughly. Then, from something I happened to say, he imagined that I
-was in love with--with some one else, and he made awful threats of what
-he might do."
-
-"Ah, I see, I see, I see!" Ann muttered, as if to herself, her slow,
-thoughtful glance on her broad lands, which stretched out through the
-murky atmosphere. "It's wonderful how much your life is like mine used
-to be. The other night, lying in bed, I got to studying over it all, and
-it suddenly flashed on me that maybe it is the divine intention that I
-was to travel that rough road so I'd know how to lead you, that was to
-come on later, over the pits I stumbled in. And with that thought I felt
-a strange sort of peaceful contentment come over me. You see, I'm nearly
-always in a struggle against my inclination to treat Jane Hemingway's
-daughter half decent, and such thoughts as those kind o' ease my pride.
-If the Lord is making me pity you and like you, maybe it's the devil
-that is trying to pull me the other way. That's why I'm afraid I won't
-do to trust, wavering about like I am. In this fight I haven't the
-slightest idea which influence is going to win in the end. In a tight
-pinch I may be tempted to use our very friendship to get even with your
-mammy. When she faces me with that confident look in her eye and that
-hateful curl to her lip, I loose my grip on all that's worth a red cent
-in me."
-
-"You couldn't do a wrong thing to save your life," said Virginia,
-putting out her hand and taking that of her companion.
-
-"Don't you bet too high stakes on that," Ann replied, deeply touched.
-"I'm no saint. Right now I'm at daggers' points with nearly every
-neighbor I've got, and even my own child over the mountain. How I ever
-got this way with you is a mystery to me. You certainly were the last
-one I'd 'a' lifted a finger to help, but now--well, well--I reckon I'd
-worry a lots if you met with any further misfortune. But you are keeping
-back something, child. Did Langdon Chester seem to think that other
-'_somebody_' could possibly be Luke King?"
-
-Virginia flushed and nodded. "He seemed to think so, Mrs. Boyd."
-
-Ann sighed. She was still holding Virginia's hand, and she now began
-timidly to caress it as it lay on her knee.
-
-"I don't like the way it's turned out a bit," she said. "The Chester
-stock can't stand being balked in anything; they couldn't bear to be
-beat in love by a poor, self-made man like Luke, and great, big trouble
-may be brewing. Langdon might push a row on him. Luke is writing all
-sorts of things against the evil of war and fighting and the like, but
-under pressure he'd resent an insult. I'd hate to see him plumb mad.
-Then, again, Langdon might sink low enough to actually throw that
-imprudence of yours at him. If he did, that would be a match to powder.
-If Luke was a preacher and stood in the pulpit calling up mourners, he'd
-step down and act on that sort of an invitation. Virginia, if ever a man
-loved a woman, he loves you. His love is one of the exceptions to the
-rule I was talking about just now, and it seems to me that, no matter
-how you treat a man like that other scamp, you won't have a right to
-refuse Luke King. The truth is, I'm afraid he never could stand it. He's
-set his great, big, gentle soul on having you for his helpmeet, and I
-don't believe you will let any silly notion ruin it all. He's got brain
-enough to tackle the biggest human problems and settle them, but he'll
-never give his heart out but once."
-
-Virginia withdrew her hand and swept it across her face, as if to brush
-away the flush upon it.
-
-"I can never be his wife," she faltered. She paused, turned her face
-away, and said, in a low tone: "I am not good enough. I deliberately
-flirted with Langdon Chester. I used to love to have him say sweet
-things to me, and I led him on. I've no excuse to make. If I had been
-good enough to be the wife of a man like Luke King, I'd never have been
-caught in that trap, even to save my mother, for if I'd acted
-differently he'd never have done what he did. It's all my fault. If
-Langdon Chester is upset and bent on trouble, I'm the cause of it. If it
-results in unhappiness to the--to the noblest and best man I ever knew,
-it will all be my fault. You needn't try to comfort me, Mrs. Boyd. I
-tell you I'd rather die than have Luke King know all that has happened,
-and God knows I'd never be his wife otherwise. So that is the end of
-it."
-
-Ann was silent for several minutes, then she said: "I feel like you are
-wrong somehow, and yet I don't exactly know how to make you see it my
-way. We must both study over it. It's a problem, and no little one.
-There is one thing certain: I'll never advise you to start married life
-on deception of any kind. I tried that, with the best intentions, and it
-was the worst investment I ever made."
-
-
-
-
-XXXIV
-
-
-During this conversation Sam Hemingway had returned to the house from
-his field. He had an armful of white, silky, inside leaves of cornhusks
-closely packed together, and these he submerged in a washtub full of
-water, in the back-yard, placing stones on them to hold them down.
-
-"What are you about now?" his sister-in-law asked, as she appeared in
-the doorway of the kitchen.
-
-"Now, what could a body be about when he's wetting a passle of shucks?"
-he answered, dryly. "I'm going to make me some stout horse-collars for
-spring ploughing. There ain't but one other thing a body could make out
-of wet shucks, and that's foot-mats for town folks to wipe their feet
-on. Foot-mats are a dead waste of money, for if fewer mats was used,
-women would have to do more sweeping and not get time to stand around
-the post-office watching men as much as they do. I reckon it's the way
-old daddy Time has of shifting women's work onto men's shoulders. I'll
-bet my hat that new-fangled churn that fellow passed with yesterday was
-invented by a man out o' pure pity for his sex."
-
-"I was wondering where Virginia went to," Jane said, as if she had not
-heard his philosophical utterances. "I've been all round the house
-looking for her, even to the barn, but she's disappeared entirely."
-
-Sam shrugged his shoulders significantly. He placed the last stone on
-the submerged husks and drew himself up erect. "I was just studying," he
-drawled out, "whether it ud actually do to tell you where she is at this
-minute. I'd decided I'd better not, and go on and finish this work. From
-what I know about your odd disposition, I'd expect one of two solitary
-things: I'd expect to see you keel over in a dead faint or stand
-stock-still in your tracks and burn to a cinder from internal fires."
-
-"Sam, what do you mean?" The widow, in no little alarm, came towards
-him, her eyes fixed steadily on his.
-
-"Well, I reckon you might as well know and be done with it," he said,
-"though you'll be sure to let them pies burn afterwards. Jane, your only
-child is right now a-sitting on the bench at the gum spring, side by
-side with Ann Boyd. In fact, as well as I could see from the rise I was
-on in my potato-patch, I'd 'a' took my oath that they was holding hands
-like two sweethearts."
-
-"I don't believe a word of it," Jane gasped, turning pale. "It might
-have been Virginia with somebody else, but not _that_ woman."
-
-"I wouldn't mistake Ann Boyd's solid shape and blue linsey frock ten
-miles off," was the cold comfort Sam dispensed in his next remark. "If
-you doubt what I say, and will agree not to jump on Ann and get yourself
-drawed up at court for assault and battery, with intent to _get killed_,
-you may go look for yourself. If you'll slip through the thicket, you
-can come up on 'em unbeknownst."
-
-With a very grave look on her emaciated face, Jane Hemingway, without
-wrap for her thin shoulders or covering for her gray head, strode across
-the yard and into the bushes. Almost holding her breath in dire suspense
-and with a superstitious fear of she knew not what, she sped through the
-wood, briers and thorn-bushes clutching at her skirt and wild
-grape-vines striking her abreast and detaining her. Presently she was
-near enough to the spring to hear voices, but was, as yet, unable to see
-who was speaking. Then she became fearful lest the dry twigs with which
-the ground was strewn, in breaking under her feet, would betray her
-presence, and she began, with the desperate caution of a convict
-escaping from prison, to select her way, carefully stepping from one
-patch of green moss to another. A few paces ahead of her there was a
-group of tall pines, and the earth beneath their skeleton boughs was a
-veritable bed of soft, brown needles. She soon gained this favorable
-point of progress, and sped onward as noiselessly as the gentle breeze
-overhead. Suddenly, through the bushes, she caught a gleam of color, and
-recognized the dark-blue skirt Ann Boyd wore so constantly, and--her
-heart stood still, for, massed against it, was the light gray of
-Virginia's dress. Ah, there could be no shadow of a doubt now. Sam was
-right, and with bowed head and crouching form Jane gave bewildered ear
-to words which caused her blood to stand still in her veins.
-
-"Yes, I've thought a lots about it, child," she heard Ann saying. "I
-can't make it out at all, but I really love you more than I do my own
-daughter. I reckon it was the divine intention for me and you to have
-this secret between us, and pity one another like we do. I can't help
-it, but when you tell me you love me and think I'm good and the best
-friend you've got on earth, why, it is the sweetest sound that ever fell
-on human ear."
-
-There was a pause. Jane Hemingway held her breath; her very soul hung on
-the silence. Then, as if from the dun skies above the shaft descended,
-as if dropped from the lips of the Avenging Angel. It was the child of
-her own breast uttering sounds as inexplicable, as damning to her hopes,
-as if the gentle, tractable girl had approached her bed in the dead
-hours of night and said: "Mother, I've come to kill you. There is no way
-out of it. I must take your life. I am stronger than you. You must
-submit. Ann Boyd has willed it so. Mother, I am Retribution!"
-
-"Yes, I do love you, with all my heart," were the words Jane heard. "I
-can't help it. You have been kinder to me, more considerate of my
-feelings, than my own mother. But I will make amends for all her cruelty
-towards you. I'll love you always. I'll go to my grave loving you. You
-are the best woman that ever lived. Suffering has raised you to the
-skies. I have never kissed you. Let me now--_do, do_ let me!"
-
-As if in a horrible dream, Jane Hemingway turned back homeward. Without
-knowing why, she still moved with the same breathless caution. Hers was
-a dead soul dragging a body vitalized only by sheer animal instinct to
-escape torture. To escape it? No, it was there ahead--it was here,
-encompassing her like a net, yonder, behind, everywhere, and it would
-stretch out to the end of time. She told her benumbed consciousness that
-she saw it all now. It was not the cancer and its deadly effect that Ann
-had held over her that hot day at the wash-place. No wonder that Ann had
-not told her all, for that would have marred her comprehensive and
-relentless plans. Ann's subtle plot had been to rob her enemy of the
-respect and love of her only child. Jane had succeeded in tearing from
-Ann Boyd's arms her only offspring, and Ann, with the cunning of her
-great, indefatigable brain, had devised this subtle revenge and carried
-it through. She had won over to herself the love and respect, even
-reverence, of her enemy's child. It had been going on in secret for a
-long time, and even now the truth was out only by sheer accident. Jane
-Hemingway groaned aloud in agony and self-pity as, with her gray head
-down, she groped homeward. What was there to do now? Nothing! She was
-learning her final grim lesson in the realization that she was no
-possible match for her rival. How well she now recalled the fierce words
-Ann had hurled at her only a few days since: "Could I hit back at you
-now? Could I? Huh! I could tell you something, Jane Hemingway, that
-would humble you to the dust and make you crawl home with your nose to
-the earth like a whipped dog." Ah, it was true, only too true! Humbled?
-It was more than that. Pride, hope, even resentment, was gone. She now
-cowered before her enemy as she had so recently before death itself. For
-once she keenly felt her own supreme littleness and stood in absolute
-awe of the mighty personality she had been so long and audaciously
-combating.
-
-Reaching the fence which bounded her own property, Jane got over it with
-difficulty. She seemed to have lost all physical strength. She saw Sam
-behind the house, under the spreading, leafless boughs of an apple-tree,
-repairing a break in the ash-hopper. She could not have explained what
-impulse prompted it, but she paused in front of him, speaking in a tone
-he had never heard from her before. "Sam," she said, a stare like the
-glaze of death in her eyes, "don't you mention this to my child; do you
-hear me? Don't you tell Virginia what we've found out. If you do you'll
-get your foot into something you'll be sorry for. Do you hear me, man?
-This is my business--_mine_, and not a thing for you to treat lightly.
-If you know what's good for you, you'll take my hint and not meddle."
-
-"Well, I never!" Sam exclaimed. "Good Lord, woman, what have them two
-folks done to you down there. I never saw you look so plumb
-flabbergasted in my life."
-
-"Never you mind about that," Jane said. "You remember what I said and
-don't meddle with what doesn't concern you."
-
-"Well, she kin bet I won't," Sam mused, as he stood looking after her,
-as she disappeared through the doorway into the kitchen. "This is one of
-the times, I reckon, that I'll take her advice. Some'n' big has taken
-place, or is about to take place, if I'm any judge."
-
-Jane sank into a chair in the kitchen and softly groaned as she cast her
-slow eyes about her. Here all seemed sheer mockery. Every mute object in
-the room uttered a cry against her. The big, open fireplace, with its
-pots and kettles, the cupboard, the cleanly polished table, with the row
-of hot pies Sam had rescued from the coals and placed there to cool, the
-churn, the milk and butter-jars and pans, the pepper-pods hanging to the
-smoked rafters overhead--all these things, which had to do with mere
-subsistence, seemed suddenly out of place among the things which really
-counted. Suddenly Jane had a faint thrill of hope, as a thought, like a
-stray gleam of light penetrating a dark chamber, came to her. Perhaps,
-when Virginia was told that Ann Boyd had only used her as a tool in a
-gigantic and subtle scheme of revenge against her own flesh and blood,
-the girl would turn back to her own. Perhaps, but it was not likely. Ann
-Boyd had never failed in any deliberate undertaking. She would not now,
-and, for aught Jane knew to the contrary, Virginia might be as confirmed
-already in her enmity as the older woman, and had long been a dutiful
-and observant spy. It was horrible, but--yes, Jane was willing to admit
-that it was fair. The worm had turned, and its sting was equal to the
-concentrated pain of all Ann Boyd's years of isolated sufferings.
-
-
-
-
-XXXV
-
-
-In about half an hour Virginia returned home. She passed Sam under the
-apple-tree, where he now had a big pot full of shelled corn and lye over
-an incipient fire preparing to make whole-grained hominy, and hastened
-into the kitchen, where Jane sat bowed before the fire.
-
-"Is there anything I can do, mother?" she inquired.
-
-There was a pause. Mrs. Hemingway did not look up. In some surprise,
-Virginia repeated her question, and then Jane said, calmly and
-deliberately:
-
-"Yes; there is something you can do. You can get out of my sight, and
-_keep_ out of it. When I want anything from you, I'll call on you."
-
-Virginia paused, dumfounded, and then passed out into the yard and
-approached her uncle.
-
-"Can you tell me," she asked, "if anything has gone wrong with mother?"
-
-Sam gave her one swift glance from beneath his tattered, tent-shaped
-wool-hat, and then, with his paddle, he began to stir the corn and lye
-in the pot.
-
-"I reckon," he said, after a momentary struggle over a desire to tell
-the plain truth instead of prevaricating, "if you don't know that woman
-by this time, Virgie, it's your own fault. I'm sure I don't try to keep
-up with her tantrums and sudden notions. That woman's died forty-seven
-times in her life, and been laid out and buried ten. Maybe she's been
-tasting them pies she was cooking, and got crooked. You let a body's
-liver be at all sluggish and get a wad o' sweet-potato dough lodged
-inside of 'em, and they'll have a sort of jim-jams not brought on by
-liquor. I reckon she'll cough it down after a while. If I was you,
-though, I'd let her alone."
-
-Jane was, indeed, acting strangely. Refusing to sit down to the mid-day
-meal with them, as was her invariable custom, she put on her bonnet and
-shawl and, without a word of explanation, set off in the direction of
-Wilson's store. She was gone till dusk, and then came in with a slow
-step, passed through the sitting-room, where Sam had made a cheerful
-fire, and went on to her own room in the rear of the house. Virginia
-rose to follow her solicitously, but Sam put out a detaining hand,
-shifting his pipe into the corner of his mouth.
-
-"I'd let her alone if I was in your place," he said. "Let her go to bed
-and sleep. She'll get up all right in the morning."
-
-"I only wanted to see if there was anything I could do for her,"
-Virginia said, in a troubled tone. "Do you suppose it is a relapse she
-is having? Perhaps she has discovered that the cancer is coming back.
-The fear of that would kill her, actually kill her."
-
-"I don't think that's it," said Sam, impulsively; "the truth is,
-Virginia, she--" He pulled himself up. "But maybe that _is_ it. Anyway,
-I'd let her alone."
-
-Darkness came down. Virginia spread the cloth in the big kitchen and put
-the plates and dishes in their places, and then slipped to the door of
-her mother's room. It was dark and still.
-
-"Supper is on the table, mother," she said; "do you want anything?"
-
-There was a sudden creaking of the bed-slats, a pause, then, in a
-sullen, husky voice, Jane answered, "No, I _don't_; you leave me alone!"
-
-"All right, mother; I'm sorry to have disturbed you. Good-night."
-
-Sam and his niece ate alone in the big room by the wavering light of the
-fire. The wind had risen on the mountain-top, and roared across the
-fields. It sang dolefully in the pines near by, whistled shrilly under
-the eaves of the house, and scurried through the open passage outside.
-After the meal was over, Sam smoked a pipe and thumped off to bed,
-carrying his shoes in his hand. Virginia buried the remains of the big
-back-log in the hot ashes, and in the darkness crept into her own room,
-adjoining that of her mother, and went to bed.
-
-Jane Hemingway was not sleeping; she had no hope of a respite of that
-sort. She would have doubted that she ever could close her eyes in
-tranquillity till some settlement of the life-crushing matter was
-reached. What was to be done? Only one expedient had offered itself
-during her aimless walk to the store, where she purchased a spool of
-cotton thread she did not need, and during her slow return along the
-road and the further hours of solitude in her darkened chamber, and that
-expedient offered no balm for her gashed and torn pride. She could
-appeal to the law to protect her innocent daughter from the designing
-wiles of a woman of such a reputation as Ann Boyd bore, but, alas! even
-Ann might have foreseen that ruse and counted on its more deeply
-stirring Virginia's sympathies and adding to her faith. Why she had not
-at once denounced her child for her filial faithlessness she could not
-have explained, unless it was the superstitious dread of having
-Virginia's infidelity reconfirmed. Of course, she must fight. Yes, she'd
-have to do that to the end, although her shrewd enemy had already beaten
-her life-pulse dead in her veins and left her without a hope of adequate
-retaliation. Going to law meant also that it was her first public
-acknowledgment of her enemy's prowess, and it meant, too, the
-wide-spread and humiliating advertisement of the fact that Virginia had
-died to her and been born to the breast of her rival; but even that must
-be borne.
-
-These morose reflections were broken, near midnight, by a step in the
-passage outside. The door was opened softly, and Virginia, in her
-night-robe, came in quietly and approached the bed.
-
-"I know you are not asleep, mother," she said, tremulously. "I've heard
-you rolling and tossing ever since I went to bed."
-
-Jane stared from her hot pillow for an instant, and then slowly propped
-herself up on her gaunt, quivering elbow. "You are not asleep either, it
-seems," she said, hollowly.
-
-"No, I couldn't for thinking about you," Virginia replied, gently, as
-she sat down on the foot of the bed.
-
-"You couldn't, huh! I say!" Jane sneered. "Huh, _you_! It's a pity about
-you!"
-
-"I have reason to worry," Virginia said. "You know the doctors told you
-particularly not to get depressed and downhearted while you are
-recovering your strength."
-
-"Huh! what do they mean by prescribing things that can't be reached
-under the sun? They are idiots to think I could have peace of mind after
-finding out what I did this morning. I once had a cancer in the flesh;
-I've got one now in my heart, where no knife on earth can reach it."
-
-There was a pause. The eyes of the mother and daughter met in the
-half-darkness of the room. There was a lull in the whistling of the wind
-outside. Under the floor a hen with a brood of chickens was clucking
-uneasily and flapping her wings in the effort to keep her brood warm.
-Across the passage came the rasping sound of Sam's snoring, as
-unconscious of tragedy as he had been in his cradle, and yet its
-creeping shadow lay over his placid features, its bated breath filled
-the air he was breathing. Virginia leaned forward wonderingly, her lips
-parted and set in anxiety.
-
-"You are thinking about the debt on the farm?" she ventured. "If that's
-it, mother, remember--"
-
-"The debt on this paltry shack and few acres of rocky land? Huh! if that
-was all I had to complain about I'd bounce out of this bed and shout for
-joy. Oh, Lord, have mercy on me!"
-
-"Then, mother, what--" Virginia drew herself up with a start. Her
-mother, it now struck her, had said her trouble was due to a discovery
-she had made that morning. What else could it be than that her mother
-had accidentally seen her in company with Ann Boyd? Yes, that was it,
-and Virginia hastily told herself that some satisfying explanation must
-be made, some plausible and pacifying reason must be forthcoming that
-would allay her mother's anger, but it was hard to lie, in open words,
-as she had been doing in act. The gentle girl shuddered before the
-impending ordeal and clinched her hands in her lap. Yes, it was hard to
-lie, and yet the truth--the _whole_ truth--was impossible.
-
-"Mother," she began, "you see--I suppose I'll have to confess to you
-that Mrs. Boyd and I--"
-
-"Don't blacken your soul with lies!" her mother hurled at her,
-furiously. "I slipped up in a few feet of you both at the spring and saw
-you kissing her, and heard you tell her you loved her more than anybody
-in the world, and that she'd treated you better than I ever did, and
-that she was the best woman that ever lived. Explain all that, if you
-can, but don't set there and lie to me who gave you what life you've
-got, and toiled and stinted and worked my hands to the bone to raise,
-you and let you hold your own with others. If there's a speck of truth
-in you, don't deny what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my two
-ears."
-
-"I'll not deny it, then," Virginia said. She rose and moved to the
-small-paned window and stood with her face turned away. "I have met Mrs.
-Boyd several times and talked to her. I don't think she has ever had
-justice done her by you and her neighbors; she is not rightly
-understood, and, feeling that you have been all along the chief
-influence against her, and have always kept her early trouble stirred
-up, I felt like being her friend as well as I could, and at the same
-time remain true to you."
-
-"Oh, you poor, poor little sniffling idiot!" Jane said, as she drew her
-thin legs out from the coverings and rested her feet on the floor and
-leaned forward. "All this time you've been thinking, in your grand way,
-that you were doing a kindness to her, when she was just using you as a
-tool, to devil me. Huh! didn't she throw it up to me once at the
-wash-place where she and I met? She told me to my teeth that something
-was coming that would bring my face to the earth in shame. I thought she
-knew about the cancer, and was gloating over it; but she wasn't speaking
-of that, for when I came back from Atlanta, sound and whole, she hurled
-her hints at me again. She said she knew nothing about the cancer at
-that time, but that she still knew something that would make me slink
-from the faces of men and women like a whipped hound. I discovered what
-she meant to-day. She meant that because my testimony had something to
-do with Joe Boyd's leaving with _her_ child, she had won over _mine_ to
-herself. That's been her mean and sneaking plot all this time, in which
-she has been decoying you from a respectable roof and making you her
-easy tool--the tool with which she expected to stab at my pride and
-humble me in the eyes of everybody."
-
-"Mother, stop!" Virginia turned and sat down again on the bed. "That
-woman shall not have another--not one other--_false_ charge piled up
-around her. God knows I don't see how I can tell you _all_ the truth,
-but it is due to her now. It will more than justify her, and that's my
-duty. Listen, and don't interrupt me. I want to go straight through
-this, and when I have finished you may turn from me and force me to go
-to her for a home. You have never dreamed that I could do what I am
-about to confess I did. I am not going to excuse myself, either. What I
-did, I did. The shame of it, now that I see clearly, is killing me. No,
-stop! Let me go on. I have been receiving the attentions of Langdon
-Chester in secret. After the first time you saw us together and objected
-so strongly, I told him not to come to the house again; but, like many
-another silly girl, I was hungry for admiration, and met him elsewhere.
-I loved to hear the nice things he said, although I didn't always
-believe them. He--he tried to induce me to do a number of imprudent
-things, which, somehow, I was able to refuse, as they concerned my own
-pleasure alone; but then you began to worry about the money to go to
-Atlanta on. Day by day you grew more and more despondent and desperate
-as every effort failed, and one day, when you were down at the lowest
-ebb of hope, he told me that he--do you understand, mother?--Langdon
-Chester told me that he thought he could get up the money, but that no
-one must know that he--"
-
-"Oh, my God, don't, don't, don't!" Jane groaned. "Don't tell me that
-you--"
-
-"Stop! let me go on," Virginia said, in a low, desperate tone. "I'm
-going to tell the whole horrible thing and be done with it forever. He
-said he had sent his best horse to Darley to sell it, and that the man
-would be back about ten o'clock at night with the money. He told me,
-mother, that he wanted me to slip away from home after you went to sleep
-and come there for the money. I didn't hesitate long. I wanted to save
-your life. I agreed. I might have failed to go after I parted with him
-if I'd had time to reflect, but when I came in to supper you were more
-desperate than ever. You went to your room praying and moaning, and kept
-it up till you dropped asleep only a few minutes before the appointed
-time. Well, I slipped away and--_went_."
-
-"Oh, God have mercy on me--mercy, mercy, mercy!" Jane groaned. "You went
-there to that man!"
-
-Virginia nodded mutely and then continued her recital. Jane Hemingway's
-knees bent under her as she stood holding to the bedpost, and she slowly
-sank to the floor a few feet away. With a low, moaning sound like a
-suffering dumb brute, she crawled on her hands and knees to her daughter
-and mutely clutched the girl's cold, bare ankles. "You say he locked you
-in his _bedroom_!" she said, in a rasping whisper. "_Locked_
-you--actually _locked_ you in! Oh, Lord have mercy!"
-
-"Then, after a long wait," the girl went on, "in which I was praying
-only for the money, mother--the money to save your life and put you out
-of agony--I heard steps, first on the stairs and then at the door.
-Somebody touched the latch. The door held fast. Then the key was turned,
-and as I sat there with covered face, now with the dread of death upon
-me for the first time, somebody came in and stood over me."
-
-"The scoundrel! The beast!" Jane's hands slipped from their hold on the
-girl's ankles and fell; her head and shoulders sank till her brow
-touched the floor.
-
-"A hand was laid on my head," Virginia went on. "I heard a voice--"
-
-"The fiend from hell!" Jane raised her haggard face and glaring eyes.
-"Don't, don't tell me that he dared to--"
-
-"It was Mrs. Boyd, mother--Ann Boyd," said Virginia.
-
-"Ann Boyd!" Jane groaned. "I see it now; _she_ was at the bottom of it;
-it was all _her_ doing. _That_ was her plot. Ah, God, I see it now!"
-
-"You are mistaken," the girl said. "She had accidentally overheard my
-agreement to go there, and came for no other reason than to save me,
-mother--to save me."
-
-"To save you?" Jane raised herself on her two hands like a four-footed
-animal looking up from its food. "Save your" she repeated, with the
-helpless glare of insanity in her blearing eyes.
-
-"Yes, to save me. She was acting on impulse, an impulse for good that
-she was even then fighting against. When she heard of that appointment
-she actually gloated over it, but, mother, she found herself unequal to
-it. As the time which had been set drew near, she plunged out into the
-night and got there only a few minutes before--"
-
-"In time--oh, my God, did you say _in time_?" Jane gasped, again
-clutching her daughter's ankles and holding desperately to them.
-
-"Yes, in time to save me from all but the life-long consciousness of my
-awful indiscretion. She brought me away, and after that how could I be
-other than a grateful friend to such a noble creature?"
-
-"In time--oh, my God, in _time_!" Jane exclaimed, as she sat erect on
-the floor and tossed her scant hair, which, like a wisp of tow, hung
-down her cheek. Then she got up stiffly and moved back to the bed as
-aimlessly as if she were wandering in her sleep.
-
-"There is no use in my saying more, mother." Virginia rose and turned to
-the door. "I'm going back to my room. You can think it all over and do
-as you please with me. I deserve punishment, and I'm willing to take
-it."
-
-Jane stared at her from her hollow eyes for a moment, then she said:
-"Yes, go! I never want to see you again; Ann Boyd saved you, but she is
-now gloating over _me_. She'll call it heaping coals of fire on my head;
-she'll brag to me and others of what she's done, and of what I owe her.
-Oh, I know that woman! You've escaped one thing, but have made me face
-another worse than death. Go on away--get clear out of my sight. If you
-don't I'll say something to you that you will remember all your life."
-
-"Very well, mother." Virginia moved to the door. Her hand was on the
-latch, when, with a startled gasp, her mother called out:
-
-"Stop!--stop! For God's sake don't you dare to tell me that I went to
-Atlanta and bought back my life with that young scoundrel's money; if
-you do, as God is my Judge, I'll strike you dead where you stand."
-
-"No, I refused to take it," Virginia said. "He came to me afterwards and
-begged me to accept it, but I refused."
-
-"Then how under the sun--" Jane began, but went no further.
-
-Virginia turned in the doorway and stood still; a look of resigned
-despair was on her. "You may as well know _all_ the truth," she said. "I
-promised not to tell, but you really ought to know this, too. Mother,
-Ann Boyd, gave me the money. The woman you are still hounding and hating
-earned the money by the sweat of her brow that saved your life."
-
-"Ann Boyd! Oh, my God, and to think you can stand there and tell me
-that! Get out of my sight. You have acted the fool all along, and
-humiliated me in the dust by your conduct. You are no child of mine. It
-was all a plot--a dirty, low plot. She has used you. She has used me.
-She is laughing at us both right now. Oh, I know her! Get out of my
-sight or I'll forget myself and--go, I tell you!"
-
-
-
-
-XXXVI
-
-
-The next morning Jane did not come out to breakfast. Virginia had it
-ready on the table and went to her mother's room to call her. There was
-no response. Opening the door, she saw Jane, fully dressed, standing at
-the window looking out, but she refused to speak when gently informed
-that breakfast was ready. Then Virginia went back to the kitchen, and,
-arranging some delicacies, a cup of coffee, and other things on a tray,
-she took it in and left it on her mother's table and retired, closing
-the door after her.
-
-For a week Jane refused to leave her room or speak to her daughter.
-Three times a day Virginia took her mother's food to her, always finding
-the window-shade drawn and the chamber dark.
-
-One morning, about this time, Virginia happened to see Ann in her
-peanut-patch, a rich spot of ground below the old woman's barn-yard,
-and, seeing that she would be quite unobserved, she put on her bonnet
-and shawl and joined Ann, who, with a long, narrow hoe, was carefully
-digging the peanuts from the hills, and pulling them out by the brown,
-frost-bitten vines, and shaking the earth from their roots and leaving
-them to dry and season in the open air.
-
-"I never saw goobers to beat these," Ann said, proudly, as she held up a
-weighty bunch. "I reckon this patch will turn out a good hundred bushel.
-I hit it just right; they tell me in town that they are bringing a fine
-price. I've been wondering what was the matter with you, child. You've
-been keeping powerful close in-doors."
-
-Then, as Ann leaned on her smooth hoe-handle, Virginia told her frankly
-all that had taken place, leaving out nothing, and ending with her
-mother's self-incarceration and sullen mood.
-
-"Well," Ann exclaimed, her brow ruffled with pained perplexity, "I
-hardly know what to say in the matter. I don't blame you for letting out
-the whole business after you once got started. That was just natural.
-But don't worry about her. She'll pull through; she's tough as
-whitleather; her trouble's not of the body, but the mind. I know; I've
-been through enough of it. Mark my prophecy, she'll come out one of
-these days feeling better. She'll crawl out of her darkness like a
-butterfly from its dead and useless husk. She'll see clearer out in the
-open light when once she strikes it. Look here, child. I don't want to
-look like a sniffling fool after all the hard rubs I've had in this life
-to toughen me, but I'm a changed woman. Reading Luke's wonderful
-articles every week, and remembering the things the boy has said to me
-off and on, had something to do with it, I reckon, and then this
-experience of yours on top of it all helped. Yes, I'm altered; I'm
-altered and against my natural inclination. That very woman is _the_ one
-particular human thorn in my flesh, and yet, yet, child, as the Lord is
-my Master, I mighty nigh feel sorry for her. I mighty nigh pity the
-poor, old, sin-slashed creature housed up there in solitary darkness
-with her bleeding pride and envy and hate. I pity her now, I reckon,
-because the way this has turned out hurts her more than any open fight
-she could have with me. I'd 'a' died long ago under all the slush and
-mire that was dabbed on me if I hadn't amused myself making money. I
-didn't have the social standing of some of these folks, but I had the
-hard cash, and the clink of my coin has been almost as loud as their
-taunts. But your ma--she's had very little substance all along, and that
-little has been dwindling day by day, till she finds herself without a
-dollar and owing her very life to a woman she hates. Yes, her lot is a
-hard one, and I'm sorry for her. I pity your mammy, child."
-
-
-
-
-XXXVII
-
-
-For two weeks longer Jane Hemingway, to the inexplicable sorrow of her
-gentle and mystified daughter, kept the seclusion of her room. The
-curtains of the single window looking out on the yard in the rear were
-constantly drawn, and, though the girl sometimes listened attentively
-with her ear to the wall, she heard no sound to indicate that her mother
-ever moved from her bed or her chair at the fireplace, where she sat
-enveloped in blankets. She had allowed Virginia to push a plate
-containing her meals three times a day through the door, but the things
-were promptly received into the darkness and only sullen silence was the
-invariable response to the frequent inquiries the girl made.
-
-One morning Sam stopped his niece in the yard near the well, a droll,
-half-amused expression on his face. "Do you know," he said, "that I
-believe I'd 'a' made a bang-up detective if I'd given time to it."
-
-"Do you think so?" Virginia said, absently.
-
-"Yes, I do," he replied. "Now, I'm going to give you an instance of what
-a body can discover by sticking two and two together and nosing around
-till you are plumb sure you know what a certain thing means. Now, you
-are a woman--not an old one, but a woman all the same--and they are
-supposed to see what's at the ends of their noses and a heap beyond, but
-when it comes to detective work they are not in it. I reckon it's
-because they won't look for what they don't want to see, and to make a
-good detective a body must pry into everything that is in sight. Well,
-to come down to the case in hand, you've been sticking grub through that
-crack in the door to your mammy, who put herself in limbo several weeks
-ago, but in all that time you haven't seen the color of her cheeks to
-know whether the fare is fattening her or thinning her down to the bone.
-In fact, you nor me, on the outside, hain't supposed to know a blasted
-thing about what's going on in there. But--and there's where detective
-work comes in--one morning--it was day before yesterday, to be
-accurate--I took notice that all the stray cats and ducks and chickens
-had quit basking on the sunny side of the house and was staying around
-your mammy's window. Now, thinks I, that's odd; that's not according to
-the general run; so I set in to watching, and what do you reckon? I
-found out that all them Noah's Ark passengers, of the two and four
-footed sort, had assembled there to get their meals. Your mammy was
-regularly throwing out the dainty grub you fixed for her. I laid in wait
-nigh the window this morning and saw her empty the plate. I went close
-and took a look. She had just nibbled a bit or two, like the pecking of
-a sparrow, out of the centre of the bread-slices, but she hadn't touched
-the eggs nor the streak-o'-lean-streak-o'-fat you thought she set such
-store by. Good Lord, Virgie, don't you think the thing's gone far
-enough--having a drove of cats fed on the fat o' the land, when me and
-you are living on scraps?"
-
-"Uncle"--Virginia's startled eyes bore down on him suddenly--"what does
-it mean?"
-
-"Mean? Why, that there'll be a passle of cats on this place too fat to
-walk, while me 'n' you'll be too lean to cast a shadow if we stood side
-by side in the sun."
-
-"Oh, uncle, do you suppose she is worse?" Virginia asked, in deep
-concern.
-
-"I don't know," Sam said, seriously, "my Pinkerton job ended with the
-discovery of them cat banquets, but I've about reached _one_ opinion."
-
-"And what is that?" the girl asked, anxiously, as she bent towards her
-uncle.
-
-"Why, I think maybe she's so mad and set back by all that's happened
-that she's trying to starve herself to death to get even."
-
-"Oh, uncle, don't say that!" Virginia cried--"don't! don't!"
-
-"Well, then, you study it out," he said. "It's too much for me."
-
-That morning Virginia quietly slipped over to Ann Boyd's and confided
-the new phase of the situation to her sympathetic friend, but Ann could
-not account for Jane's strange conduct, and Virginia returned home no
-wiser than she had left. However, at the fence she met Sam. His face was
-aglow with excitement.
-
-"What you reckon?" he said. "The bird has flown."
-
-"Mother, you mean?"
-
-"Yes, she's skipped clean out. It was this way: Pete Denslow drove past
-about twenty minutes ago in his empty two-horse wagon, and I hollered
-out to him and asked him where-away. He pulled up at the gate and said
-he was going over the mountain to Gilmer after a load of ginseng to
-fetch back to Darley. Well, sir, no sooner had he said that than your
-mammy piped up from her dungeon, where she stood listening at a crack,
-and said, said she, sorter sheepish-like: 'Sam, ask him if he will let
-me go with him; I promised to go see Sally Maud Pincher over there the
-first time any wagon was passing, and I want to go.' Well, I told Pete,
-and he looked at the sun and wanted to know how long it would take her
-to get ready. She heard him, and yelled out from the door that she'd be
-out in five minutes, and, bless you, she was on the seat beside him in
-less time in her best clothes and carpet-bag in hand. She was as white
-in the face as a convict out taking a sunning, and her gingham looked
-like it was hanging from a hook on her neck, she was that thin. She
-never said a word to me as she went by. At first I thought she was plumb
-crazy, but she had the clearest eye in her head I ever saw, and she was
-chattering away to Pete about the weather as if he was an unmarried man
-and she was on the carpet."
-
-"Oh, uncle, what do you think it means?" Virginia sighed, deeply
-worried.
-
-"Why, I think it's a fine sign, myself," said Sam. "I'm not as good a
-judge of women as I am of mules--though a body ought to know as much of
-one as the other--but I think she's perhaps been wanting to get a breath
-of fresh air for some time and didn't like to acknowledge she was tired
-of cave-life. Over there at Pincher's, you see, she can slide back into
-her old ways without attracting attention by it."
-
-"And she didn't leave a word of directions to me?" the girl said, sadly.
-
-"Not a word," was the droll reply. "I didn't say good-bye to her myself.
-To tell the truth, I had noticed that she'd forgot to put up a snack for
-her and Pete to eat on the way, and I was afraid she might remember it
-at the last minute and take what little there was left for you and me."
-
-But Jane evidently had something to attend to before paying her promised
-visit to Sally Maud Pincher, for on their arrival at the village of
-Ellijay, the seat of the adjoining county, she asked her obliging
-conveyer to put her down at the hotel, where she intended to spend the
-night. It was then about five o'clock in the afternoon, and she went
-into the little office, which looked like a parlor in a farm-house, and
-registered her name and was given a room with a sky-blue door and
-ceiling and whitewashed walls, at the head of the stairs. She sat after
-that at the window, looking out upon the dreary street and the lonely,
-red-clay road leading up the mountain, till it grew dark. She went down
-to the dining-room when the great brass bell was rung by a negro boy who
-shook it vigorously as he walked through the hall and around the house,
-but she had no appetite--the long, jolting journey over the rough road
-had weakened rather than stimulated her faint physical needs, and so she
-took only a glass of milk, into which she had dropped a few morsels of
-bread, eating the mixture with a spoon like a child.
-
-"If I'm going to do this thing," she mused, as she sat on her bed in her
-night-dress and twisted her hair in a knot, "the quicker it's over the
-better. When I left home it seemed easy enough, but now it's
-awful--simply awful!"
-
-She slept soundly from sheer fatigue, and was up the next morning and
-dressed before the hotel cook, an old woman, had made a fire in the
-range. She walked down-stairs into the empty hall and out on the front
-veranda, but saw no one. The ground was white with frost and the
-mountain air was crisp and cutting, but it seemed to have put color into
-her cheeks. Going through the office, where she saw no one, she went
-into the dining-room just as the cook was coming in from the adjoining
-kitchen.
-
-"Good-morning," Jane said. "I've got about four miles to walk, and, as
-I've lately been down sick in bed, I want to sorter take it slow and get
-an early start. I paid my bill before I went to bed last night,
-including breakfast, and if you could give me a slice of
-bread-and-butter and a cup of coffee that will be all I want."
-
-"Well, I can get them ready in a minute," said the woman, "but I'd hate
-to do a four-mile walk on as little as that."
-
-"I've been sort of dieting myself," Jane said, perhaps recalling her
-past bounty to the cats and chickens at the window of her room, "and I
-don't need much."
-
-"Well, all right," said the cook, spreading a napkin at one end of a
-long table; "you set down here and I'll supply you in a few minutes. The
-landlord leaves me in charge here till he gets up. He's a late sleeper;
-he was out last night at the trial of the moonshiners. You say you paid
-for breakfast in your bill. I think it's a shame. If he wasn't so easy
-to make mad, I'd go shake him up and get some of your money back. I
-don't happen to tote the key to the cash-drawer. I reckon you paid
-seventy-five cents for supper, bed, and breakfast--'s., b., and b.,' we
-call it for short--and you are entitled to a full round--meat, eggs,
-fish (in season), batter-cakes or waffles, whichever it is. Our
-waffle-irons are split right half in two, and we just give batter-cakes
-now; but folks know the brand clean to Darley. You ought to see the
-judge tackle 'em during court week; him and the district-attorney had a
-race the other night to see which could eat the most. I had three pans
-running, and such a smoke of burning lard in the kitchen you couldn't
-have seen a white cat in an inch of your nose. The whole jury and a lots
-of witnesses under guard of the sheriff was allowed to look on. The
-judge beat. The lawyer got so full he couldn't talk, and that was the
-signal to call a halt. I was glad, for old Mrs. Macklin was waiting in
-the kitchen to try to hear if there was any chance to save her son, who
-was being tried for killing that feller in the brick-yard last summer.
-Ever' time I'd come in for fresh cakes she'd look up sorter pitiful-like
-to see if I'd heard anything. They'd already agreed to send 'im up for
-life, but I didn't know it. Yes, you ought to have a quarter of that
-money back, _anyway_. Unless a knife and fork is used, I make a habit,
-when it's left to me, not to charge a cent, and you don't look like you
-are overly flush."
-
-"No, but I'm satisfied as it is," Jane said, as she finished her bread
-and milk. "I didn't expect to get it for any less."
-
-
-
-
-XXXVIII
-
-
-A few minutes later, with her flabby carpet-bag on her sharp hip, Jane
-fared forth on the mountain road, which led farther eastward. She walked
-slowly and with increased effort, for the high altitude seemed to affect
-her respiration, and, light as it was, the carpet-bag became cumbersome
-and she had to pause frequently to rest.
-
-"Yes, if I'm going to do it, I'll have to plunge in and do it, and be
-done with the matter," she kept saying. "I reckon it isn't the first
-time such a thing has been heard of." She passed several humble mountain
-houses, built of logs, on the way, but stopped at none of them. The sun
-was near the zenith when she came to a double log-cabin standing back on
-a plot of newly cleared land a hundred yards from the rocky road. A
-tall, plain-looking girl, with a hard, unsympathetic face, stood in the
-doorway, and she stepped down to the ground and quieted a snarling dog
-which was chained to a stake driven into the earth.
-
-"I reckon you are Nettie Boyd, ain't you?" Jane said.
-
-"I used to be," the young woman answered. "I married a Lawson--Sam
-Lawson--awhile back."
-
-"Oh yes, I forgot that. I'd heard it, too, of course, but it slipped my
-memory. I'm a Hemingway, from over in Murray County--Jane Hemingway. I
-used to be acquainted with your pa. Is he handy?"
-
-"Yes, he was here just a minute ago," Ann Boyd's daughter answered.
-"He's around at his hay-stack pulling down some roughness for the cow.
-Go in and take a seat and I'll call him. Lay your bonnet on the bed and
-make yourself at home."
-
-Jane went into the cabin, the walls of which were unlined, being only
-the bare logs with the bark on them. The cracks where the logs failed to
-fit closely together were filled with the red clay from the hills
-around. There was not a picture in sight, not an ornament on the crude
-board shelf over the rugged mud-and-stone fireplace. From wooden pegs
-driven in auger-holes in the walls hung the young bride's meagre finery,
-in company with what was evidently her husband's best suit of clothes
-and hat. Beneath them, on the floor, stood a pair of new woman's shoes,
-dwarfed by contrast to a heavier and larger masculine pair. Jane sat
-down, rolling her bonnet in her stiff fingers. The chair she sat on was
-evidently of home make, for the rockers were unevenly sawed, and, on the
-unplaned boards of the floor, it had a joggling, noisy motion when in
-use. There were two beds in the room, made of rough, pine planks. The
-coverings of the beds were not in order and the pillows were soiled.
-
-"If she'd 'a' stayed on with Ann she would 'a' made a better
-house-keeper than that," Jane mused. "She's a sight, too, with her hair
-uncombed and dress so untidy so soon after the honeymoon. I can see now
-that her and Ann never would get on together. Anybody could take one
-look at that girl and see she's selfish. I wonder what that fellow ever
-saw in her?"
-
-There was a sound of voices outside. With a start, Jane drew herself
-erect. The carpet-bag on her knees threatened to fall, and she lowered
-it to the floor. Her ordeal was before her.
-
-"Why, howdy do?"
-
-Joe Boyd, in tattered shirt, trousers patched upon patches, and gaping
-shoes through which his bare toes showed, stood in the doorway. That the
-old beau and the once most popular young man of the country-side could
-stand looking like that before her, even after the lapse of all those
-trying years, and not feel abashed, was one of the inexplicable things
-that rushed through Jane Hemingway's benumbed brain. That she, herself,
-could be looking at the very husk of the ideal of manhood she had held
-all those years and not cry out in actual pain over the pitiful
-evidences of his collapse from his high estate was another thing she
-marvelled over. Joe Boyd! Could it actually be he? Could those gaunt,
-talon-nailed members, with their parchment-like skin, be the hands she
-used to think so shapely? Could those splaying feet be the feet that had
-tripped more lightly in the Virginia Reel than those of any other man
-for miles around? Could those furtive, harsh-glancing eyes be the deep,
-dreamy ones in which she had once seen the mirage of her every girlish
-hope? Could that rasping tone come from the voice whose never
-diminishing echo had rung in her ears through all those years of hiding
-her secret from the man she had married out of "spite," through all her
-long tooth-in-flesh fight with the rival who had temporarily won and
-held him?
-
-She rose and gave him her hand, and the two stood facing each other, she
-speechless, he thoroughly at his indolent ease.
-
-"Well, I reckon, Jane, old girl," he laughed, as he wiped a trickling
-stream of tobacco-juice from the corner of his sagging mouth, "that you
-are the very last human being I ever expected to lay eyes on again. I
-swear I wouldn't 'a' known you from Adam's cat if Nettie hadn't told me
-who it was. My, how thin you look, and all bent over!"
-
-"Yes, I'm changed, and you are too, Joe," she said, as, with a stiff
-hand beneath her, she sought the chair again.
-
-"Yes"--he went to the doorway and spat voluminously out into the yard,
-and came back swinging a chair as lightly in his hand as if it had been
-a baseball bat with which he was playing--"yes, I reckon I am altered
-considerable; a body's more apt to see changes in others than in
-himself. I was just thinking the other day about them old times. La me!
-how much fun we all did have, but it didn't last--it didn't last."
-
-He sat down, leaning forward and clasping his dry-palmed hands with a
-sound like the rubbing together of two pieces of paper. There was an
-awkward silence. Nettie Lawson came to the door and glanced in
-inquiringly, and then went away. They heard her calling her chickens
-some distance from the cabin.
-
-"No, I wouldn't have recognized you if I'd met you alone in the big
-road," he said, "nor you wouldn't me, I reckon."
-
-"Joe"--she was looking about the room--"somehow I had an idea that you
-were in--in a little better circumstances than--than you seem to be in
-now."
-
-"Well, that wouldn't be hard to imagine, anyway," he said, with an
-intonation like a sigh, if it wasn't one. "If a body couldn't imagine a
-better fix for a man to be in than I am in, they'd better quit. Lord,
-Lord, I reckon I ought to be dead ashamed to meet you in this condition
-when you knew me away back in them palmy days, but, Jane, I really
-believe I've sunk below that sort of a feeling. You know I used to cut a
-wide swath when I had plenty of money and friends, but what's the use of
-crying over spilt milk? This is all there is left of me. I managed to
-marry Nettie off to a feller good enough in his way. I thought he was a
-fine catch, but I don't know. I was under the impression that his folks
-had some money to give him to sorter start the two out, but it seems
-they didn't have, and was looking for a stake themselves. Since they
-married he just stays round here, contented and about as shiftless as
-anybody could be. I thought, for instance, that he never got in debt,
-but a store-keeper in town told me the other day that he owed him for
-the very duds he was married in."
-
-"That's bad, that's powerful bad," Jane said, sympathetically. Then a
-fixed look took possession of her eyes, and her fingers tightened on her
-bonnet in her lap, as she plunged towards the thing with which she was
-burdened. "Joe," she continued, "I've come all the way over the mountain
-in my delicate health to see you about a particular matter. God knows
-it's the hardest thing I ever contemplated, but there is no other way
-out of it."
-
-"Well, I think I know what you are going to say," he answered, avoiding
-her eyes.
-
-"You do, Joe?" she exclaimed. "Oh no, surely, you can't know that."
-
-"Well, I think I can make a good guess," he said, awkwardly twirling his
-fingers round and round. "You see, I always make a habit, when I happen
-to meet anybody from over your way, of asking about old acquaintances,
-and I heard some time back that you was in deep trouble. They said you
-had some high-priced doctoring to do in Atlanta, and that you was going
-from old friend to old friend for what little help they could give. I'm
-going to see what I can do towards it myself, since you've taken such a
-long trip, though, Jane, to tell you the truth, I haven't actually seen
-a ten-cent piece in a month. I've gone without tobacco when I thought
-the desire for it would run me distracted. So--"
-
-"I didn't come for help--Lord, Lord, I only wish it was that, Joe. I've
-already had the operation, and I'm recovering. I've come over here, Joe,
-to make an awful confession."
-
-"A--a--what?" he said.
-
-There was a pause. Jane Hemingway unrolled her bonnet and put it on,
-pulling the hood down over her line of vision.
-
-"Joe, I've come to tell you that I've been a bad woman; I've been a bad,
-sinning woman since away back there when you married Ann. Things you
-used to say to me, I reckon, turned my silly head. You remember when you
-took me to camp-meeting that night, and we sat through meeting out in
-the buggy under the trees. I reckon, if it was all to do over you
-wouldn't have said so much. I reckon you wouldn't if you'd known you
-were planting a seed that was going to fructify and bear the fruit of
-hate and enmity that would never rot; but, for all I know, you may have
-been saying the same things to other girls who knew better how to take
-them than I did."
-
-"Oh, Jane, I was a fool them days," Joe Boyd broke in, with an actual
-flush of shame in his tanned face.
-
-"Well, never mind about that," Jane went on, with a fresher
-determination under his own admission. "I reckon I let it take too
-strong a hold on me. I never could give up easy, and when you got to
-going with Ann, and she was so much prettier and more sprightly than me,
-it worked against my nature. It hardened me, I reckon. I married soon
-after you did, but I won't tell about that; he's dead and gone. I had my
-child--that was all, except--except my hate for Ann. I couldn't stand to
-see you and her so happy together, and you both were making money and I
-was losing what I had. Then, Joe, we all heard about--we all learned
-Ann's secret."
-
-"Don't--for the love of mercy--don't fetch that up!" Boyd groaned.
-
-"But I _have_ to, Joe," Jane persisted, softly. "At first I was the
-happiest woman that the devil ever delighted by flashing a lying promise
-with his fire on a wall. I thought you were going to scorn her, but I
-saw that day I met you at the meeting-house that you were inclined to
-condone the past, and that drove me wild; so I--" Jane choked up and
-paused.
-
-"I remember that day," Joe Boyd said, with a deep breath. "I'll never
-forget it as long as I live, for what you said dropped me back into the
-bottomless pit of despair. I'd been trying to think she'd been straight
-with me _since_ we married, but when you--"
-
-"What I told you that morning, Joe, was a cold, deliberate lie!"
-
-"A--a--" he stammered. "No, no, you don't mean that--you can't mean--"
-
-"Every--single--thing--I--told--you--that--day--was--a--lie!" Jane said,
-with an emphatic pause between each word.
-
-"I can't understand. I don't see--really, Jane, you can't mean that what
-you said about Chester's going there day after day when my back was
-turned, and that you saw them together in the woods below your house
-that day when I was--"
-
-"Everything I told you was a lie from the devil, out of the very fumes
-of hell," Jane said, pulling off her bonnet and looking him squarely in
-the face. "A lie--a lie, Joe."
-
-"Oh, my God!" Boyd cried. "And I, all these years I have--"
-
-"You've been believing what I said. But I'm not through yet. I've been
-in a dark room fasting and praying for a month to overcome my evil
-inclination not to speak the truth, and I finally conquered, so I'm
-going to tell the whole thing. Joe, Ann Boyd is the best woman God ever
-let live. She was as true as steel to you from the day she married till
-now. I have been after her day and night, never giving her a moment's
-rest from my persecutions, and how do you reckon she retaliated? She
-paid me back by actually saving my worthless life and trying to keep me
-from knowing who did it. She did something else. She did me the greatest
-favor one woman could possibly do another. I don't intend to say what
-that particular thing was, but she must have the credit. Now I'm
-through. I'm going back home."
-
-Boyd drew his ill-clad feet towards him. He spread out his two arms wide
-and held them so, steadily. "Look at me--just look at me," he said.
-"Woman, before you go back, take one good look at me. You come to me--a
-mere frazil of what I once was--when there is no hope of ever regaining
-my youth and self-respect--and tell me--oh, my God!--tell me that I
-believed _you_ instead of _her_! She said, with tears in her eyes, on
-her knees before me, that that first mistake was all, and I told her she
-lied _in her throat_, and left her, dragging from her clinging arms the
-child of her breast, bringing it up and raising it to what you see she
-is. And now you come literally peeping into my open coffin and telling
-_this_ to my dead face. Great God, woman, before Heaven I feel like
-striking you where you set, soaked in repentance though you are. All
-these misspent years I've been your cowardly tool, and her--her--"
-
-"I deserve it--talk on!" Jane Hemingway said, as she rose and clutched
-her carpet-bag and held it tremblingly.
-
-But Joe Boyd's innate gentleness had been one of the qualities many
-women loved, and even before the cowering creature who had wrecked his
-life he melted in manly pity.
-
-"No," he said, stretching out his hand with something like one of his
-old gestures--"no, I'm going too far, Jane. We are all obedient to
-natural laws, as Ann used to say. Your laws have made you do just as you
-have, and so have mine. Away back there in the joy-time of youth my laws
-made me say too much to you. As you say, I planted the seed. I did; I
-planted the seed that bore all the fruit; I planted it when I kissed
-you, Jane, and said them things to you that night which I forgot the
-next day. Ann could have made something out of me better than this. As
-long as I had her to manage me, I did well. You see what I am now."
-
-"Yes, I see; and I'm as sorry as I know how to be." Jane sighed as she
-passed out into the open sunlight. "I'm going home, Joe. I may never lay
-eyes on you again in this life. If you can say anything to make me feel
-better, I'd be thankful."
-
-"There isn't anything, except what I said just now about our natural
-laws, Jane," he said, as he stood shading his eyes from the glare of the
-sun. "Sometimes I think that nobody hain't to blame for nothing they do,
-and that all of this temporary muddle is just the different ways human
-beings have of struggling on to a better world beyond this."
-
-"I thought maybe you might, in so many words, say plain out that you'd
-forgive me, Joe." She had turned her face towards the road she was to
-travel, and her once harsh lip was quivering like that of a weeping
-child.
-
-"The natural law would come in there, too," Boyd sighed. "Forgiveness,
-of the right sort, don't spring to the heart in such a case as this like
-a flash of powder in the pan. If I'm to forgive, I will in due time, I
-reckon; but right now, Jane, I feel too weak and tired, even for
-that--too weak and heartsick and undone."
-
-"Well, I'm going to pray for it, Joe," she said, as she started away.
-"Good-bye. May the Lord above bless you."
-
-"Good-bye, Jane; do the best you can," he said, "and I'll try to do the
-same."
-
-
-
-
-XXXIX
-
-
-The following Sunday afternoon Mrs. Waycroft hastened over to Ann
-Boyd's. She walked very rapidly across the fields and through the woods
-rather than by the longer main road. She found Ann in her best dress
-seated in her dining-room reading Luke King's paper, which had come the
-day before. She looked up and smiled and nodded to the visitor.
-
-"I just wish you'd listen to this," she said, enthusiastically. "And
-when you've heard it, if you don't think that boy is a genius you'll
-miss it by a big jump. On my word, such editorials as this will do more
-good than all the preaching in Christendom. I've read it four times. Sit
-down and listen."
-
-"No, you've got to listen to me," said the visitor. "That can wait; it's
-down in black and white, while mine is fairly busting me wide open. Ann,
-do you know what took place at meeting this morning?"
-
-"Why, no, how could I? You know I said I'd never darken that door again,
-after that low-lived coward--"
-
-"Stop, Ann, and listen!" Mrs. Waycroft panted, as she sank into a chair
-and leaned forward. "You know I go seldom myself, but by some chance I
-went this morning. I always feel like doing the best I can towards the
-end of a year. Well, I had hardly got my seat and Brother Bazemore had
-just got up to make some announcements, when who should come in but Jane
-Hemingway. Instead of stopping at her usual place, nigh the stove, she
-walked clean up to the altar-railing and stood as stiff as a post,
-gazing at the preacher. He was busy with his notes and didn't see her at
-first, though every eye in the house was fixed on her in wonder, for she
-was as white as a sheet, and so thin and weak that it looked like the
-lightest wind would blow her away. 'Brother Bazemore,' she said, loud
-enough to be heard, in her shrill voice, clean out to the horse-rack, 'I
-want to say something, and I want to say it out before all of you.'"
-
-"Huh!" Ann grunted--"huh!"
-
-"Well, he looked good surprised," Mrs. Waycroft went on, "but you know
-he's kind o' resentful if folks don't show consideration for his
-convenience, so he looked down at her over his specks and said:
-
-"'Well, sister, I reckon the best time for that will be after preaching,
-and then them that want to stay can do so and feel that they got what
-they waited for.'
-
-"'But I can't wait,' said she. 'What I've got to say must be said now,
-while I'm plumb in the notion. If I waited I might back out, and I don't
-want to do it.'
-
-"Well, he give in; and, Ann, she turned around facing us all and took
-off her bonnet and swung it about like a flag. She was as nigh dead in
-looks as any corpse I ever saw. And since you was born, Ann, you never
-heard the like. Folks was so interested that they stared as if their
-eyes was popping out of their sockets. She said she'd come to confess to
-crime--that's the way she put it--_crime!_ She said she'd been passing
-for half a lifetime in this community as a Christian woman, when in
-actuality she had been linked body and soul to the devil. Right there
-she gulped and stood with her old head down; then she looked at us like
-a crazy person and went on. She said away back when she was a girl she'd
-been jealous of a certain girl, and that she'd hounded that girl through
-a long life. She had made it her particular business to stir up strife
-against that woman by toting lies from one person to another. She turned
-sort o' sideways to the preacher and said: 'Brother Bazemore, what I
-told you Ann Boyd said about you that time was all made up--a lie out of
-whole cloth. I told you that to make you denounce her in public, and you
-did. I kept telling her neighbors things to make 'em hate her, and they
-did. I told her husband a whole string of deliberate lies that made him
-leave her and take her child away. I spent half my life at this thing,
-to have it end like this: Men and women, the woman that I was doing all
-that against was the one who came up with the money that saved my
-worthless life and tried to hide it from me and the rest of the world.
-She not only done that, but she done me even a greater favor. I won't
-say what that was, but nobody but an angel from heaven, robed in the
-flesh of earth, could have done that, for it was the very thing she had
-every right to want to see visited on me. That act would have paid me
-back in my own coin, and she wanted to count out the money, but she was
-too much of heaven to go through it. Instead of striking at me, she
-saved me suffering that would have dragged me to the dust in shame. I've
-come here to say all this because I want to do her justice, if I can,
-while the breath of life is in me. I've just got back from Gilmer, where
-I went and met the man whose life I wrecked--her husband. I told him the
-truth, hoping that I could do him some good in atonement, but the poor,
-worn-out man seemed too utterly crushed to forgive me.'"
-
-"Joe--she went to Joe!" Ann gasped, finding her voice. "Now, I reckon,
-he believes me. And to think that Jane Hemingway would say all that--do
-all that! It don't seem reasonable. But you say she actually--"
-
-"Of course she did," broke in the narrator. "And when she was through
-she marched straight down the middle aisle and stalked outside. Half the
-folks got up and went to the windows and watched her tottering along the
-road; and then Brother Bazemore called 'em back and made 'em sit down.
-He said, in his cold-blooded way, hemming and hawing, that the whole
-community had been too severe, and that the best way to get the thing
-settled and smooth-running again was to agree on some sort of public
-testimonial. Ann, I reckon fully ten men yelled out that they would
-second the motion. I never in all my life saw such excitement. Folks was
-actually crying, and this one and that one was telling kind things you
-had done to them. Then they all got around me, Ann, and they made a lots
-over me, saying I was the only one who had acted right, and that I must
-ask you to forgive them. That was the motion Bazemore put and carried by
-a vote of rising. Half of them was so anxious to have their votes
-counted that they climbed up on the benches and waved their hats and
-bonnets and shawls, and yelled out, 'Here! here!' Bazemore dismissed
-without preaching; it looked like he thought nothing he could say, in
-any regular line, would count in such a tumult. And after meeting dozens
-of 'em slid up to me and snatched my hands and told me to speak a good
-word for them; they kept it up even after I'd got outside, some of 'em
-walking part of the way with me and sending messages. Wait till I catch
-my breath, and I'll tell you who spoke and what each one said, as well
-as I can."
-
-"Never mind," said Ann, an absent look in her strong face. "I believe
-I'd rather not hear any more of it; it don't make one bit of difference
-one way or another."
-
-"Why, Ann, surely you won't entertain hard feelings, now that they all
-feel so bad. If you could only 'a' been there, you would--"
-
-"Oh, it isn't that," Ann sighed, and with her closed hand she pounded
-her heavy knee restlessly. "You see, Mary--oh, I don't know--but, well,
-I can't possibly be any way but the way the Lord made me, and to save my
-life I can't feel grateful. They all just seem to me like a lot of
-spoilt children that laugh or cry over whatever comes up. Somehow a
-testimonial from a congregation like that, after a lifetime of beating
-me and covering me with slime, seems more like an insult than a
-compliment. They think they can besmirch the best part of my life, and
-then rub it off in a minute with good intentions and a few words. Why,
-it was the same sort of whim that made them all follow Jane Hemingway
-like sheep after a leader. I don't hate 'em, you understand, but what
-they do or say simply don't alter my feelings a speck. I have known all
-along that I had the right kind of--character, and to listen to their
-sniffling testimony on the subject would seem to me like--well, like
-insulting my own womanhood."
-
-"You are a powerful strange creature, Ann," Mrs. Waycroft said,
-reflectively, "but, I reckon, if you hadn't been that way you wouldn't
-be such a wonderful woman in so many ways. I was holding something back
-for the last, but I reckon you'll sniff at that more than what I've
-already told you. Ann, when I got home, and had just set down to eat a
-snack before running over to you, who should come to my back gate and
-call me out except Jane herself. She stood leaning against the fence
-like the walk had nearly done her up, and she refused to come in and set
-down. She said she wanted me to do her a favor. She said she knew I was
-at meeting and heard what she said, but that she wanted me to come to
-you for her. As God is my final Judge, I never felt such pity for a poor
-rotten shred of humanity in all my life. She looked like she was trying
-to cry, but was too dry inside to do anything but wheeze; her very eyes
-seemed to be literally on fire; she looked like a crazy person talking
-rationally. She said she wanted me to tell you how sorry and broke up
-she was, that she'd pay back that hundred dollars if she had to deed
-away her dead body to some medical college. She said she could do
-anything on earth to make amends _except_ go to you face to face and
-apologize--she'd walk from door to door all over the country, she said,
-and tell her tale of shame, but she couldn't say it to you. She said she
-had tried for weeks to do it, but she knew she'd never have the moral
-strength."
-
-"She talked that way?" Ann said, looking steadily out into the sunshine
-through the open doorway.
-
-"Yes; and I reckon you have as little patience with her message as you
-have with the balance," said the visitor.
-
-"No, she's different, Mary," Ann declared. "Jane Hemingway is another
-proposition altogether. She's fought a long, fierce fight, and God
-Almighty's forces have whipped her clean out. She was a worthy foe, and
-I respect her more now than I ever did. She was different from the rest.
-_She_ had a cause. _She_ had something to fight about. She loved Joe
-Boyd with all the heart she ever had, and when I married him she
-couldn't--simply couldn't--let it rest. She held on like a bull-dog with
-his teeth clamped to bone. She's beat; I won't wait for her to come to
-me; I may take a notion and go to her."
-
-
-
-
-XL
-
-
-It was a crisp, clear day in December. Langdon Chester had gone to
-Darley to attend to the banking of a considerable amount of money which
-his father had received for cotton on the market. It happened to be the
-one day in the year in which the town was visited by a mammoth circus,
-and the streets were overflowing with mountain people eager to witness
-the grand street-parade, the balloon ascension, the side-shows, and,
-lastly, the chief performance under the big tent. From the quaint old
-Johnston House, along Main Street to the grain warehouses and the
-throbbing and wheezing cotton compress, half a mile distant, the street
-was filled with people afoot, in carts, wagons, and buggies, or on
-horseback. All this joy and activity made little impression on Langdon
-Chester. His face was thin and sallow, and he was extremely nervous. His
-last conversation with Virginia and her positive refusal to consider his
-proposal of marriage had left him without a hope and more desperate than
-his best friend could have imagined possible to a man of his supposedly
-callous temperament. And a strange fatality seemed to be dogging his
-footsteps and linking him to the matter which he had valiantly attempted
-to lay aside, for everywhere he went he heard laudatory remarks about
-Luke King and his marvellous success and strength of character. In the
-group of lawyers seated in the warm sunshine in front of Trabue's little
-one-storied brick office on the street leading to the court-house, it
-was a topic of more interest than any gossip about the circus. It was
-Squire Tomlinson's opinion, and he had been to the legislature in
-Atlanta, and associated intimately with politicians from all sections of
-the state, that King was a man who, if he wished it, could become the
-governor of Georgia as easy as falling off a log, or even a senator of
-the United States. The common people wanted him, the squire declared;
-they had worshipped him ever since his first editorial war-whoop against
-the oppression of the political ring, the all-devouring trusts, and the
-corrupt Northern money-power. The squire, blunt man that he was, caught
-sight of Langdon among his listeners and playfully made an illustration
-out of him. "There's a chap, gentlemen, the son of a good old friend of
-mine. Now, what did money, aristocratic parentage, family brains, and
-military honors do for him? He was sent to the best college in the
-state, with plenty of spending-money at his command, and is still
-hanging onto the strap of his daddy's pocket-book--satisfied like we all
-were in the good old days when each of us had a little nigger to come
-and put on our shoes for us and bring hot coffee and waffles to the bed
-after we'd tripped the merry toe on somebody's farm all night. Oh, you
-needn't frown, Langdon; you know it's the truth. He's still a chip off
-the old block, gentlemen, while his barefoot neighbor, a scion of po'
-white stock, cooked his brain before a cabin pine-knot fire in studying,
-like Abe Lincoln did, and finally went forth to conquer the world, and
-_is_ conquering it as fast as a dog can trot. It's enough, gentlemen, to
-make us all take our boys from school, give 'em a good paddling, and put
-'em at hard toil in the field."
-
-"Thank you for the implied compliment, Squire," Langdon said, angrily.
-"You are frank enough about it, anyway."
-
-"Now, there, you see," the squire exclaimed, regretfully. "I've gone and
-rubbed him the wrong way, and I meant nothing in the world by it."
-
-Langdon bowed and smiled his acceptance of the apology, though a scowl
-was on his face as he turned to walk down the street. From the
-conversation he had learned that King was expected up that day to visit
-his family, and a sickening shock came to him with the thought that it
-really was to see Virginia that he was coming. Yes, he was now sure that
-it had been King's attentions to the girl which had turned her against
-him--that and the powerful influence of Ann Boyd.
-
-These thoughts were too much for him. He went into Asque's bar, at the
-hotel, called for whiskey, and remained there for hours.
-
-Langdon was in the spacious office of the Johnston House when the
-evening train from Atlanta came into the old-fashioned brick car-shed at
-the door, and King alighted. His hand-bag was at once snatched by an
-admiring negro porter, and the by-standers crowded around him to shake
-hands. Langdon stood in the office a moment later, his brain benumbed
-with drink and jealous fury, and saw his rival literally received into
-the open arms of another eager group. Smothering an oath, the young
-planter leaned against the cigar-case quite near the register, over
-which the clerk stood triumphantly calling to King to honor the house by
-writing the name of the state's future governor. King had the pen in his
-hand, when, glancing up, he recognized Langdon, whom he had not seen
-since his return from the West.
-
-"Why, how are you, Chester?" he said, cordially.
-
-Langdon stared. His brain seemed pressed downward by some weight. The
-by-standers saw a strange, half-insane glare in his unsteady eyes, but
-he said nothing.
-
-"Why, surely you remember me," Luke exclaimed, in honest surprise.
-"King's my name--Luke King. It's true I have not met you for several
-years, but--"
-
-"Oh, it's King, is it?" Langdon said, calmly and with the edge of a
-sneer on his white, determined lip. "I didn't know if you were sure
-_what_ it was. So many of your sort spring up like flies in hot weather
-that one can't tell much about your parentage, except on the maternal
-side."
-
-There was momentous silence. The crowded room held its breath in sheer
-astonishment. King stared at his antagonist for an instant, hoping
-against hope that he had misunderstood. Then he took a deep breath.
-"That's a queer thing for one man to say to another," he said, fixing
-Chester with a steady stare. "Are you aware that a remark like that
-might reflect on the honor of my mother?"
-
-"I don't care who it reflects on," retorted Chester. "You can take it
-any way you wish, if you have got enough backbone."
-
-As quick as a flash King's right arm went out and his massive fist
-landed squarely between Chester's eyes. The blow was so strong that the
-young planter reeled back into the crowd, instinctively pressing his
-hands to his face. King was ready to strike again, but some of his
-friends stopped him and pushed him back against the counter. Others in
-the crowd forcibly drew his maddened antagonist away, and further
-trouble was averted.
-
-With a hand that was strangely steady, King registered his name with the
-pen the clerk was extending to him.
-
-"Let it drop, King," the clerk said. "He's so drunk he hardly knows what
-he's doing. He seems to have it in for you, for some reason or other. It
-looks like jealousy to me. They were devilling him over at Trabue's
-office awhile ago about his failure and your big success. Let it pass
-this time. He'll be ashamed of himself as soon as his liquor dies out."
-
-"Thank you, Jim," King replied. "I'll let it rest, if he is satisfied
-with what he's already had."
-
-"Going out home to-night?" the clerk asked.
-
-"If I can get a turnout at the stable," King answered.
-
-"You will have to take a room here, then," the clerk smiled, "for
-everything is out at the livery. I know, because two travelling men who
-had a date with George Wilson over there are tied up here."
-
-"Then I'll stay and go out in the morning," said King. "I'm tired,
-anyway, and that is a hard ride at night."
-
-"Well, take the advice of a friend and steer clear of Chester right
-now," said the clerk. "He's a devil when he's worked up and drinking.
-Really, he's dangerous."
-
-"I know that, but I'll not run from him," said King. "I thought my
-fighting day was over, but there are some things I can't take."
-
-
-
-
-XLI
-
-
-It was dusk the following evening. Virginia was at the cow-lot when her
-uncle came lazily up the road from the store and joined her. "Well," he
-drawled out, as he thrust his hands into his pocket for his pipe, "I
-reckon I'm onto a piece o' news that you and your mother, nor nobody
-else this side o' Wilson's shebang, knows about. Mrs. Snodgrass has just
-arrived by hack from Darley, where she attended the circus and tried to
-get a job to beat that talking-machine they had in the side-show. It
-seems that this neighborhood has furnished the material for more
-excitement over there than the whole exhibition, animals and all."
-
-"How is that, uncle?" Virginia asked, absent-mindedly.
-
-"Why, it seems that a row has been on tap between Langdon Chester and
-Luke King for, lo, these many months, anyway, and yesterday, when the
-population of Darley turned out in as full force to meet Luke King as
-they did the circus parade, why it was too much for Chester's blood. He
-kept drinking and drinking till he hardly knew which end of him was up,
-and then he met Luke at the Johnston House face to face. Mrs. Snod says
-Langdon evidently laid his plans so there would have to be a fight in
-any case, so he up and slandered that good old mammy of King's."
-
-"Oh, uncle, and they fought?" Virginia, pale and trembling, gasped as
-she leaned for support on the fence.
-
-"You bet they did. Mrs. Snod says the vile slander had no sooner left
-Chester's lips than King let drive at him right between the eyes. That
-knocked Langdon out of the ring for a while, and his friends took him to
-a room to wash him off, for he was bleeding like a stuck pig. King was
-to come out here last night, but Mrs. Snod says he was afraid Chester
-would think he was running from the field, and so he stayed on at the
-hotel. Then, this morning early, the two of them come together on the
-street in front of the bank building. Mrs. Snod says Chester drawed
-first and got Luke covered before he could say Jack Robinson, and then
-fired. Several shots were exchanged, but the third brought King to his
-knees. They say he's done for, Virginia. He wasn't dead to-day at
-twelve, but the doctors said he couldn't live an hour. They say he was
-bleeding so terrible inside that they was afraid to move him. I'm here
-to tell you, Virgie, that I used to like that chap; and when he got to
-coming to see you, and I could see that he meant business, I was in
-hopes you and him would make a deal, but then you up and bluffed him off
-so positive that I never could see what it meant. Why, he was about the
-most promising young man I ever--But look here, child, what's ailing
-you?"
-
-"Nothing, uncle," Virginia said; and, with her head down, she turned
-away. Looking after her for a moment in slow wonder, Sam went on into
-the farm-house, bent on telling the startling news to his sister-in-law.
-As for Virginia, she walked on through the gathering dusk towards Ann
-Boyd's house. "Dead, dying!" she said, with a low moan. "It has come at
-last."
-
-Farther across the meadow she trudged, unconscious of the existence of
-her physical self. At a little stream which she had to cross on
-stepping-stones she paused and moaned again. Dead--actually dead! Luke
-King, the young man whom the whole of his state was praising, had been
-shot down like a dog. No matter what might be the current report as to
-the cause of the meeting, young as she was she knew it to be the outcome
-of Langdon Chester's passion--the fruition of his mad threat to her.
-Yes, he had made good his word.
-
-Approaching Ann's house, she entered the gate just as Mrs. Boyd came to
-the door and stood smiling knowingly at her.
-
-"Virginia," she called out, cheerily, "what you reckon I've got here?
-You could make a million guesses and then be wide of the mark."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia groaned, as she tottered to the step and
-raised her eyes to the old woman's face, "you haven't heard the news.
-Luke is dead!"
-
-"Dead?" Ann laughed out impulsively. "Oh no, I reckon not. Come in and
-take a chair by the fire; you've got your feet wet with the dew."
-
-"He's dead, he's dead, I tell you!" Virginia stood still, her white and
-rigid face upturned. "Langdon Chester, the contemptible coward, shot him
-at Darley this morning."
-
-"Oh, _that's_ it, is it?" A knowing look came into Ann Boyd's face. She
-stroked an impulsive smile from her facile lips, but Virginia still saw
-its light in the twinkling eyes above the broad, red hand. "You say he's
-dead? Well, well, that accounts for something I was wondering about just
-now. You know I am not much of a hand to believe in spiritual
-manifestations like table-raising folks do, but I'll give you my word,
-Virginia, that for the last hour and a half I'd 'a' sworn Luke King
-_himself_ was right here in the house. Just now I heard something like
-him walking across the floor. It seemed to me he went out to the shelf
-and took a drink of water. I'll bet it's Luke's spirit hanging about
-trying to tell me good-bye--that is, if he really _was_ shot, as you
-say." Ann smiled again and turned her face towards the inside of the
-room, and called out: "Say, Ghost of Luke King, if you are in my house
-right now you'd better lie low and listen. This silly girl is talking so
-wild the first thing you know she will be saying she don't love Langdon
-Chester."
-
-"Love him? what's the matter with you?" Virginia panted. "I hate him.
-You know I detest him. I'll kill him. Do you hear me? I'll kill him as
-sure as I ever meet him face to face."
-
-Ann stared at the girl for a moment, her face oddly beaming, then she
-looked back into the room again. "Do you hear that, Mr. Ghost? She now
-says she'll kill Langdon Chester on sight. She says that after sending
-_you_ about your business for no reason in the world. You listen good.
-Maybe she'll be saying after a while that she loved you."
-
-"I _did_ love him. God knows I loved him!" Virginia cried. "I loved him
-with every bit of my soul and body. I've loved him, worshipped him,
-adored him ever since I was a child and he was so good to me. He was the
-noblest man that ever lived, and now a dirty, sneaking coward has
-slipped up on him and shot him down in cold blood. If I ever meet that
-man, as God is my Judge, I'll--" With a sob that was almost a shriek
-Virginia sank to the door-step and lay there, quivering convulsively.
-
-A vast change swept over Ann Boyd. Her big face filled with the still
-blood of deep emotion. She heaved a sigh, and, turning towards the
-interior of the room, she said, huskily:
-
-"Come on, Luke; don't tease the poor little thing. I wouldn't have
-carried it so far if I could have got it out of her any other way. She's
-yours, dear boy--heart, soul, and body."
-
-Hearing these words, Virginia raised her head in wonder, just as Luke
-King emerged from the house. He bent over her, and tenderly raised her
-up. He was drawing her closer to him, his fine face aflame with tender
-passion, when Virginia held him firmly from her.
-
-"Don't! don't!" she said. "If you knew--"
-
-"I've told him everything, Virginia," Ann broke in. "I had to. I
-couldn't see my dear boy suffering like he was, when--"
-
-"You know--" Virginia began, aghast, "you know--"
-
-"About you and Chester?" King said, with a light laugh. "Yes, I know all
-about it, and it made me think you the grandest, most self-sacrificing
-little girl in all the world. So you thought I was dead? That was all
-gossip. It was only a quarrel that amounted to nothing. I understand,
-now that he is sober, that Chester is heartily ashamed of himself."
-
-Half an hour afterwards Ann stood at the gate and saw them walking
-together towards Virginia's home. She watched them till they were lost
-from her sight in the dusk, then she went back into the house. She stood
-over the low fire for a moment, then said: "I won't get any supper
-ready. I couldn't eat a bite. Meat and bread couldn't shove this lump
-out of my throat. It's pretty, pretty, pretty to see those two together
-that way. I believe they have got the sort of thing the Almighty really
-meant love to be. I know _I_ never got that kind, though, as a girl, I
-dreamt of nothing else--nothing from morning till night but that one
-thing, and yet here I am this way--_this way_!"
-
-
-
-
-XLII
-
-
-The next morning the weather was as balmy as spring. Ann had taken all
-the coverings from her beds and hung them along the fence to catch the
-purifying rays of the sun. Her rag-carpet was stretched out on the
-ground ready to be beaten. She was occupied in sweeping the bare floor
-of her sitting-room when a shadow fell across the threshold. Looking up,
-she saw a tall, lean man, very ill-clad, his tattered hat in hand, his
-shoes broken at the toes and showing the wearer's bare feet.
-
-"It's me, Ann," Boyd said. "I couldn't stay away any longer. I hope you
-won't drive me off, anyway, before I've got out what I come to say."
-
-She turned pale as she leaned her broom against the wall and began to
-roll her sleeves down her fat arms towards her wrists. "Well, I wasn't
-looking for you," she managed to say.
-
-"I reckon not, Ann," he returned, a certain wistful expression in his
-voice and strangely softened face; "but I had to come. As I say--I had
-to come and speak to you, anyway."
-
-"Well, take a chair," she said, awkwardly. "I've got the windows up to
-let the dust drive out, and I'll close them. It's powerful draughty. I
-don't feel it, working like I am, but you might, coming in from the
-outside."
-
-He advanced to one of the straight-backed chairs which he remembered so
-well, and laid an unsteady hand on it, but he did not draw it towards
-him nor sit down. Instead, his great, hungry eyes followed her
-movements, as she bustled from one window to another, like those of a
-patient, offending dog.
-
-"Well, why don't you sit down?" She had turned back to him, and stood
-eying his poor aspect with strange misgivings and pity. In her comfort
-and luxury, he, with his evidences of poverty and despair, struck a
-strangely discordant note.
-
-He drew the chair nearer, and with quivering knees she saw him sink into
-it, with firmness at the beginning and then with the sudden collapse of
-an invalid. She went to a window and looked out. Not seeing his horse
-hitched near by, she came back to him.
-
-"Where did you hitch?" she asked, her voice losing firmness.
-
-"I didn't have no horse," he said; "I walked, Ann. Lawson was hauling
-wood with the horse. He wouldn't have let me take it, anyway. He's got
-awfully contrary here lately. Me 'n' him don't get along at all."
-
-"Do you mean to tell me--do you mean to tell me you walked all that way,
-in them shoes without bottoms, and--and you looking like you've just got
-up from a long sick spell?"
-
-"I made it all right, Ann, stopping to rest on the way." A touch of
-color seemed to have risen into his wan cheeks. "I had to come
-to-day--as I did awhile back--to do my duty, as I saw it. In fact, this
-seems even more my duty. Ann, Jane Hemingway came over to Gilmer awhile
-back. She come straight to my house, and, my God, Ann, she come and told
-me she'd been at the bottom of all our trouble. She set right in and
-acknowledged that she lied; she said she'd been lying all along for
-spite, because she hated you."
-
-"And loved you," Ann interposed, quickly. "Yes, she came back here, so
-I've been told, and stood up in meeting and said she'd been to see you,
-and she confessed it all in public. I can't find it in my heart to be
-hard with her, Joe. She was only obeying her laws of nature, as you have
-obeyed yours and I have mine, and--and as our offspring is now obeying
-hers. Tell me the straight truth, Joe. I reckon Nettie still feels
-strange towards me."
-
-Joe Boyd's mild eyes wavered and sought the fire beyond the toes of his
-ragged shoes.
-
-"Tell me the truth, Joe," Ann demanded. "I'm entitled to that, anyway."
-
-"She's always been a queer creature," Boyd faltered, evasively, without
-looking up, and she saw him nervously laving his bony hands in the
-sheer, unsuggestive emptiness about him. "But you mustn't think it's
-just _you_ she's against, Ann. She's plumb gone back on me, too. The
-money you furnished cleared the place of debt and bought her wedding
-outfit, and she got her man; but not long back she found out where the
-means come from, and--"
-
-Ann's lips tightened in the pause that ensued. Her face was set like a
-grotesque mask of stone. She leaned over the fire and pushed a fallen
-ember back under the steaming logs with a poker.
-
-"She couldn't stomach that, I reckon?" Ann said, in assumed calmness.
-
-"Well, it made her mad at me. I won't tell you all she done or said,
-Ann. It wouldn't do no good. I'm responsible for what she is, I reckon.
-She might have growed up different if she'd had the watchful care of--of
-a mother. What she is, is what any female will become under the care of
-a shiftless man like I am."
-
-"No, you are wrong, Joe," Ann said. "Why it is so I don't intend to
-explain, but Nettie would have been like she is under all circumstances.
-Money and plenty of everything might have glazed her character over, but
-down at bottom she'd have been what she is. Adversity generally brings
-out all the good that's in a person; the reason it hasn't fetched it out
-in her is because it isn't there, nor never has been. You say you and
-her don't get on well?"
-
-"Not now," he said. "She just as good as driv me from home yesterday.
-She told me point-blank that there wasn't room for me, and that when the
-baby comes they would be more crowded and pinched than ever. She
-actually sent Lawson to the Ordinary at Springtown to see if there was a
-place on the poor-farm vacant. When I dropped onto that, Ann, I come
-off. For all I know, they may have some paper for vagrancy ready to
-serve on me. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm not going back to
-them two, never while there is a lingering breath left in my body."
-
-"The poor-farm!" Ann said, half to herself. "To think that she would
-consent to that, and you her father."
-
-"I think his folks is behind it, Ann. They've got a reason for wanting
-to get rid of me."
-
-"A reason, you say?" Ann was staring at him steadily.
-
-Joe Boyd's embarrassment of a moment before returned. He twisted his
-hands together again. "Yes; it's like this, Ann," he went on, awkwardly:
-"a short time back Lawson's mother and father got onto the fact that you
-were in good circumstances, and it made the biggest change in them you
-ever heard of. They talked it all over the settlement. They are hard up,
-and they couldn't talk of anything but how much you was worth, and what
-you had your money invested in, and the like. After they got onto that,
-they never--never paid no attention to what had been--been
-circulated--your money covered all that as completely as a ten-foot
-snow. Instead of turning up their noses, as Nettie was afraid they would
-do, it only made them brag about how well their boy had done, and what a
-fool I was. They tried all sorts of ways to get Nettie interested in
-some scheme to attract your attention, but Nettie would just cry and
-take on and refuse to come over here or to write to you."
-
-"I understand"--Ann stroked her compressed lips with an unsteady
-hand--"I understand. I've never been a natural mother to her; she
-couldn't come to me like that. But you say they turned against you."
-
-"Yes. You see, the Lawsons got an idea--the old woman did, in
-particular, from something she'd picked up--that it was _me_ that stood
-between you and Nettie. They thought you and me had had such a serious
-falling-out that a proud woman like you never would have anything to do
-with Nettie as long as I was about, and that the best thing was to shove
-me off so the reconciliation would work faster. The truth is, they said
-that would please you."
-
-"I see, I see," Ann said. "And they set about putting you at the
-poor-farm."
-
-"Yes; they seemed to think that was as good a place as any. And they
-could get all the proof necessary to put me there, for I hadn't a cent
-to my name nor a whole rag to my back; and, Ann, for the last three
-months I haven't been able to do a lick o' work. I've had a strange sort
-of hurting all down my left side, and my right ankle seems affected in
-the same way."
-
-Ann Boyd suddenly turned away. Through the window she had seen the wind
-blowing one of her sheets from the fence, and she went out and put it in
-place. He limped out into the sunlight and stood at the little, sagging
-gate a few yards from her. Something of his old dignity and gallantry of
-manner was on him: he still held his hat in his hand, his thin,
-iron-gray hair exposed to the warm rays of the sun.
-
-"Well, I'd better be going, Ann," he said. "There is no telling when
-somebody might come along and see me here, and start the talk you hate
-so much. I come all the way here to tell you how low and mean I feel for
-taking Jane Hemingway's word instead of yours, and how plumb sorry I am.
-You and me may never meet again this side of the Seat of Judgment, and
-I'll say this if I never speak again. Ann, the only days of perfect
-happiness I ever had was here with you, and, if all of it was to do over
-again, I'd suffer torture by fire rather than believe you anything but
-an angel from heaven. Oh, Ann, it was just my poor, weak inferiority to
-you that made me misjudge you. If I'd ever been a _real_ man--a man
-worthy of a woman like you--I'd have snapped my fingers at all that was
-said, but I was obeying my laws, as you say. I simply wasn't deep enough
-nor high enough to do you justice."
-
-He drew the little gate ajar and dragged his tired feet through the
-opening. The fence was now between them. She looked down the road. A
-woman under a sun-bonnet and little shawl was coming towards them. By a
-strange fatality it was Jane Hemingway, but she was not to pass directly
-by them, as her path homeward turned sharply to the left a hundred yards
-below. They both recognized her.
-
-"I don't know fully what you mean, Joe," Ann said, softly, "but if you
-mean by what you just said that you'd be willing now to--to come
-back--if _that's_ what you mean, I'd have something to say that maybe,
-in justice to myself, I ought to say."
-
-"_Would_ I come back? Would I? Oh, Ann, how could you doubt that, when
-you see how miserable and sorry I feel. God knows I'd never feel worthy
-of you; but if you would--if you only could--let me stay, I--"
-
-"I couldn't consent to _that_, Joe--that's the point," Ann answered,
-firmly. "Anything else on earth but _that_. I expect to provide for
-Nettie in a substantial way, and I expect to have a lawyer make it one
-of the main conditions that her income depends on her good treatment of
-you as long as you and she live. I expect to do that, but the other
-matter is different. A woman of my stamp has her pride and her rights,
-Joe. I've been through a lot, but I can endure just so much and no more.
-If--if you _did_ come back, and we was married over again, it would go
-out to the world that you had taken _me_ back, and I couldn't stand
-that. My very womanhood rises up and cries out against that in a voice
-that rings clear to the end of truth and justice and woman's eternal
-rights. Joe, I'm too big and pure in _myself_ to let the world say a man
-who was--was--I'm going to say it--was little enough to doubt my word
-for the best part of my days had at last taken _me_ back--taken me back
-when my lonely life's sun was on the decline. No, no, never; for the
-sake of unborn girl infants who may have to meet what I fell under when
-I was too young to know the difference between the smile of hell and the
-smile of heaven, I say No! We'd better live out our days in loneliness
-apart--you frail and uncared for, and me on here without a friend or
-companion--than to sanction such a baleful thing as that."
-
-"Then I'll tell you what you let _me_ do," Boyd said, with a flare of
-his old youthful adoration in his face. "Let me get down on my knees,
-Ann, and crawl with my nose in the dust to everybody that we ever knew
-and tell them that I'd begged and begged for mercy, and at last Ann had
-taken _me_ back, weak and broken as I am--weak, ashamed, and unworthy,
-but back with her in the place I lost through my own narrowness and
-cowardice. Let me do that, Ann--oh, let me do that! I can't go away. I'd
-die without you. I've loved you all, all these years and had you in my
-mind night and day."
-
-Ann was looking at the ground. The blood had mounted red and warm into
-her face. Suddenly she glanced down the road. Jane Hemingway was just
-turning into the path leading to her home; her eyes were fastened on
-them. She paused and stood staring.
-
-"Poor thing!" Ann said, her moist, glad eyes fixed upon Jane. "She is as
-sorry and repentant as she can be. Her only hope right now, Joe, is that
-we'll make it up. She used to love you, too, Joe. You are the only man
-she ever did love. Let's wave our hands to her so she will understand
-that--we have come to an understanding."
-
-"Oh, Ann, do you mean--" But Ann, with a flushed, happy face, was waving
-her hand at her old enemy. As for Boyd, he lowered his head to the fence
-and sobbed.
-
-                                THE END
-
-
-
-
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN BOYD ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37551 ***</div>
 <div class="document" id="ann-boyd">
 <h1 class="document-title level-1 pfirst title">Ann Boyd</h1>
-
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-<p class="noindent pfirst">Title: Ann Boyd</p>
-<p class="noindent pnext">Author: Will N. Harben</p>
-<p class="noindent pnext">Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37551]</p>
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-<p class="noindent pnext">Character set encoding: UTF-8</p>
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 </div>
 <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
 </div>
@@ -12586,340 +12568,6 @@ the fence and sobbed.</p>
 <p class="center pnext">THE END</p>
 <div class="vspace" style="height: 5em">
 </div>
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+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37551 ***</div>
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-.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

-

-.. meta::

-   :PG.Id: 37551

-   :PG.Title: Ann Boyd

-   :PG.Released: 2011-09-27

-   :PG.Rights: Public Domain

-   :PG.Producer: Roger Frank

-   :PG.Producer: Mary Meehan

-   :PG.Producer: the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

-   :PG.Credits:

-   :DC.Creator: Will N. Harben

-   :MARCREL.ill:

-   :DC.Title: Ann Boyd

-   :DC.Language: en

-   :DC.Created: 1906

-   :coverpage: images/cover.jpg

-

-

-========

-Ann Boyd

-========

-

-.. _pg-header:

-

-.. container:: pgheader language-en

-

-   .. style:: paragraph

-      :class: noindent

-

-   This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-   almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

-   re-use it under the terms of the `Project Gutenberg License`_

-   included with this eBook or online at

-   http://www.gutenberg.org/license.

-

-   

-

-   |

-

-   .. _pg-machine-header:

-

-   .. container::

-

-      Title: Ann Boyd

-      

-      Author: Will N. Harben

-      

-      Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37551]

-      

-      Language: English

-      

-      Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-      |

-

-      .. _pg-start-line:

-

-      \*\*\* START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN BOYD \*\*\*

-

-   |

-   |

-   |

-   |

-

-   .. _pg-produced-by:

-

-   .. container::

-

-      Produced by Roger Frank, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

-

-      |

-

-      

-

-

-.. figure:: images/cover.jpg

-   :align: center

-

-

-.. class:: center x-large

-

-   | A Novel

-   | By

-   | Will N. Harben

-

-.. role:: small-caps

-   :class: small-caps

-

-.. class:: center x-large

-

-   | Author of

-   | "Abner Daniel" "Pole Baker"

-   | "The Georgians" etc.

-   |

-   | New York and London

-   | Harper & Brothers Publishers

-   | 1906

-   |

-   | Copyright, 1906, by :small-caps:`Harper & Brothers`.

-   |

-   | *All rights reserved.*

-   |

-   | Published September, 1906.

-

------

-

-.. class:: center x-large

-

-    | To

-    | William Dean Howells

-

------

-

-.. figure:: images/illus1.jpg

-   :align: center

-   :alt: 'I RECKON IT WAS THE DIVINE INTENTION FOR ME AND YOU TO HAVE THIS SECRET BETWEEN US'

-

-   'I RECKON IT WAS THE DIVINE INTENTION FOR ME AND YOU TO HAVE THIS SECRET BETWEEN US'

-

------

-

-.. contents:: CONTENTS

-   :depth: 1

-   :backlinks: entry

-

------

-

-.. class:: center x-large

-

-Ann Boyd

-

-

-

-

-I

-=

-

-

-Ann Boyd Stood at the open door of

-her corn-house, a square, one-storied

-hut made of the trunks of young pine-trees,

-the bark of which, being worm-eaten,

-was crumbling from the smooth

-hard-wood. She had a tin pail on her arm, and was

-selecting "nubbins" for her cow from the great

-heap of husked corn which, like a mound of golden

-nuggets, lay within. The strong-jawed animal could

-crunch the dwarfed ears, grain and corn together,

-when they were stirred into a mush made of wheat-bran

-and dish-water.

-

-Mrs. Boyd, although past fifty, showed certain

-signs of having been a good-looking woman. Her

-features were regular, but her once slight and erect

-figure was now heavy, and bent as if from toil.

-Her hair, which in her youth had been a luxuriant

-golden brown, was now thinner and liberally streaked

-with gray. From her eyes deep wrinkles diverged,

-and the corners of her firm mouth were

-drawn downward. Her face, even in repose, wore

-an almost constant frown, and this habit had deeply

-gashed her forehead with lines that deepened when

-she was angry.

-

-With her pail on her arm, she was turning back

-towards her cottage, which stood about a hundred

-yards to the right, beneath the shade of two giant

-oaks, when she heard her name called from the

-main-travelled road, which led past her farm, on

-to Darley, ten miles away.

-

-"Oh, it's you, Mrs. Waycroft!" she exclaimed,

-without change of countenance, as the head and

-shoulders of a neighbor appeared above the rail-fence.

-"I couldn't imagine who it was calling me."

-

-"Yes, it was me," the woman said, as Mrs. Boyd

-reached the fence and rested her pail on the top

-rail. "I hain't seed you since I seed you at church,

-Sunday. I tried to get over yesterday, but was too

-busy with one thing and another."

-

-"I reckon you have had your hands full planting

-cotton," said Mrs. Boyd. "I didn't expect you; besides,

-I've had all I could do in my own field."

-

-"Yes, my boys have been hard at it," said Mrs.

-Waycroft. "I don't go to the field myself, like you

-do. I reckon I ain't hardy enough, but keeping

-things for them to eat and the house in order takes

-all my time."

-

-"I reckon," said Mrs. Boyd, studying the woman's

-face closely under the faded black poke-bonnet—"I

-reckon you've got something to tell me. You generally

-have. I wish I could not care a snap of the

-finger what folks say, but I'm only a natural woman.

-I want to hear things sometimes when I know they

-will make me so mad that I won't eat a bite for

-days."

-

-Mrs. Waycroft looked down at the ground.

-"Well," she began, "I reckon you know thar

-would be considerable talk after what happened

-at meeting Sunday. You know a thing like that

-naturally *would* stir up a quiet community like

-this."

-

-"Yes, when I think of it I can see there would

-be enough said, but I'm used to being the chief

-subject of idle talk. I've had twenty odd years

-of it, Mary Waycroft, though this public row was

-rather unexpected. I didn't look for abuse from

-the very pulpit in God's house, if it *is* His. I

-didn't know you were there. I didn't know a

-friendly soul was nigh."

-

-"Yes, I was there clean through from the opening

-hymn. A bolt from heaven on a sunny day

-couldn't have astonished me more than I was when

-you come in and walked straight up the middle

-aisle, and sat down just as if you'd been coming

-there regular for all them years. I reckon you

-had your own private reasons for making the

-break."

-

-"Yes, I did." The wrinkled mouth of the

-speaker twitched nervously. "I'd been thinking

-it out, Mrs. Waycroft, for a long time and trying

-to pray over it, and at last I come to the conclusion

-that if I didn't go to church like the rest,

-it was an open admission that I acknowledged

-myself worse than others, and so I determined to

-go—I determined to go if it killed me."

-

-"And to think you was rewarded that way!"

-answered Mrs. Waycroft; "it's a shame! Ann

-Boyd, it's a dirty shame!"

-

-"It will be a long time before I darken a church

-door again," said Mrs. Boyd. "If I'm ever seen

-there it will be after I'm dead and they take me

-there feet foremost to preach over my body. I

-didn't look around, but I knew they were all whispering

-about me."

-

-"You never saw the like in your life, Ann," the

-visitor said. "Heads were bumping together to

-the damagement of new spring hats, and everybody

-was asking what it meant. Some said that,

-after meeting, you was going up and give your

-hand to Brother Bazemore and ask him to take

-you back, as a member, but he evidently didn't

-think you had a purpose like that, or he wouldn't

-have opened up on you as he did. Of course,

-everybody thar knowed he was hitting at you."

-

-"Oh yes, they all knew, and he had no reason

-for thinking I wanted to ask any favor, for he

-knows too well what I think of him. He hates the

-ground I walk on. He has been openly against

-me ever since he come to my house and asked me

-to let the Sunday-school picnic at my spring and

-in my grove. I reckon I gave it to him pretty

-heavy that day, for all I'd been hearing about

-what he had had to say of me had made me mad.

-I let him get out his proposal as politely as such

-a sneaking man could, and then I showed him

-where I stood. Here, Mrs. Waycroft, I've been

-treated like a dog and an outcast by every member

-of his church for the last twenty years, called

-the vilest names a woman ever bore by his so-called

-Christian gang, and then, when they want

-something I've got—something that nobody else

-can furnish quite as suitable for their purpose—why

-he saunters over to my house holding the skirts

-of his long coat as if afraid of contamination, and

-calmly demands the use of my property—property

-that I've slaved in the hot sun and sleet and rain

-to pay for with hard work. Oh, I was mad! You

-see, that was too much, and I reckon he never in

-all his life got such a tongue-lashing. When I came

-in last Sunday and sat down, I saw his eyes flash,

-and knew if he got half an excuse he would let out

-on me. I was sorry I'd come then, but there was

-no backing out after I'd got there."

-

-"When he took his text I knew he meant it for

-you," said the other woman. "I have never seen

-a madder man in the pulpit, never in my life.

-While he was talking, he never once looked at

-you, though he knew everybody else was doing

-nothing else. Then I seed you rise to your feet.

-He stopped to take a drink from his goblet, and

-you could 'a' heard a pin fall, it was so still. I

-reckon the rest thought like I did, that you was

-going right up to him and pull his hair or slap his

-jaws. You looked like you hardly knowed what

-you was doing, and, for one, I tuck a free breath

-when you walked straight out of the house. What

-you did was exactly right, as most fair-minded

-folks will admit, though I'm here to tell you, my

-friend, that you won't find fair-minded folks very

-plentiful hereabouts. The fair-minded ones are

-over there in that graveyard."

-

-Mrs. Boyd stroked her quivering lips with her

-hard, brown hand, and said, softly: "I wasn't

-going to sit there and listen to any more of it. I'd

-thrown aside pride and principle and gone to do

-my duty to my religion, as I saw it, and thought

-maybe some of them—one or two, at least—would

-meet me part of the way, but I couldn't listen to

-a two hours' tirade about me and my—my misfortune.

-If I'd stayed any longer, I'd have spoken

-back to him, and that would have been exactly

-what he and some of the rest would have wanted,

-for then they could have made a case against me

-in court for disturbing public worship, and imposed

-a heavy fine. They can't bear to think

-that, in spite of all their persecution, I've gone

-ahead and paid my debts and prospered in a way

-that they never could do with all their sanctimony."

-

-There was silence for a moment. A gentle

-breeze stirred the leaves of the trees and the blades

-of long grass beside the road. There was a far-away

-tinkling of cow and sheep bells in the lush-green

-pastures which stretched out towards the

-frowning mountain against which the setting sun

-was levelling its rays.

-

-"You say you haven't seen anybody since Sunday,"

-remarked the loitering woman, in restrained,

-tentative tones.

-

-"No, I've been right here. Why did you ask

-me that?"

-

-"Well, you see, Ann," was the slow answer,

-"talking at the rate Bazemore was to your face,

-don't you think it would be natural for him to—to

-sort o' rub it on even heavier behind your back,

-after you got up that way and went out so sudden."

-

-"I never thought of it, but I can see now that

-it would be just like him." Mrs. Boyd took a deep

-breath and lowered her pail to the ground. "Yes,"

-she went on, reflectively, as she drew herself up

-again and leaned on the fence, "I reckon he got

-good and mad when I got up and left."

-

-"Huh!" The other woman smiled. "He was

-so mad he could hardly speak. He fairly gulped,

-his eyes flashed, and he was as white as a bunch

-of cotton. He poured out another goblet of water

-that he had no idea of drinking, and his hand

-shook so much that the glass tinkled like a bell

-against the mouth of the pitcher. You must have

-got as far as the hitching-rack before his fury

-busted out. I reckon what he said was the most

-unbecoming thing that a stout, able-bodied man

-ever hurled at a defenceless woman's back."

-

-There was another pause. Mrs. Boyd's expectant

-face was as hard as stone; her dark-gray

-eyes were two burning fires in their shadowy

-orbits.

-

-"What did he say?" she asked. "You might

-as well tell me."

-

-Mrs. Waycroft avoided her companion's fierce

-stare. "He looked down at the place where you

-sat, Ann, right steady for a minute, then he said:

-'I'm glad that woman had the common decency

-to sit on a seat by herself while she was here; but

-I hope when meeting is over that some of you

-brethren will take the bench out in the woods and

-burn it. I'll pay for a new one out of my own

-pocket.'"

-

-"Oh!" The exclamation seemed wrung from her

-when off her guard, and Mrs. Boyd clutched the

-rail of the fence so tightly that her strong nails

-sunk into the soft wood. "He said *that*! He

-said that *about me*!"

-

-"Yes, and he ought to have been ashamed of

-himself," said Mrs. Waycroft; "and if he had been

-anything else than a preacher, surely some of the

-men there—men you have befriended—would not

-have set still and let it pass."

-

-"But they *did* let it pass," said Mrs. Boyd, bitterly;

-"they did let it pass, one and all."

-

-"Oh yes, nobody would dare, in this section, to

-criticise a preacher," said the other. "What any

-little, spindle-legged parson says goes the same

-as the word of God out here in the backwoods.

-I'd have left the church myself, but I knowed

-you'd want to hear what was said; besides, they

-all know I'm your friend."

-

-"Yes, they all know you are the only white

-woman that ever comes near me. But what else

-did he say?"

-

-"Oh, he had lots to say. He said he hadn't

-mentioned no names, but it was always the hit dog

-that yelped, and that you had made yourself a

-target by leaving as you did. He went on to say

-that, in his opinion, all that was proved at court

-against you away back there was just. He said

-some folks misunderstood Scripture when it come

-to deal with your sort and stripe. He said some

-argued that a church door ought always to be

-wide open to any sinner whatsoever, but that in

-your daily conduct of holding every coin so tight

-that the eagle on it squeals, and in giving nothing

-to send the Bible to the heathens, and being

-eternally at strife with your neighbors, you had

-showed, he said, that no good influence could be

-brought to bear on you, and that people who was

-really trying to live upright lives ought to shun

-you like they would a catching disease. He

-'lowed you'd had the same Christian chance in

-your bringing-up, and a better education than

-most gals, and had deliberately throwed it all up

-and gone your headstrong way. In his opinion,

-it would be wrong to condone your past, and tell

-folks you stood an equal chance with the rising

-generation fetched up under the rod and Biblical

-injunction by parents who knowed what lasting

-scars the fires of sin could burn in a living soul.

-He said the community had treated you right, in

-sloughing away from you, ever since you was found

-out, because you had never showed a minute's open

-repentance. You'd helt your head, he thought,

-if possible, higher than ever, and in not receiving

-the social sanction of your neighbors, it looked like

-you was determined to become the richest woman

-in the state for no other reason than to prove that

-wrong prospered."

-

-The speaker paused in her recital. The listener,

-her face set and dark with fury, glanced towards

-the cottage. "Come in," she said, huskily; "people

-might pass along and know what we are talking

-about, and, somehow, I don't want to give

-them that satisfaction."

-

-"That's a fact," said Mrs. Waycroft; "they say

-I fetch you every bit of gossip, anyway. A few

-have quit speaking to me. Bazemore would himself,

-if he didn't look to me once a month for my

-contribution. I hope what I've told you won't

-upset you, Ann, but you always say you want to

-know what's going on. It struck me that the

-whole congregation was about the most heartless

-body of human beings I ever saw packed together

-in one bunch."

-

-"I want you to tell me one other thing," said

-Mrs. Boyd, tensely, as they were entering the front

-doorway of the cottage—"was Jane Hemingway

-there?"

-

-"Oh yes, by a large majority. I forgot to tell

-you about her. I had my eyes on her, too, for I

-knowed it would tickle her nigh to death, and it

-did. When you left she actually giggled out loud

-and turned back an' whispered to the Mayfield

-girls. Her old, yellow face fairly shone, she was

-that glad, and when Bazemore went on talking

-about you and burning that bench, she fairly

-doubled up, with her handkerchief clapped over

-her mouth."

-

-Mrs. Boyd drew a stiff-backed chair from beneath

-the dining-table and pushed it towards her guest.

-"There is not in hell itself, Mary Waycroft, a

-hatred stronger than I feel right now for that

-woman. She is a fiend in human shape. That

-miserable creature has hounded me every minute

-since we were girls together. As God is my judge,

-I believe I could kill her and not suffer remorse.

-There was a time when my disposition was as sweet

-and gentle as any girl's, but she changed it. She

-has made me what I am. She is responsible for it

-all. I might have gone on—after my—my misfortune,

-and lived in some sort of harmony with my

-kind if it hadn't been for her."

-

-"I know that," said the other woman, as she sat

-down and folded her cloth bonnet in her thin hands.

-"I really believe you'd have been a different woman,

-as you say, after—after your trouble if she had

-let you alone."

-

-Mrs. Boyd seated herself in another chair near

-the open door, and looked out at a flock of chickens

-and ducks which had gathered at the step and were

-noisily clamoring for food.

-

-"I saw two things that made my blood boil as

-I was leaving the church," said she. "I saw Abe

-Longley, who has been using my pasture for his

-cattle free of charge for the last ten years. I caught

-sight of his face, and it made me mad to think he'd

-sit there and never say a word in defence of the

-woman he'd been using all that time; and then I

-saw George Wilson, just as indifferent, near the door,

-when I've been favoring him and his shabby store

-with all my trade when I could have done better

-by going on to Darley. I reckon neither of those

-two men said the slightest thing when Bazemore

-advised the—the burning of the bench I'd sat

-on."

-

-"Oh no, of course not!" said Mrs. Waycroft,

-"nobody said a word. They wouldn't have dared,

-Ann."

-

-"Well, they will both hear from me," said Mrs.

-Boyd, "and in a way that they won't forget soon.

-I tell you, Mary Waycroft, this thing has reached

-a climax. That burning bench is going to be my

-war-torch. They say I've been at strife with my

-neighbors all along; well, they'll see now. I struggled

-and struggled with pride to get up to the point

-of going to church again, and that's the reception I

-got."

-

-"It's a pity to entertain hard feelings, but I

-don't blame you a single bit," said Mrs. Waycroft,

-sympathetically. "As I look at it, you have done

-all you can to live in harmony, and they simply

-won't have it. They might be different if it wasn't

-for that meddlesome old Jane Hemingway. She

-keeps them stirred up. She and her daughter is

-half starving to death, while you—" Mrs. Waycroft

-glanced round the room at the warm rag

-carpet of many colors, at the neat fire-screen made

-of newspaper pictures pasted on a crude frame of

-wood, and, higher, to the mantel-piece, whose sole

-ornament was a Seth Thomas clock, with the Tower

-of London in glaring colors on the glass door—"while

-you don't ask anybody any odds. Instead

-of starving, gold dollars seem to roll up to your

-door of their own accord and fall in a heap. They

-tell me even that cotton factory which you invested

-in, and which Mrs. Hemingway said had busted and

-gone up the spout, is really doing well."

-

-"The stock has doubled in value," said Mrs.

-Boyd, simply. "I don't know how to account for

-my making money. I reckon it's simply good

-judgment and a habit of throwing nothing away.

-The factory got to a pretty low ebb, and the people

-lost faith in it, and were offering their stock at half-price.

-My judgment told me it would pull through

-as soon as times improved, and I bought an interest

-in it at a low figure. I was right; it proved to be

-a fine investment."

-

-"I was sorter sorry for Virginia Hemingway,

-Sunday," said Mrs. Waycroft. "When her mother

-was making such an exhibition of herself in gloating

-over the way you was treated, the poor girl

-looked like she was ashamed, and pulled Jane's

-apron like she was trying to keep her quiet. I

-reckon you hain't got nothing against the girl,

-Ann?"

-

-"Nothing except that she is that devilish woman's

-offspring," said Mrs. Boyd. "It's hard to dislike

-her; she's pretty—by all odds the prettiest and

-sweetest-looking young woman in this county.

-Her mother in her prime never saw the day she

-was anything like her. They say Virginia isn't

-much of a hand to gossip and abuse folks. I

-reckon her mother's ways have disgusted her."

-

-"I reckon that's it," said the other woman, as

-she rose to go. "I know I love to look at her;

-she does my old eyes good. At meeting I sometimes

-gaze steady at her for several minutes on a

-stretch. Sitting beside that hard, crabbed old

-thing, the girl certainly does look out of place.

-She deserves a better fate than to be tied to such

-a woman. I reckon she'll be picked up pretty soon

-by some of these young men—that is, if Jane will

-give her any sort of showing. Jane is so suspicious

-of folks that she hardly lets Virginia out of her

-sight. Well, I must be going. Since my husband's

-death I've had my hands full on the farm; he did

-a lots to help out, even about the kitchen. Good-bye.

-I can see what I've said has made a change

-in you, Ann. I never saw you look quite so different."

-

-"Yes, the whole thing has kind o' jerked me

-round," replied Mrs. Boyd. "I've taken entirely

-too much off of these people—let them run over me

-dry-shod; but I'll show them a thing or two. They

-won't let me live in peace, and now they can try

-the other thing." And Ann Boyd stood in the

-doorway and watched the visitor trudge slowly

-away.

-

-"Yes," she mused, as she looked out into the

-falling dusk, "they are trying to drive me to the

-wall with their sneers and lashing tongues. But

-I'll show them that a worm can turn."

-

-

-

-

-II

-==

-

-

-The next morning, after a frugal breakfast

-of milk and cornmeal pancake,

-prepared over an open fireplace on

-live coals, which reddened her cheeks

-and bare arms, Mrs. Boyd pinned up

-her skirts till their edges hung on a level with the

-tops of her coarse, calf-skin shoes. She then climbed

-over the brier-grown rail-fence with the agility of

-a hunter and waded through the high, dew-soaked

-weeds and grass in the direction of the rising sun.

-The meadow was like a rolling green sea settling

-down to calmness after a storm. Here and there

-a tuft of dewy broom-sedge held up to her vision

-a sheaf of green hung with sparkling diamonds,

-emeralds, and rubies, and far ahead ran a crystal

-creek in and out among gracefully drooping willows

-and erect young reeds.

-

-"That's his brindle heifer now," the trudging

-woman said, harshly. "And over beyond the hay-stack

-and cotton-shed is his muley cow and calf.

-Huh, I reckon I'll make them strike a lively trot!

-It will be some time before they get grass as rich

-as mine inside of them to furnish milk and butter

-for Abe Longley and his sanctimonious lay-out."

-

-Slowly walking around the animals, she finally

-got them together and drove them from her pasture

-to the small road which ran along the foot of the

-mountain towards their owner's farm-house, the

-gray roof of which rose above the leafy trees in the

-distance. To drive the animals out, she had found

-it necessary to lower a panel of her fence, and she

-was replacing the rails laboriously, one by one,

-when she heard a voice from the woodland on the

-mountain-side, a tract of unproductive land owned

-by the man whose cows she was ejecting. It was

-Abe Longley himself, and in some surprise he hurried

-down the rugged steep, a woodman's axe on

-his shoulder. He was a gaunt, slender man, gray

-and grizzled, past sixty years of age, with a tuft of

-stiff beard on his chin, which gave his otherwise

-smooth-shaven face a forbidding expression.

-

-"Hold on thar, Sister Boyd!" he called out, cheerily,

-though he seemed evidently to be trying to

-keep from betraying the impatience he evidently

-felt. "You must be getting nigh-sighted in yore

-old age. As shore as you are a foot high them's

-my cattle, an' not yourn. Why, I knowed my

-brindle from clean up at my wood-pile, a full quarter

-from here. I seed yore mistake an' hollered

-then, but I reckon you are gettin' deef as well as

-blind. I driv' 'em in not twenty minutes ago, as I

-come on to do my cuttin'."

-

-"I know you did, Abe Longley," and Mrs.

-Boyd stooped to grasp and raise the last rail and

-carefully put it in place; "I know they are yours.

-My eyesight's good enough. I know good and well

-they are yours, and that is the very reason I made

-them hump themselves to get off of my property."

-

-"But—but," and the farmer, thoroughly puzzled, lowered

-his glittering axe and stared wonderingly—"but

-you know, Sister Boyd, that you told

-me with your own mouth that, being as I'd traded

-off my own pasture-land to Dixon for my strip o'

-wheat in the bottom, that I was at liberty to use

-yourn how and when I liked, and, now—why, I'll

-be dad-blamed if I understand you one bit."

-

-"Well, I understand what I'm about, Abe Longley,

-if you don't!" retorted the owner of the land.

-"I *did* say you could pasture on it, but I didn't say

-you could for all time and eternity; and I now give

-you due notice if I ever see any four-footed animal

-of yours inside of my fences I'll run them out with

-an ounce of buckshot in their hides."

-

-"Well, well, well!" Longley cried, at the end of his

-resources, as he leaned on his smooth axe-handle

-with one hand and clutched his beard with the

-other. "I don't know what to make of yore conduct.

-I can't do without the use of your land.

-There hain't a bit that I could rent or buy for love

-or money on either side of me for miles around.

-When folks find a man's in need of land, they stick

-the price up clean out of sight. I was tellin' Sue

-the other day that we was in luck havin' sech a

-neighbor—one that would do so much to help a

-body in a plight."

-

-"Yes, I'm very good and kind," sneered Mrs.

-Boyd, her sharp eyes ablaze with indignation, "and

-last Sunday in meeting you and a lot of other able-bodied

-men sat still and let that foul-mouthed

-Bazemore say that even the wooden bench I sat

-on ought to be taken out and burned for the public

-good. You sat there and listened to *that*, and when

-he was through you got up and sung the doxology

-and bowed your head while that makeshift of a

-preacher called down God's benediction on you. If

-you think I'm going to keep a pasture for such a

-man as you to fatten your stock on, you need a

-guardian to look after you."

-

-"Oh, I see," Longley exclaimed, a crestfallen look

-on him. "You are goin' to blame us all for what

-he said, and you are mad at everybody that heard

-it. But you are dead wrong, Ann Boyd—dead

-wrong. You can't make over public opinion, and

-you'd 'a' been better off years ago if you hadn't

-been so busy trying to do it, whether or no. Folks

-would let you alone if you'd 'a' showed a more repentant

-sperit, and not held your head so high and

-been so spiteful. I reckon the most o' your trouble—that

-is, the reason it's lasted so long, is due to the

-women-folks more than the men of the community,

-anyhow. You see, it sorter rubs women's wool the

-wrong way to see about the only prosperity a body

-can see in the entire county falling at the feet of the

-one—well, the one least expected to have sech

-things—the one, I mought say, who hadn't lived

-exactly up to the *best* precepts."

-

-"I don't go to men like you for my precepts,"

-the woman hurled at him, "and I haven't got any

-time for palavering. All I want to do is to give

-you due notice not to trespass on my land, and I've

-done that plain enough, I reckon."

-

-Abe Longley's thin face showed anger that was even

-stronger than his avarice; he stepped nearer to her,

-his eyes flashing, his wide upper-lip twitching nervously.

-"Do you know," he said, "that's its purty

-foolhardy of you to take up a fight like that agin a

-whole community. You know you hain't agoin'

-to make a softer bed to lie on. You know, if you

-find fault with me fer not denouncin' Bazemore,

-you may as well find fault with every living soul

-that was under reach o' his voice, fer nobody budged

-or said a word in yore defence."

-

-"I'm taking up a fight with no one," the woman

-said, firmly. "They can listen to what they want

-to listen to. The only thing I'm going to do in

-future is to see that no person uses me for profit

-and then willingly sees me spat upon. That's all

-I've got to say to you." And, turning, she walked

-away, leaving him standing as if rooted among his

-trees on the brown mountain-side.

-

-"He'll go home and tell his wife, and she'll gad

-about an' fire the whole community against me,"

-Mrs. Boyd mused; "but I don't care. I'll have my

-rights if I die for it."

-

-An hour later, in another dress and a freshly

-washed and ironed gingham bonnet, she fed her

-chickens from a pan of wet cornmeal dough, locked

-up her house carefully, fastening down the window-sashes

-on the inside by placing sticks above the

-movable ones, and trudged down the road to George

-Wilson's country-store at the crossing of the roads

-which led respectively to Springtown, hard-by on

-one side, and Darley, farther away on the other.

-

-The store was a long, frame building which had

-once been whitewashed, but was now only a fuzzy,

-weather-beaten gray. As was usual in such structures,

-the front walls of planks rose higher than the

-pointed roof, and held large and elaborate lettering

-which might be read quite a distance away. Thereon

-the young store-keeper made the questionable

-statement that a better price for produce was given

-at his establishment than at Darley, where high rent,

-taxes, and clerk-hire had to be paid, and, moreover,

-that his goods were sold cheaper because, unlike the

-town dealers, he lived on the products from his

-own farm and employed no help. In front of the

-store, convenient alike to both roads, stood a rustic

-hitching-rack made of unbarked oaken poles into

-which railway spikes had been driven, and on which

-horseshoes had been nailed to hold the reins of any

-customer's mount. On the ample porch of the

-store stood a new machine for the hulling of pease,

-several ploughs, and a red-painted device for the

-dropping and covering of seed-corn. On the walls

-within hung various pieces of tin-ware and harnesses

-and saddles, and the two rows of shelving held a

-good assortment of general merchandise.

-

-As Mrs. Boyd entered the store, Wilson, a blond

-young man with an ample mustache, stood behind

-the counter talking to an Atlanta drummer who

-had driven out from Darley to sell the store-keeper

-some dry-goods and notions, and he did not come

-to her at once, but delayed to see the drummer

-make an entry in his order-book; then he advanced

-to her.

-

-"Excuse me, Mrs. Boyd," he smiled. "I am ordering

-some new prints for you ladies, and I wanted

-to see that he got the number of bolts down right.

-This is early for you to be out, isn't it? It's been

-many a day since I've seen you pass this way before

-dinner. I took a sort of liberty with you yesterday,

-knowing how good-natured you are. Dave

-Prixon was going your way with his empty wagon,

-and, as I was about to run low on your favorite

-brand of flour, I sent you a barrel and put it on

-your account at the old price. I thought you'd

-keep it. You may have some yet on hand, but this

-will come handy when you get out."

-

-"But I don't intend to keep it," replied the

-woman, under her bonnet, and her voice sounded

-harsh and crisp. "I haven't touched it. It's out

-in the yard where Prixon dumped it. If it was to

-rain on it I reckon it would mildew. It wouldn't

-be my loss. I didn't order it put there."

-

-"Why, Mrs. Boyd!" and Wilson's tone and surprised

-glance at the drummer caused that dapper

-young man to prick up his ears and move nearer;

-"why, it's the best brand I handle, and you said

-the last gave you particular satisfaction, so I naturally—"

-

-"Well, I don't want it; I didn't order it, and I

-don't intend to have you nor no one else unloading

-stuff in my front yard whenever you take a notion

-and want to make money by the transaction. Deduct

-that from my bill, and tell me what I owe you.

-I want to settle in full."

-

-"But—but—" Wilson had never seemed to the

-commercial traveller to be so much disturbed; he

-was actually pale, and his long hands, which rested

-on the smooth surface of the counter, were trembling—"but

-I don't understand," he floundered.

-"It's only the middle of the month, Mrs. Boyd, and

-I never run up accounts till the end. You are not

-going *off*, are you?"

-

-"Oh no," and the woman pushed back her bonnet

-and eyed him almost fiercely, "you needn't any

-of you think that. I'm going to stay right on here;

-but I'll tell you what I am going to do, George

-Wilson—I'm going to buy my supplies in the future

-at Darley. You see, since this talk of burning the

-very bench I sit on in the house of God, which you

-and your ilk set and listen to, why—"

-

-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd," he broke in, "now don't go

-and blame me for what Brother Bazemore said

-when he was—"

-

-"*Brother* Bazemore!" The woman flared up and

-brought her clinched hand down on the counter.

-"I'll never as long as I live let a dollar of my money

-pass into the hands of a man who calls that man

-brother. You sat still and raised no protest against

-what he said, and that ends business between us

-for all time. There is no use talking about it.

-Make out my account, and don't keep me standing

-here to be stared at like I was a curiosity in a side-show."

-

-"All right, Mrs. Boyd; I'm sorry," faltered Wilson,

-with a glance at the drummer, who, feeling that

-he had been alluded to, moved discreetly across

-the room and leaned against the opposite counter.

-"I'll go back to the desk and make it out."

-

-She stood motionless where he had left her till

-he came back with her account in his hand, then

-from a leather bag she counted out the money and

-paid it to him. The further faint, half-fearful

-apologies which Wilson ventured on making seemed

-to fall on closed ears, and, with the receipted bill in

-her bag, she strode from the house. He followed

-her to the door and stood looking after her as she

-angrily trudged back towards her farm.

-

-"Well, well," he sighed, as the drummer came

-to his elbow and stared at him wonderingly, "there

-goes the best and most profitable customer I've

-had since I began selling goods. It's made me sick

-at heart, Masters. I don't see how I can do without

-her, and yet I don't blame her one bit—not a

-bit, so help me God."

-

-

-

-

-III

-===

-

-

-Wilson turned, and with a frown went

-moodily back to his desk and sat down

-on the high stool, gloomily eying the

-page in a ledger which he had just

-consulted.

-

-"By George, that woman's a corker," said the

-drummer, sociably, as he came back and stood near

-the long wood-stove. "Of course, I don't know

-what it's all about, but she's her own boss, I'll stake

-good money on that."

-

-"She's about the sharpest and in many ways

-the strongest woman in the state," said the store-keeper,

-with a sigh. "Good Lord, Masters, she's

-been my main-stay ever since I opened this shack,

-and now to think because that loud-mouthed Bazemore,

-who expects me to pay a good part of his

-salary, takes a notion to rip her up the back in

-meeting, why—"

-

-"Oh, I see!" cried the drummer—"I understand

-it now. I heard about that at Darley. So *she's*

-the woman! Well, I'm glad *I* got a good look at

-her. I see a lot of queer things in going about over

-the country, but I don't think I ever ran across just

-her sort."

-

-"She's had a devil of a life, Masters, from the

-time she was a blooming, pretty young girl till now

-that she is at war with everybody within miles of

-her. She's always been a study to me. She's treated

-me more like a son than anything else—doing everything

-in her power to help me along, buying, by

-George, things sometimes that I knew she didn't

-need because it would help me out, and now, because

-I didn't get up in meeting last Sunday and call that

-man down she holds me accountable. I don't know

-but what she's right. Why should I take her hard-earned

-money and sit still and allow her to be

-abused? She's simply got pride, and lots of it, and

-it's bad hurt."

-

-"But what was it all about?" the drummer inquired.

-

-"The start of it was away back when she was a

-girl, as I said," began the store-keeper. "You've

-heard of Colonel Preston Chester, our biggest planter,

-who lives a mile from here—old-time chap, fighter

-of duels, officer in the army, and all that?"

-

-"Oh yes, I've seen him; in fact, I was at college

-at the State University with his son Langdon. He

-was a terrible fellow—very wild and reckless, full

-half the time, and playing poker every night. He

-was never known to pay a debt, even to his best

-friends."

-

-"Langdon is a chip off of the old block," said

-Wilson. "His father was just like him when he

-was a young man. Between you and me, the

-Colonel never had a conscience; old as he now is, he

-will sit and laugh about his pranks right in the

-presence of his son. It's no wonder the boy turned

-out like he did. Well, away back when this Mrs.

-Boyd was a young and pretty girl, the daughter of

-honest, hard-working people, who owned a little

-farm back of his place, he took an idle fancy to her.

-I'm telling you now what has gradually leaked out

-in one way and another since. He evidently won

-her entire confidence, made her believe he was going

-to marry her, and, as he was a dashing young fellow,

-she must have fallen in love with him. Nobody

-knows how that was, but one thing is sure, and that

-is that he was seen about with her almost constantly

-for a whole year, and then he stopped off suddenly.

-The report went out that he'd made up his mind to

-get married to a young woman in Alabama who had

-a lot of money, and he did go off and bring home

-the present Mrs. Chester, Langdon's mother. Well,

-old-timers say young Ann Boyd took it hard, stayed

-close in at home and wasn't seen out for a couple of

-years. Then she come out again, and they say she

-was better-looking than ever and a great deal more

-serious and sensible. Joe Boyd was a young farmer

-those days, and a sort of dandy, and he fell dead in

-love with her and hung about her day and night,

-never seeming willing to let her out of his sight.

-Several other fellows, they say, was after her, but

-she seemed to like Joe the best, but nothing he'd

-do or say would make her accept him. I can see

-through it now, looking back on what has since

-leaked out, but nobody understood it then, for she

-had evidently got over her attachment for Colonel

-Chester, and Joe was a promising fellow, strong,

-good-looking, and a great beau and flirt among

-women, half a dozen being in love with him, but

-Ann simply wouldn't take him, and it was the talk

-of the whole county. He was simply desperate

-folks say, going about boring everybody he met

-with his love affair. Finally her mother and father

-and all her friends got after her to marry Joe, and

-she gave in. And then folks wondered more than

-ever why she'd delayed, for she was more in love

-with her husband than anybody had any reason to

-expect. They were happy, too. A child was born,

-a little girl, and that seemed to make them happier.

-Then Mrs. Boyd's mother and father died, and she

-came into the farm, and the Boyds were comfortable

-in every way. Then what do you think happened?"

-

-"I've been wondering all along," the drummer

-laughed. "I can see you're holding something up

-your sleeve."

-

-"Well, this happened. Colonel Chester's wife

-was, even then, a homely woman, about as old as

-he was, and not at all attractive aside from her

-money, and marrying hadn't made him any the

-less devilish. They say he saw Mrs. Boyd at meeting

-one day and hardly took his eyes off of her

-during preaching. She had developed into about

-the most stunning-looking woman anywhere about,

-and knew how to dress, which was something Mrs.

-Chester, with all her chances, had never seemed to

-get onto. Well, that was the start of it, and from

-that day on Chester seemed to have nothing on

-his mind but the good looks of his old sweetheart.

-Folks saw him on his horse riding about where he

-could get to meet her, and then it got reported that

-he was actually forcing himself on her to such an

-extent that Joe Boyd was worked up over it, aided

-by the eternal gab of all the women in the section."

-

-"Did Colonel Chester's wife get onto it?" the

-drummer wanted to know.

-

-"It don't seem like she did," answered Wilson.

-"She was away visiting her folks in the South most

-of the time, with Langdon, who was a baby then,

-and it may be that she didn't care. Some folks

-thought she was weak-minded; she never seemed

-to have any will of her own, but left the Colonel to

-manage her affairs without a word."

-

-"Well, go on with your story," urged the drummer.

-

-"There isn't much more to tell about the poor

-woman," continued Wilson. "As I said, Chester

-got to forcing himself on her, and I reckon she didn't

-want to tell her husband what she was trying to

-forget for fear of a shooting scrape, in which Joe

-would get the worst of it; but this happened: Joe

-was off at court in Darley and sent word home to

-his wife that he was to be held all night on a jury.

-The man that took the message rode home alongside

-of Chester and told him about it. Well, I

-reckon, all hell broke out in Chester that night.

-He was a drinking man, and he tanked up, and, as

-his wife was away, he had plenty of liberty. Well,

-he simply went over to Joe Boyd's house and went

-in. It was about ten o'clock. My honest conviction

-is, no matter what others think, that she

-tried her level best to make him leave without

-rousing the neighborhood, but he wouldn't go, but

-sat there in the dark with his coat off, telling her he

-loved her more than her husband did, and that he

-never had loved his wife, and that he was crazy

-for her, and the like. How long this went on, with

-her imploring and praying to him to go, I don't

-know; but, at any rate, they both heard the gate-latch

-click and Joe Boyd come right up the gravel-walk.

-I reckon the poor woman was scared clean

-out of her senses, for she made no outcry, and

-Chester went to a window, his coat on his arm, and

-was climbing out when Joe, who couldn't get in at

-the front door and was making for the one in the

-rear, met him face to face."

-

-"Great goodness!" ejaculated the commercial

-traveller.

-

-"Well, you bet, the devil was to pay," went on

-the store-keeper, grimly. "Chester was mad and

-reckless, and, being hot with liquor, and regarding

-Boyd as far beneath him socially, instead of making

-satisfactory explanations, they say he simply swore

-at Boyd and stalked away. Dumfounded, Boyd went

-inside to his miserable wife and demanded an explanation.

-She has since learned how to use her

-wits with the best in the land, but she was young

-then, and so, by her silence, she made matters worse

-for herself. He forced her to explain, and, seeing

-no other way out of the affair, she decided to throw

-herself on his mercy and make a clean breast of

-things her and her family had kept back all that

-time. Well, sir, she confessed to what had happened

-away back before Chester had deserted her,

-no doubt telling a straight story of her absolute

-purity and faithfulness to Boyd after marriage.

-Poor old Joe! He wasn't a fighting man, and, instead

-of following Chester and demanding satisfaction,

-he stayed at home that night, no doubt

-suffering the agony of the damned and trying to

-make up his mind to believe in his wife and to stand

-by her. As it looks now, he evidently decided to

-make the best of it, and might have succeeded, but

-somehow it got out about Chester being caught

-there, and that started gossip so hot that her life

-and his became almost unbearable. It might have

-died a natural death in time, but Mrs. Boyd had

-an enemy, Mrs. Jane Hemingway, who had been

-one of the girls who was in love with Joe Boyd. It

-seems that she never had got over Joe's marrying

-another woman, and when she heard this scandal

-she nagged and teased Joe about his babyishness in

-being willing to believe his wife, and told him so

-many lies that Boyd finally quit staying at home,

-sulking about in the mountains, and making trips

-away till he finally applied for a divorce. Ignorant

-and inexperienced as she was, and proud, Mrs.

-Boyd made no defence, and the whole thing went

-his way with very little publicity. But the hardest

-part for her to bear was when, having the court's

-decree to take charge of his child, Boyd came and

-took it away."

-

-"Good gracious! that was tough, wasn't it?" exclaimed

-the drummer.

-

-"That's what it was, and they say it fairly upset

-her mind. They expected her to fight like a tiger

-for her young, but at the time they came for it she

-only seemed stupefied. The little girl was only

-three years old, but they say Ann came in the room

-and said she was going to ask the child if it was

-willing to leave her, and they say she calmly put

-the question, and the baby, not knowing what she

-meant, said, 'Yes.' Then they say Ann talked to it

-as if it were a grown person, and told her to go, that

-she'd never give her a thought in the future, and

-never wanted to lay eyes on her again."

-

-"That was pitiful, wasn't it?" said Masters. "By

-George, we don't dream of what is going on in the

-hearts of men and women we meet face to face every

-day. And that's what started her in the life she's

-since led."

-

-"Yes, she lived in her house like a hermit, never

-going out unless she absolutely had to. She had

-an old-fashioned loom in a shed-room adjoining

-her house, and night and day people passing along

-the road could hear her thumping away on it. She

-kept a lot of fine sheep, feeding and shearing them

-herself, and out of the wool she wove a certain kind

-of jean cloth which she sold at a fancy figure. I've

-seen wagon-loads of it pass along the road billed to

-a big house in Atlanta. This went on for several

-years, and then it was noticed that she was accumulating

-money. She was buying all the land she

-could around her house, as if to force folks as far

-from her as possible, and she turned the soil to a

-good purpose, for she knew how to work it. She

-hired negroes for cash, when others were paying in

-old clothes and scraps, and, as she went to the field

-with them and worked in the sun and rain like a

-man, she got more out of her planting than the

-average farmer."

-

-"So she's really well off?" said the drummer.

-

-"Got more than almost anybody else in the

-county," said Wilson. "She's got stocks in all

-sorts of things, and owns houses on the main street

-in Darley, which she keeps well rented. It seems

-like, not having anything else to amuse her, she

-turned her big brain to economy and money-making,

-and I've always thought she did it to hit back at

-the community. You see, the more she makes, the

-more her less fortunate neighbors dislike her, and

-she loves to get even as far as possible."

-

-"And has she had no associates at all?" Masters

-wanted to know.

-

-"Well, yes, there is one woman, a Mrs. Waycroft,

-who has always been intimate with her. She is the

-only—I started to say she was the only one, but

-there was a poor mountain fellow, Luke King, a

-barefoot boy who had a fine character, a big brain

-on him, and no education. His parents were poor,

-and did little for him. They say Mrs. Boyd sort of

-took pity on him and used to buy books and papers

-for him, and that she really taught him to read and

-write. She sent him off to school, and got him on

-his feet till he was able to find work in a newspaper

-office over at Canton, where he became a boss typesetter.

-I've always thought that her misfortune

-had never quite killed her natural impulses, for she

-certainly got fond of that fellow. I had an exhibition

-of both his regard and hers right here at the

-store. He'd come in to buy something or other,

-and was waiting about the stove one cold winter

-day, when a big mountain chap made a light remark

-about Mrs. Boyd. He was a head taller than

-Luke King was, but the boy sprang at him like a

-panther and knocked the fellow down. They had

-the bloodiest fight I ever saw, and it was several

-minutes before they could be separated. Luke had

-damaged the chap pretty badly, but he was able

-to stand, while the boy keeled over in a dead faint

-on the floor, bruised inside some way. The big fellow,

-fearing arrest, mounted his horse and went

-away, and several of us were doing what we could

-with cold water and whiskey to bring the boy around

-when who should come in but Ann herself. She

-was passing the store, and some one told her about

-it. People who think she has no heart and is as

-cold as stone ought to have seen her that day. In

-all my life I never saw such a terrible face on a

-human being. I was actually afraid of her. She

-was all fury and all tenderness combined. She looked

-down at him in all his blood and bruises and

-white face, and got down on her knees by him. I

-saw a great big sob rise up in her, although her back

-was to me, and shake her from head to foot, and

-then she was still, simply stroking back his damp,

-tangled hair. 'My poor boy,' I heard her say, 'you

-can't fight my battles. God Himself has failed to

-do that, but I won't forget this—never—never!'"

-

-"Lord, that was strong!" said Masters. "She

-must be wonderful!"

-

-"She is more wonderful than her narrow-minded

-enemies dream of," returned the store-keeper.

-"You see, it's her pride that keeps her from showing

-her fine feelings, and it's her secluded life that makes

-them misunderstand her. Well, she brought her

-wagon and took the boy away. That was another

-queer thing," Wilson added. "She evidently had

-started to take him to her house, for she drove as

-far as the gate and then stopped there to study a

-moment, and finally turned round and drove him

-to the poor cabin his folks lived in. You see, she

-was afraid that even that would cause talk, and it

-would. Old Jane Hemingway would have fed on

-that morsel for months, as unreasonable as it would

-have been. Ann sent a doctor, though, and every

-delicacy the market afforded, and the boy was soon

-out. It wasn't long afterwards that Luke King

-went to college at Knoxville, and now he's away in

-the West somewhere. His mother, after his father's

-death, married a trifling fellow, Mark Bruce, and

-that brought on some dispute between her and her

-son, who had tried to keep her from marrying such

-a man. They say Luke told her if she did marry

-Bruce he'd go away and never even write home,

-and so far, they say, he has kept his word. Nobody

-knows where he is or what he's doing unless

-it is Mrs. Boyd, and she never talks. I can't keep

-from thinking he's done well, though, for he had a

-big head on him and a lot of determination."

-

-"And this Mrs. Hemingway, her enemy," said

-the drummer, tentatively, "you say she was evidently

-the woman's rival at one time. But it

-seems she married some one else."

-

-"Oh yes, she suddenly accepted Tom Hemingway,

-an old bachelor, who had been trying to marry

-her for a long time. Most people thought she did

-it to hide her feelings when Joe Boyd got married.

-She treated Tom like a dog, making him do everything

-she wanted, and he was daft about her till he

-died, just a couple of weeks after his child was born,

-who, by-the-way, has grown up to be the prettiest

-girl in all the country, and that's another feature

-in the story," the store-keeper smiled. "You see,

-Mrs. Boyd looks upon old Jane as the prime cause

-of her losing her *own* child, and I understand she

-hates the girl as much as she does her mother."

-

-A man had come into the store and stood leaning

-against a show-case on the side devoted to groceries.

-

-"There's a customer," said the drummer; "don't

-let me keep you, old man; you know you've got to

-look at my samples some time to-day."

-

-"Well, I'll go see what he wants," said Wilson,

-"and then I'll look through your line, though I don't

-feel a bit like it, after losing the best regular customer

-I have."

-

-The drummer had opened his sample-case on the

-desk when Wilson came back.

-

-"You say the woman's husband took the child

-away," remarked the drummer; "did he go far?"

-

-"They first settled away out in Texas," replied

-Wilson, "but Joe Boyd, not having his wife's wonderful

-head to guide him, failed at farming there,

-and only about three years ago he came back to

-this country and bought a little piece of land over

-in Gilmer—the county that joins this one."

-

-"Oh, so near as that! Then perhaps she has

-seen her daughter and—"

-

-"Oh no, they've never met," said Wilson, as he

-took a sample pair of men's suspenders from the

-case and tested the elastic by stretching it between

-his hands. "I know that for certain. She was in

-here one morning waiting for one of her teams to

-pass to take her to Darley, when a peddler opened

-his pack of tin-ware and tried to sell her some pieces

-I was out of. He heard me call her by name, and,

-to be agreeable, he asked her if she was any kin

-to Joe Boyd and his daughter, over in Gilmer. I

-could have choked the fool for his stupidity. I

-tried to catch his eye to warn him, but he was intent

-on selling her a bill, and took no notice of anything

-else. I saw her stare at him steady for a second

-or two, then she seemed to swallow something, and

-said, 'No, they are no kin of mine.' And then what

-did the skunk do but try to make capital out of

-that. 'Well, you may be glad,' he said, 'that they

-are no kin, for they are as near the ragged edge as

-any folks I ever ran across.' He went on to say he

-stayed overnight at Boyd's cabin and that they

-had hardly anything but streak-o'-lean-streak-o'-fat

-meat and corn-bread to offer him, and that

-the girl had the worst temper he'd ever seen. Mrs.

-Boyd, I reckon, to hide her face, was looking at

-some of the fellow's pans, and he seemed to think

-he was on the right line, and so he kept talking. Old

-Joe, he said, had struck him as a good-natured, lazy

-sort of come-easy-go-easy mountaineer, but the girl

-looked stuck up, like she thought she was some better

-than appearances would indicate. He said she was

-a tall, gawky sort of girl, with no good looks to brag

-of, and he couldn't for the life of him see what she

-had to make her so proud.

-

-"I wondered what Mrs. Boyd was going to do,

-but she was equal to that emergency, as she always

-has been in everything. She held one of his pans

-up in the light and tilted her bonnet back on her

-head, I thought, to let me see she wasn't hiding anything,

-and said, as unconcerned as if he'd never

-mentioned a delicate subject. 'Look here,' she said,

-thumping the bottom of the pan with her finger,

-'if you expect to do any business with *me* you'll

-have to bring copper-bottom ware to me. I don't

-buy shoddy stuff from any one. These pans will

-rust through in two months. I'll take half a dozen,

-but I'm only doing it to pay you for the time spent

-on me. It is a bad investment for any one to buy

-cheap, stamped ware.'"

-

-

-

-

-IV

-==

-

-

-Mrs. Jane Hemingway, Ann

-Boyd's long and persistent enemy, sat

-in the passage which connected the

-two parts of her house, a big, earthernware

-churn between her sharp knees,

-firmly raising and lowering the bespattered dasher

-with her bony hands. She was a woman past fifty;

-her neck was long and slender, and the cords under

-the parchment-like skin had a way of tightening,

-like ropes in the seams of a tent, when she swallowed

-or spoke. Her dark, smoothly brushed hair was

-done up in the tightest of balls behind her head,

-and her brown eyes were easily kindled to suspicion,

-fear, or anger.

-

-Her brother-in-law, Sam Hemingway, called

-"Hem" by his intimates, slouched in from the

-broad glare of the mid-day sun and threw his coat

-on a chair. Then he went to the shelf behind the

-widow, and, pouring some water into a tin pan from

-a pail, he noisily bathed his perspiring face and big,

-red hands. As he was drying himself on the towel

-which hung on a wooden roller on the weather-boarding

-of the wall, Virginia Hemingway, his niece,

-came in from the field bringing a pail of freshly

-gathered dewberries. In appearance she was all

-that George Wilson had claimed for her. Slightly

-past eighteen, she had a wonderful complexion, a

-fine, graceful figure, big, dreamy, hazel eyes, and

-golden-brown hair, and, which was rare in one of her

-station, she was tastily dressed. She smiled as she

-showed her uncle the berries and playfully "tickled"

-him under the chin.

-

-"See there!" she chuckled.

-

-"Pies?" he said, with an unctuous grin, as he

-peered down into her pail.

-

-"I thought of you while I was gathering them,"

-she nodded. "I'm going to try to make them just

-as you like them, with red, candied bars criss-crossing."

-

-"Nothing in the pie-line can hold a candle to the

-dewberry unless it's the cherry," he chuckled. "The

-stones of the cherries sorter hold a fellow back, but

-I manage to make out. I et a pie once over at

-Darley without a stone in it, and you bet your life

-it was a daisy."

-

-He went into his room for his tobacco, and Virginia

-sat down to stem her berries. He returned

-in a moment, leaning in the doorway, drawing lazily

-at his pipe. The widow glanced up at him, and

-rested her dasher on the bottom of the churn.

-

-"I reckon folks are still talking about Ann Boyd

-and her flouncing out of meeting like she did," the

-widow remarked. "Well, that *was* funny, but

-what was the old thing to do? It would take a

-more brazen-faced woman than she is, if such a

-thing exists, to sit still and hear all he said."

-

-"Yes, they are still hammering at the poor creature's

-back," said Sam, "and that's one thing I

-can't understand, nuther. She's got dead loads of

-money—in fact, she's independent of the whole

-capoodle of you women. Now, why don't she kick

-the dust o' this spot off of her heels an' go away

-whar she can be respected, an', by gosh! be let alone

-*one* minute 'fore she dies. They say she's the

-smartest woman in the state, but that don't show

-it—living on here whar you women kin throw a

-rock at her every time she raises her head above

-low ground."

-

-"I've wondered why she don't go off, too," the

-widow said, as she peered down at the floating

-lumps of yellow butter in the snowy depths of her

-vessel, and deftly twirled her dasher in her fingers

-to make them "gather"; "but, Sam, haven't you

-heard that persons always want to be on the spot

-where they went wrong? I think she's that way.

-And when the facts leaked out on her, and her husband

-repudiated her and took the child away, she

-determined to stay here and live it down. But

-instead of calling humility and submission to her

-aid, she turned in to stinting and starving to make

-money, and now she flaunts her prosperity in our

-faces, as if *that* is going to make folks believe any

-more in her. Money's too easily made in evil ways

-for Christian people to bow before it, and possessions

-ain't going to keep such men as Brother

-Bazemore from calling her down whenever she puts

-on her gaudy finery and struts out to meeting. It

-was a bold thing for her to do, anyway, after berating

-him as she did when he went to her to get

-the use of her grove for the picnic."

-

-"They say she didn't know Bazemore was to

-preach that day," said Sam. "She'd heard that

-the presiding elder was due here, and I'm of the

-opinion that she took that opportunity to show you

-all she wasn't afraid to appear in public."

-

-Virginia Hemingway threw a handful of berry-stems

-out into the sunshine in the yard. "She's a

-queer woman," she said, innocently, "like a character

-in a novel, and, somehow, I don't believe she

-is as bad as people make her out. I never told

-either of you, but I met her yesterday down on the

-road."

-

-"*You* met her!" cried Mrs. Hemingway, aghast.

-

-"Yes, she was going home from her sugar-mill

-with her apron full of fresh eggs that she'd found

-down at her hay-stacks, and just as she got close to

-me her dress got caught on a snag and she couldn't

-get it loose. I stopped and unfastened it, and she

-actually thanked me, though, since I was born, I've

-never seen such a queer expression on a human face.

-She was white and red and dark as a thunder-cloud

-all at once. It looked like she hated me, but was

-trying to be polite for what I'd done."

-

-"You had no business touching her dirty skirt,"

-the widow flared up. "The next thing you know

-it will go out that you and her are thick. It would

-literally ruin a young girl to be associated with a

-woman of that stamp. What on earth could have

-possessed you to—"

-

-"Oh, come off!" Sam laughed. "Why, you

-know you've always taught Virgie to be considerate

-of old folks, and she was just doing what she

-ought to have done for any old nigger mammy."

-

-"I looked at it that way," said the girl, "and I'm

-not sorry, for I don't want her to think I hate her,

-for I don't. I think she has had a hard life, and I

-wish it were in my power to help her out of her

-trouble."

-

-"Virginia, what are you talking about?" cried

-Mrs. Hemingway. "The idea of your standing up

-for that woman, when—"

-

-"Well, Luke King used to defend her," Virginia

-broke in, impulsively, "and before he went away

-you used to admit he was the finest young man in

-the county. I've seen him almost shed tears when

-he'd tell about what she'd done for him, and how

-tender-hearted and kind she was."

-

-"Tender-hearted nothing!" snapped Mrs. Hemingway,

-under a deep frown. "Luke King was the

-only person that went about her, and she tried

-to work on his sympathies for some purpose or

-other. Besides, nobody knows what ever become

-of him; he may have gone to the dogs by this time;

-it looks like somebody would have heard of him if

-he had come to any good in the five years he's been

-away."

-

-"Somehow, I think she knows where he is,"

-Virginia said, thoughtfully, as she rose to put her

-berries away.

-

-When she had gone, Sam laughed softly. "It's

-a wonder to me that Virgie don't know whar Luke

-is, *herself*," he said. "I 'lowed once that the fellow

-liked her powerful; but I reckon he thought she

-was too young, or didn't want to take the matter

-further when he was as poor as Job's turkey and

-had no sort of outlook ahead."

-

-"I sort o' thought that, too," the widow admitted,

-"but I didn't want Virginia to encourage

-him when he was accepting so much from that

-woman."

-

-Sam laughed again as he knocked the ashes from

-his pipe and cleaned the bowl with the tip of his

-finger. "Well, '*that woman*,' as you call her, is a

-power in the land that hates her," he said. "She

-knows how to hit back from her fortress in that old

-farm-house. George Wilson knows what it means

-not to stand by her in public, so does Abe Longley,

-that has to drive his cattle to grass two miles over

-the mountains. Jim Johnston, who was dead sure

-of renting her northeast field again next year, has

-been served with a notice to vacate, and now, if

-the latest news can be depended on, she's hit a

-broad lick at half the farmers in the valley, and,

-while I'm a sufferer with the balance, I don't blame

-her one bit. I'd 'a' done the same pine-blank

-thing years ago if I'd stood in her shoes."

-

-"What's she done *now*?" asked the woman at the

-churn, leaning forward eagerly.

-

-"Done? Why, she says she's tired o' footing

-almost the entire wheat-threshing bill for twenty

-measly little farmers. You know she's been standing

-her part of the expenses to get the Empire Company

-to send their steam thresher here, and her contribution

-amounted to more than half. She's decided,

-by hunky, to plant corn and cotton exclusively next

-year, and so notified the Empire Company. They

-can't afford to come unless she sows wheat, and

-they sent a man clean from Atlanta to argue the

-matter with her, but she says she's her own boss,

-an' us farmers who has land fittin' for nothing

-but wheat is going to get badly left in the lurch.

-Oh, Bazemore opened the battle agin her, and

-you-uns echoed the war-cry, an' the battle is good

-on. I'll go without flour biscuits and pie-crust,

-but the fight will be interesting. The Confed' soldiers

-made a purty good out along about '61, an'

-they done it barefooted an' on hard-tack an' water.

-If you folks are bent on devilling the hide off of the

-most influential woman in our midst, just because

-her foot got caught in the hem of her skirt an'

-tripped her up when she was a thoughtless young

-girl, I reckon us men will have to look on an' say

-nothing."

-

-"She *did* slip up, as you say," remarked the

-widow, "and she's been a raging devil ever since."

-

-"Ay! an' who made her one? Tell me that."

-Sam laughed. "You may not want to hear it,

-Jane, but some folks hint that you was at the bottom

-of it—some think lazy Joe Boyd would have

-stayed on in that comfortable boat, with a firm

-hand like hern at the rudder, if you hadn't ding-donged

-at him and told tales to him till he had to

-pull out."

-

-"Huh! They say that, do they?" The widow

-frowned as she turned and looked straight at him.

-"Well, let 'em. What do I care? I didn't want

-to see as good-hearted a man as he was hoodwinked."

-

-"I reckon not," Sam said, significantly, and he

-walked out of the passage down towards the barn.

-"Huh!" he mused, as he strode along crumbling

-leaf-tobacco of his own growing and filling his pipe.

-"I come as nigh as pease tellin' the old woman

-some'n' else folks say, an' that is that she was purty

-nigh daft about Joe Boyd, once upon a time, and

-that dashing Ann cut her out as clean as a whistle.

-I'll bet that 'ud make my sister-in-law so dern hot

-she'd blister from head to foot."

-

-

-

-

-V

-=

-

-

-That afternoon Jane Hemingway went

-out to the barn-yard. For years

-she had cultivated a habit of going

-thither, obviously to look after certain

-hens that nested there, but in reality,

-though she would not have admitted it even

-to herself, she went because from that coign of

-vantage she could look across her enemy's fertile

-acres right into the lone woman's doorway and

-sometimes catch a glimpse of Ann at work. There

-was one unpleasant contingency that she sometimes

-allowed her mind to dwell upon, and that was that

-Joe Boyd and his now grown daughter might, inasmuch

-as Ann's wealth and power were increasing

-in direct ratio to the diminution of their own, eventually

-sue for pardon and return. That had become

-Jane's nightmare, riding her night and day, and she

-was not going to let any living soul know the

-malicious things she had done and said to thwart

-it. Vaguely she regarded the possible coming-back

-of the father and daughter as her own undoing.

-She knew the pulse of the community well enough

-to understand that nothing could happen which

-would so soon end the war against Ann Boyd as

-such a reconciliation. Yes, it would amount to her

-own undoing, for people were like sheep, and the

-moment one ran to Ann Boyd's side in approval, all

-would flock around her, and it would only be natural

-for them to turn against the one woman who had

-been the primal cause of the separation.

-

-Jane was at the bars looking out on a little, seldom-used

-road which ran between her land and

-Ann's, when her attention was caught by a man

-with a leather hand-bag strapped on his shoulders

-trudging towards her. He was a stranger, and

-his dusty boots and trousers showed that he had

-walked a long distance. As he drew near he took

-off his straw hat and bowed very humbly, allowing

-his burden to swing round in front of him till he

-had eased it down on the turf at his feet.

-

-"Good-evening, madam," he said. "I'd like to

-show you something if you've got the time to spare.

-I've made so many mountain folks happy, and at

-such a small outlay, that I tell you they are glad

-to have me come around again. This is a new beat

-to me, but I felt it my duty to widen out some in

-the cause of human suffering."

-

-"What is it you've got?" Jane asked, smiling at

-his manner of speaking, as he deftly unlocked his

-valise and opened it out before her.

-

-"It's a godsend, and that's no joke," said the

-peddler. "I've got a household liniment here at a

-quarter for a four-ounce flask that no family can

-afford to be without. You may think I'm just talking

-because it's my business, but, madam, do you

-know that the regular druggists all about over this

-country are in a combine not to sell stuff that will

-keep people in good trim? And why? you may

-ask me. Why? Because, I say, that it would kill

-the'r business. Go to one, I dare you, or to a doctor

-in regular practice, and they will mix up chalk

-and sweetened water and tell you you've got a

-serious internal complaint, and to keep coming day

-after day till your pile is exhausted, and then they

-may tell you the truth and ask you to let 'em alone.

-I couldn't begin, madam—I don't know your name—I

-say I couldn't begin to tell you the wonderful

-cures this liniment has worked all over this part of

-the state."

-

-"What is it good for?" Jane Hemingway's face

-had grown suddenly serious. The conversation had

-caused her thoughts to revert to a certain secret

-fear she had entertained for several months.

-

-"Huh—good for?—excuse me, but you make me

-laugh," the peddler said, as he held a bottle of the

-dark fluid up before her; "it's good for so many

-things that I could hardly get through telling you

-between now and sundown. It's good for anything

-that harms the blood, skin, or muscles. It's even

-good for the stomach, although I don't advise it

-taken internally, for when it's rubbed on the outside

-of folks they have perfect digestions; but what

-it is best for is sprains, lameness, or any skin or

-blood eruption. Do you know, madam, that you'd

-never hear of so many cancers and tumors, that are

-dragging weary folks to early graves hereabouts, if

-this medicine had been used in time?"

-

-"Cancer?" The widow's voice had fallen, and

-she looked towards Ann Boyd's house, and then

-more furtively over her shoulder towards her own,

-as if to be sure of not being observed. "That's

-what I've always wondered at, how is anybody to

-know whether a—a thing is a cancer or not without

-going to a doctor, and, as you say, even *then* they

-may not tell you the truth? Mrs. Twiggs, over the

-mountain, was never let know she had her cancer

-till a few months before it carried her off. The

-family and the doctor never told her the truth.

-The doctor said it couldn't be cured, and to know

-would only make the poor thing brood over it and

-be miserable."

-

-"That's it, now," said the medicine-vender; "but

-if it had been taken at the start and rubbed vigorously

-night and morning, it would have melted

-away under this fluid like dirt under lye-soap and

-warm water. Madam, a cancer is nothing more

-nor less than bad circulation at a certain point

-where blood stands till it becomes foul and putrefies.

-I can—excuse me if I seem bold, but long

-experience in handling men and women has learnt

-me to understand human nature. Most people who

-are afraid they've got cancers generally show it

-on their faces, an' I'll bet my hat and walk bareheaded

-to the nighest store to get another that you

-are troubled on that line—a little bit, anyway."

-

-Jane made no denial, though her thin face worked

-as she strove adequately to meet his blunt assertion.

-"As I said just now"—she swallowed, and

-avoided his covetous glance—"how is a person

-really to *know*?"

-

-"It's a mighty easy matter for *me* to tell," said

-the peddler, and he spoke most reassuringly. "Just

-you let me take a look at the spot, if it's no trouble

-to you, and I may save you a good many sleepless

-nights. You are a nervous, broody sort of a woman yourself,

-and I can see by your face that you've

-let this matter bother you a lots."

-

-"You think you could tell if you—you looked at

-it?" Jane asked, tremulously.

-

-"Well, if I didn't it would be the first case I

-ever diagnosed improperly. Couldn't we go in the

-house?"

-

-Jane hesitated. "I think I'd rather my folks

-didn't know—that is, of course, if it *is* one. My

-brother-in-law is a great hand to talk, and I'd rather

-it wasn't noised about. If there's one thing in the

-world I don't like it's the pity and the curiosity of

-other folks as to just about how long I'm going to

-hold out."

-

-"I've seed a lots o' folks like you." The peddler

-smiled. "But, if you don't mind tellin', where's

-the thing located?"

-

-"It's on my breast," Jane gulped, undecidedly,

-and then, the first bridge having been crossed, she

-unbuttoned her dress at the neck with fumbling

-fingers and pulled it down. "Maybe you can see

-as well here as anywhere."

-

-"Oh yes, never was a better light for the business,"

-said the vender, and he leaned forward, his

-eyes fixed sharply on the spot exposed between

-the widow's bony fingers. For a moment he said

-nothing. The woman's yellow breast lay flat and

-motionless. She scarcely breathed; her features

-were fixed by grim, fearful expectancy. He looked

-away from her, and then stooped to his pack to get

-a larger bottle. "I'm glad I happened to strike

-you just when I did, madam," he said. "Thar

-ain't no mistaking the charactericstics of a cancer

-when it's in its first stages. That's certainly what

-you've got, but I'm telling you God's holy truth

-when I say that by regular application and rubbing

-this stuff in for a month, night and morning, that

-thing will melt away like mist before a hot sun."

-

-"So it really *is* one!" Jane breathed, despondently.

-

-"Yes, it's a little baby one, madam, but this will

-nip it in the bud and save your life. It will take

-the dollar size, but you know it's worth it."

-

-"Oh yes, I'll take it," Jane panted. "Put it

-there in the fence-corner among the weeds, and I'll

-come out to-night and get it."

-

-"All right," and the flask tinkled against a stone

-as it slid into its snug hiding-place among the

-Jamestown weeds nestling close to the rotting rails.

-

-"Here's your money. I reckon we'd better not

-stand here." And Jane gave it to him with quivering

-fingers. He folded the bill carefully, thrust

-it into a greasy wallet, and stooped to close his

-bag and throw the strap over his shoulder.

-

-"Now I'm going on to the next house," he said.

-"They tell me a curious sort of human specimen

-lives over thar—old Ann Boyd. Do you know,

-madam, I heard of that woman's tantrums at

-Springtown night before last, and at Barley yesterday.

-Looks like you folks hain't got much else to

-do but poke at her like a turtle on its back. Well,

-she must be a character! I made up my mind I'd

-take a peep at 'er. You know a travelling physician

-like I am can get at folks that sort o' hide from the

-general run."

-

-Jane Hemingway's heart sank. Why had it not

-occurred to her that he might go on to Ann Boyd's

-and actually reveal her affliction? Such men

-had no honor or professional reputation to defend.

-Suddenly she was chilled from head to foot by the

-thought that the peddler might even boast of her

-patronage to secure that of her neighbor—that was

-quite the method of all such persons. It was on

-her tongue actually to ask him not to go to Ann

-Boyd's house at all, but her better judgment told

-her that such a request would unduly rouse the

-man's curiosity, so she offered a feeble compromise.

-

-"Look here," she said, "I want it understood between

-us that—that you are to tell nobody about

-me—about my trouble. That woman over there

-is at outs with all her neighbors, and—and she'd

-only be glad to—"

-

-Jane saw her error too late. It appeared to her

-now in the bland twinkle of amused curiosity in the

-stranger's face.

-

-"I understand—I understand; you needn't be

-afraid of me," the man said, entirely too lightly,

-Jane thought, for such a grave matter, and he

-pushed back the brim of his hat and turned. "Remember

-the directions, madam, a good brisk rubbing

-with a flannel rag—red if you've got it—soaked

-in the medicine, twice a day. Good-evening;

-I'll be off. I've got to strike some house whar

-they will let me stay all night. I know that old

-hag won't keep me, from all I hear."

-

-The widow leaned despondently against the fence

-and watched him as he ploughed his way through

-the tall grass and weeds of the intervening marsh

-towards Ann Boyd's house. The assurance that the

-spot on her breast was an incipient cancer was bad

-enough without the added fear that her old enemy

-would possibly gloat over her misfortune. She remained

-there till she saw the vender approach Ann's

-door. For a moment she entertained the mild hope

-that he would be repulsed, but he was not.

-

-She saw Ann's portly form framed in the doorway

-for an instant, and then the peddler opened

-the gate and went into the house. Heavy of heart,

-the grim watcher remained at the fence for half an

-hour, and then the medicine-vender came out and

-wended his way along the dusty road towards Wilson's

-store.

-

-Jane went into the house and sat down wearily.

-Virginia was sewing at a western window, and

-glanced at her in surprise.

-

-"What's the matter, mother?" she inquired, solicitously.

-

-"I don't know as there is anything wrong," answered

-Jane, "but I am sort o' weak. My knees

-shake and I feel kind o' chilly. Sometimes, Virginia,

-I think maybe I won't last long."

-

-"That's perfectly absurd," said the girl. "Don't

-you remember what Dr. Evans said last winter when

-he was talking about the constitutions of people?

-He said you belonged to the thin, wiry, raw-boned

-kind that never die, but simply stay on and dry up

-till they are finally blown away."

-

-"He's not a graduated doctor," said Jane, gloomily.

-"He doesn't know everything."

-

-

-

-

-VI

-==

-

-

-A week from that day, one sultry

-afternoon near sunset, a tall mountaineer,

-very poorly clad, and his wife

-came past Wilson's store. They paused

-to purchase a five-cent plug of tobacco,

-and then walked slowly along the road in a dust

-that rose as lightly as down at the slightest foot-fall,

-till they reached Ann Boyd's house.

-

-"I'll stay out here at the gate," the man said.

-"You'll have to do all the talking. As Willard said,

-she will do more for Luke King's mother than she

-would for anybody else, and you remember how she

-backed the boy up in his objections to me as a

-step-daddy."

-

-"Well, I'll do what I can," the woman said, plaintively.

-"You stay here behind the bushes. I

-don't blame you for not wanting to ask a favor of

-her, after all she said when we were married. She

-may spit in my face—they say she's so cantankerous."

-

-Seating himself on a flat stone, the man cut the

-corner off of his tobacco-plug and began to chew it,

-while his wife, a woman about sixty-five years of

-age, and somewhat enfeebled, opened the gate and

-went in. Mrs. Boyd answered the gentle rap and

-appeared at the door.

-

-"Howdy do, Mrs. Boyd," the caller began. "I

-reckon old age hasn't changed me so you won't

-know me, although it's been ten years since me 'n'

-you met. I'm Mrs. Mark Bruce, that used to be

-Mrs. King. I'm Luke's mother, Mrs. Boyd."

-

-"I knew you when you and Mark Bruce turned

-the bend in the road a quarter of a mile away," said

-Ann, sharply, "but, the Lord knows, I didn't think

-you'd have the cheek to open my front gate and

-stalk right into my yard after all you've said and

-done against me."

-

-The eyes of the visitor fell to her worn shoe,

-through which her bare toes were protruding. "I

-had no idea I'd ever do such a thing myself until

-about two hours ago," she said, firmly; "but folks

-will do a lots, in a pinch, that they won't ordinarily.

-You may think I've come to beg you to tell me if

-you know where Luke is, but I hain't. Of course,

-I'd like to know—any mother would—but he said

-he'd never darken a door that his step-father went

-through, and I told 'im, I did, that he could go, and

-I'd never ask about 'im. Some say you get letters

-from him. I don't know—that, I reckon, is your

-business."

-

-"You didn't come to inquire about your boy,

-then?" Ann said, curiously, "and yet here you are."

-

-"It's about your law-suit with Gus Willard that

-I've come, Ann. He told you, it seems, that he

-was going to fight it to the bitter end, and he *did*

-call in a lawyer, but the lawyer told him thar was no

-two ways about it. If his mill-pond backed water

-on your land to the extent of covering five acres,

-why, you could make him shet the mill up, even if

-he lost all his custom. Gus sees different now, like

-most of us when our substance is about to take wings

-and fly off. He sees now that you've been powerful

-indulgent all them years in letting him back water

-on your property to its heavy damagement, and he

-says, moreover, that, to save his neck from the

-halter, he cayn't blame you fer the action. He

-says he *did* uphold Brother Bazemore in what he

-said about burning the bench that was consecrated

-till you besmirched it, and he admits he talked it

-here an' yan considerably. He said, an' Gus was

-mighty nigh shedding tears, in the sad plight he's

-in, that you had the whip in hand now, and that

-his back was bare, an' ef you chose to lay on the

-lash, why, he was powerless, for, said he, he struck

-the fust lick at you, but he was doin' it, he thought,

-for the benefit of the community."

-

-"But," and the eyes of Ann Boyd flashed ominously,

-"what have *you* come for? Not, surely, to

-stand in my door and preach to me."

-

-"Oh no, Ann, that hain't it," said the caller,

-calmly. "You see, Gus is at the end of his tether;

-he's in an awful fix with his wife and gals in tears,

-and he's plumb desperate. He says you hain't the

-kind of woman to be bent one way or another by

-begging—that is, when you are a-dealing with folks

-that have been out open agin you; but now, as it

-stands, this thing is agoing to damage me and

-Mark awfully, fer Mark gets five dollars a month for

-helping about the mill on grinding days, and when

-the mill shets down he'll be plumb out of a job."

-

-"Oh, I see!" and Ann Boyd smiled impulsively.

-

-"Yes, that's the way of it," went on Mrs. Bruce,

-"and so Gus, about two hours ago, come over to

-our cabin with what he called his only hope, and

-that was for me to come and tell you about Mark's

-job, and how helpless we'll be when it's gone, and

-that—well, Ann, to put it in Gus's own words, he

-said you wouldn't see Luke King's mother suffer

-as I will have to suffer, for, Ann, we are having the

-hardest time to get along in the world. I was at

-meeting that day, and I thought what Bazemore

-said was purty hard on any woman, but I was mad

-at you, and so I set and listened. I'm no coward.

-If you do this thing you'll do it of your own accord.

-I cayn't get down on my knees to you, and I won't."

-

-"I see." Ann's face was serious. She looked

-past the woman down the dust-clouded road along

-which a man was driving a herd of sheep. "I don't

-want you on your knees to me, Cynthia Bruce. I

-want simple justice. I was doing the best I could

-when Bazemore and the community began to drive

-me to the wall, then I determined to have my rights—that's

-all; I'll have my legal rights for a while and

-see what impression it will make on you all. You

-can tell Gus Willard that I will give him till the first

-of July to drain the water from my land, and if he

-doesn't do it he will regret it."

-

-"That's all you'll say, then?" said the woman at

-the step.

-

-"That's all I'll say."

-

-"Well, I reckon you are right, Ann Boyd. I

-sorter begin to see what you've been put to all on

-account of that one false step away back when, I

-reckon, like all gals, you was jest l'arnin' what life

-was. Well, as that's over and done with, I wonder

-if you would mind telling me if you know anything

-about Luke. Me 'n' him split purty wide before he

-left, and I try to be unconcerned about him, but I

-cayn't. I lie awake at night thinking about him.

-You see, all the rest of my children are around me."

-

-"I'll say this much," said Ann, in a softened tone,

-"and that is that he is well and doing well, but I

-don't feel at liberty to say more."

-

-"Well, it's a comfort to know *that* much," said

-Mrs. Bruce, softly. "And it's nothing but just to

-you for me to say that it's due to you. The education

-you paid fer is what gave him his start in life,

-and I'll always be grateful to you fer it. It was

-something I never could have given him, and something

-none of the rest of my children got."

-

-Mrs. Boyd stood motionless in the door, her eyes

-on the backs of the pathetic pair as they trudged

-slowly homeward, the red sunset like a world in

-conflagration beyond them.

-

-"Yes, she's the boy's mother," she mused, "and

-the day will come when Luke will be glad I helped

-her, as he would if he could see the poor thing now.

-Gus Willard is no mean judge of human nature.

-I'll let him stew awhile, but the mill may run on.

-I can't fight *everybody*. Gus Willard is my enemy,

-but he's open and above-board."

-

-

-

-

-VII

-===

-

-

-One morning about the first of May,

-Virginia Hemingway went to Wilson's

-store to purchase some sewing-thread

-she needed. The long, narrow

-room was crowded with farmers and

-mountaineers, and Wilson had called in several

-neighbors to help him show and sell his wares.

-Langdon Chester was there, a fine double-barrelled

-shot-gun and fishing-rod under his arm, wearing a

-slouch hat and hunter's suit, his handsome face well

-tanned by exposure to the sun in the field and on

-the banks of the mountain streams. He was buying

-a reel and a metallic fly that worked with a

-spring and was set like a trap. Fred Masters was

-there, lounging about behind the counters, and now

-and then "making a sale" of some small article

-from the shelves or show-cases. He had opened his

-big sample trunks at the hotel in Springtown, half

-a mile distant, and a buggy and pair of horses were

-at the door, with which he intended to transport the

-store-keeper to his sample-room as soon as business

-became quieter. Seeing the store so crowded, Virginia

-only looked in at the door and walked across

-the street and sat down in Mrs. Wilson's sitting-room

-to rest and wait for a better opportunity to get

-what she had come for.

-

-Langdon Chester had recognized an old school-mate

-in the drummer, but he seemed not to care to

-show marked cordiality. However, the travelling

-man was no stickler for formality. He came from

-behind the counter and cordially slapped Langdon

-on the shoulder. "How are you, old chap?" he

-asked; "still rusticating on the old man's bounty,

-eh? When you left college you were going into the

-law, and soar like an eagle with the worm of Liberty

-in its beak skyward through the balmy air of politics,

-by the aid of all the 'pulls' of influential kin and

-money, but here you are as easy-going as of old."

-

-"It was the only thing open to me," Chester said,

-with a flush of vexation. "You see, my father's

-getting old, Masters, and the management of our big

-place here was rather too much for him, and so—"

-

-"Oh, I see!" And the drummer gave his old

-friend a playful thumb-thrust in the ribs. "And

-so you are helping him out with that gun and

-rod? Well, that's *one* way of doing business, but

-it is far from my method—the method that is

-forced on me, my boy. When you get to a town

-on the four-o'clock afternoon train and have to

-get five sample trunks from the train to a hotel,

-scrap like the devil over who gets to use the best

-sample-room, finally buy your way in through

-porters as rascally as you are, then unpack, see

-the best man in town, sell him, or lose your job,

-pack again, trunks to excess-baggage scales—more

-cash and tips, and lies as to weight—and you

-roll away at midnight and try to nap sitting bolt-upright

-in the smoker—well, I say, you won't find

-that sort of thing in the gun-and-fishing-pole line.

-It's the sort of work, Chester, that will make you

-wish you were dead. Good Lord, I don't blame you

-one bit. In England they would call you one of the

-gentry, and, being an only son, you could tie up

-with an heiress and so on to a green old age of high

-respectability; but as for me, well, I had to dig,

-and I went in for it."

-

-"I had no idea you would ever become a drummer,"

-Langdon said, as he admired his friend's attire.

-Such tasty ties, shirts, and bits of jewelry

-that Masters wore, and such well brushed and

-pressed clothes were rarely seen in the country, and

-Langdon still had the good ideas of dress he had

-brought from college, and this was one extravagance

-his father cheerfully allowed him.

-

-"It seemed the best thing for me," smiled the

-drummer. "I have a cousin who is a big stockholder

-in my house, and he got the job for me. I've

-been told several times by other members of the

-firm that I'd have been fired long ago but for that

-family pull. I've made several mistakes, sold men

-who were rotten to the core, and caused the house

-to lose money in several instances, and, well—poker,

-old man. Do you still play?"

-

-"Not often, out here," said Langdon; "this is

-about the narrowest, church-going community you

-ever struck. I suppose you have a good deal of fun

-travelling about."

-

-"Oh yes, fun enough, of its kind." Masters

-laughed. "Like a sailor in every port, a drummer

-tries to have a sweetheart in every town. It makes

-life endurable; sometimes the dear little things meet

-you at the train with sweet-smelling flowers and

-embroidered neckties so long that you have to cut

-off the ends or double them. Have a cigar—they

-don't cost me a red cent; expense account stretches

-like elastic, you know. My house kicked once

-against my drinking and cigar entries, and I said,

-all right, I'd sign the pledge and they could tie a

-blue ribbon on me, if they said the word, but that

-half my trade, I'd discovered, never could see prices

-right except through smoke and over a bottle.

-Then, what do you think? Old man Creighton,

-head of the firm, deacon in a swell joss-house in

-Atlanta, winked, drew a long face, and said: 'You'll

-have to give the boy *some* freedom, I reckon. We

-are in this thing to pull it through, boys, and sometimes

-we may have to fight fire with fire or be left

-stranded.'"

-

-"He's an up-to-date old fellow," Chester laughed.

-"I've seen him. He owns some fine horses. When

-a man does that he's apt to be progressive, no matter

-how many times he says his prayers a day."

-

-"Yes, for an old duck, Creighton keeps at the

-head of the procession. I can generally get him to

-help me out when I get in a tight. He thinks I'm

-a good salesman. Once, by the skin of my teeth,

-I sold the champion bill in the history of the house.

-A new firm was setting up in business in Augusta,

-and I stocked three floors for them. It tickled old

-man Creighton nearly to death, for they say he

-walked the floor all night when the thing was hanging

-fire. There was a pile of profit in it, and it

-meant more, even, than the mere sale, for Nashville,

-Memphis, New Orleans, and Louisville men were as

-thick as flies on the spot. When I wired the news

-in the firm did a clog-dance in the office, and they

-were all at the train to meet me, with plug-hats on,

-and raised sand generally. Old Creighton drew me

-off to one side and wanted to know how I did it. I

-told him it was just a trick of mine, and tried to

-let it go at that, but he pushed me close, and I

-finally told him the truth. It came about over a

-game of poker I was playing with the head of the

-new firm. If I lost I was to pay him a hundred

-dollars. If he lost I was to get the order. He lost.

-I think I learned that 'palming' trick from you."

-

-Langdon laughed impulsively as he lighted the

-drummer's cigar. "And what did the old man say

-to that?" he inquired.

-

-"It almost floored him." Masters smiled. "He

-laid his hand on my shoulder. His face was as

-serious as I've seen it when he was praying in the

-amen corner at church, but the old duck's eyes were

-blazing. 'Fred,' he said, 'I want you to promise

-me to let that one thing alone—but, good gracious,

-if Memphis had sold that bill it would have hurt us

-awfully!'"

-

-"You were always fond of the girls," Chester remarked

-as he smoked. "Well, out here in the

-country is no place for them."

-

-"No place for them! Huh, that's *your* idea, is it?

-Well, let me tell you, Chester, I saw on the road as

-I came on just now simply the prettiest, daintiest,

-and most graceful creature I ever laid my eyes on.

-I've seen them all, too, and, by George, she simply

-took the rag off the bush. Slender, beautifully

-formed, willowy, small feet and hands, high instep,

-big, dreamy eyes, and light-brown hair touched with

-gold. She came out of a farm-house, walking like a

-young queen, about half a mile back. I made Ike

-drive slowly and tried to get her to look at me, but

-she only raised her eyes once."

-

-"Virginia Hemingway," Chester said, coldly.

-"Yes, she's pretty. There's no doubt about that."

-

-"You know her, then?" said the drummer, eagerly.

-"Say, old man, introduce a fellow."

-

-Chester's face hardened. The light of cordiality

-died out of his eyes. There was a significant

-twitching of his lips round his cigar. "I really

-don't see how I could," he said, after an awkward

-pause, during which his eyes were averted. "You

-see, Masters, she's quite young, and it happens that

-her mother—a lonely old widow—is rather suspicious

-of men in general, and I seem to have displeased

-her in some way. You see, all these folks,

-as a rule, go regularly to meeting, and as I don't

-go often, why—"

-

-"Oh, I see," the drummer said. "But let me

-tell you, old chap, suspicious mother or what not,

-I'd see something of that little beauty if I lived here.

-Gee whiz! she'd make a Fifth Avenue dress and

-Easter hat ashamed of themselves anywhere but

-on her. Look here, Chester, I've always had a

-sneaking idea that sooner or later I'd be hit deep

-at first sight by some woman, and I'll be hanged

-if I know but what that's the matter with me right

-now. I've seen so many women, first and last,

-here and there, always in the giddy set, that I

-reckon if I ever marry I'd rather risk some pure-minded

-little country girl. Do you know, town

-girls simply know too much to be interesting. By

-George, I simply feel like I'd be perfectly happy

-with a little wife like the girl I saw this morning.

-I wish you could fix it so I could meet her this trip,

-or my next."

-

-"I—I simply can't do it, Masters." There was

-a rising flush of vexation in the young planter's face

-as he knocked the ashes from his cigar into a nail-keg

-on the floor. "I don't know her well enough,

-in the first place, and then, in the next, as I said,

-her mother is awfully narrow and particular. She

-scarcely allows the girl out of sight; if you once

-saw old Jane Hemingway you'd not fancy making

-love before her eyes."

-

-"Well, I reckon Wilson knows the girl, doesn't

-he?" the drummer said.

-

-Chester hesitated, a cold, steady gleam of the

-displeasure he was trying to hide flashed in his

-eyes.

-

-"I don't know that he knows her well enough for

-*that*," he replied. "The people round here think

-I'm tough enough, but you drummers—huh! some

-of them look on you as the very advance agents of

-destruction."

-

-"That's a fact," Masters sighed, "the profession

-is getting a black eye in the rural districts. They

-think we are as bad as show people. By George,

-there she is now!"

-

-"Yes, that's her," and the young planter glanced

-towards the front doorway through which Virginia

-Hemingway was entering. So fixed was the

-drummer's admiring gaze upon the pretty creature,

-that he failed to notice that his companion had

-quietly slipped towards the rear of the store. Chester

-stood for a moment in the back doorway, and then

-stepped down outside and made his way into the

-wood near by. The drummer sauntered behind

-the counter towards the front, till he was near the

-show-case at which the girl was making her purchase,

-and there he stood, allowing the fire of his

-cigar to die out as he watched her, while Wilson

-was exhibiting to her a drawer full of thread for her

-to select from.

-

-"By all that's good and holy, she simply caps the

-stack!" Masters said to himself; "and to think that

-these galoots out here in the woods are not onto it.

-She'd set Peachtree Street on fire. I'm going to

-meet that girl if I have to put on old clothes and

-work for day wages in her mother's cornfield.

-Great goodness! here I am, a hardened ladies' man,

-feeling cold from head to foot on a hot day like this.

-I'm hit, by George, I'm hit! Freddy, old boy, this

-is the thing you read about in books. I wonder

-if—"

-

-But she was gone. She had tripped out into the

-sunshine. He saw the yellow light fall on her

-abundant hair and turn it into a blaze of gold. As

-if dreaming, he went to the door and stood looking

-after her as she moved away on the dusty road.

-

-"I see you are killing time." It was George Wilson

-at his elbow. "I'll be through here and with

-you in a minute. My crowd is thinning out now.

-That's the way it comes—all in a rush; like a mill-dam

-broke loose."

-

-"Oh, I'm in no hurry, Wilson," said Masters, his

-gaze bent upon the bushes behind which Virginia

-had just disappeared. "Say, now, old man, don't

-say you won't do it; the fact is, I want to be introduced

-to that girl—the little daisy you sold the

-thread to. By glory, she is the prettiest little

-thing I ever saw."

-

-"Virginia Hemingway!" said the store-keeper.

-"Yes, she's a regular beauty, and the gentlest,

-sweetest little trick in seven states. Well, Masters,

-I'll be straight with you. It's this way. You see,

-she really *is* full grown, and old enough to receive

-company, I reckon, but her mother, the old woman

-I told you about who hates Ann Boyd so thoroughly—well,

-she doesn't seem to realize that Virginia is

-coming on, and so she won't consent to any of the

-boys going near her. But old Jane can't make nature

-over. Girls will be girls, and if you put too

-tight a rein on them they will learn to slip the halter,

-or some chap will teach them to take the bit

-in their teeth."

-

-A man came to Wilson holding a sample of syrup

-on a piece of wrapping-paper, to which he had applied

-his tongue. "What's this here brand worth?"

-he asked.

-

-"Sixty-five—best golden drip," was Wilson's

-reply. "Fill your jug yourself; I'll take your word

-for it."

-

-"All right, you make a ticket of it—jug holds two

-gallons," said the customer, and he turned away.

-

-"Say, Wilson, just a minute," cried the drummer;

-"do you mean that she—"

-

-"Oh, look here now," said the store-keeper. "I

-don't mean any reflection against that sweet girl,

-but it has become a sort of established habit among

-girls here in the mountains, when their folks hold

-them down too much, for them to meet fellows on

-the sly, out walking and the like. Virginia, as I

-started to say, is full of natural life. She knows

-she's pretty, and she wouldn't be a woman if she

-didn't want to be told so—though, to be so good-looking,

-she is really the most sensible girl I know."

-

-"You mean she has her fancies, then," said Masters,

-in a tone of disappointment.

-

-"I don't say she has." Wilson had an uneasy

-glance on a group of women bending over some

-bolts of calico, one of whom was chewing a sample

-clipped from a piece to see if it would fade. "But—between

-me and you now—Langdon Chester has

-for the last three months been laying for her. I see

-he's slipped away; I'd bet my hat he saw her just

-now, and has made a break for some point on the

-road where he can speak to her."

-

-"Chester? Why, the rascal pretended to me just

-now that he hardly knew her."

-

-Wilson smiled knowingly. "That's his way. He

-is as sly as they make 'em. His daddy was before

-him. When it comes to dealing with women who

-strike their fancy they know exactly what they are

-doing. But Langdon has struck flint-rock in that

-little girl. He, no doubt, is flirting with all his

-might, but she'll have him on his knees before he's

-through with it. A pair of eyes like hers would

-burn up every mean thought in a man."

-

-The drummer sighed, a deep frown on his brow.

-"You don't know him as well as I do," he said. "I

-knew him at college. George, that little trick

-ought not to be under such a fellow's influence

-I'm just a travelling man, but—well—"

-

-"Well, what are you going to do about it—even

-if there *is* any danger?" said Wilson. "Get a drink

-in him, and Langdon, like his father, will fight at

-the drop of a hat. Conscience? He hasn't any.

-I sometimes wonder why the Almighty made them

-like they are, and other men so different, for it is only

-the men who are not bothered by conscience that

-have any fun in this life. One of the Chesters could

-drive a light-hearted woman to suicide and sleep

-like a log the night she was buried. Haven't I

-heard the old man laugh about Ann Boyd, and all

-she's been through? Huh! But I'm not afraid of

-that little girl's fate. She will take care of herself,

-and don't you forget it."

-

-"Well, I'm sorry for her," said Masters, "and

-I'm going to try to meet her. I'm tough, George—I'll

-play a game of cards and bet on a horse, and say

-light things to a pretty girl when she throws down

-the bars—but I draw the line at downright rascality.

-Once in a while I think of home and my own folks."

-

-"Now you are a-talking." And Wilson hurried

-away to a woman who sat in a chair holding a bolt

-of calico in her arms, as if it were her first-born

-child and the other women were open kidnappers.

-

-Masters stood motionless in the doorway, his eyes

-on the dusty road that stretched on towards Jane

-Hemingway's house.

-

-"Yes, she's in bad, *bad* hands," he said; "and

-she is the first—I really believe she's the first that

-ever hit me this hard."

-

-

-

-

-VIII

-====

-

-

-At dusk that day Ann Boyd went out

-to search for a missing cow. She

-crossed the greater part of her stretch

-of meadow-land in the foggy shadows,

-and finally found the animal mired to

-the knees in a black bog hidden from view by the

-high growth of bulrushes. Then came the task of

-releasing the patient creature, and Ann carried rails

-from the nearest fence, placing them in such a way

-that the cow finally secured a substantial footing

-and gladly sped homeward to her imprisoned calf.

-Then, to escape the labor of again passing through

-the clinging vines and high grass of the marsh, Ann

-took the nearest way to the main road leading from

-the store on to Jane Hemingway's cottage. She

-had just reached the little meeting-house, and a hot

-flush of anger at the memory of the insult passed

-upon her there was surging over her, when, happening

-to glance towards the graveyard in the rear of

-the building, she saw Virginia Hemingway and

-Langdon Chester, quite with the air of lovers, slowly

-walking homeward along a path which, if more

-rugged, led more directly towards the girl's home.

-Ann Boyd started and then stared; she could hardly

-credit the evidence of her sight—Virginia Hemingway

-and the scapegrace son of that man, of all

-men, together!

-

-"Ah, ha!" she exclaimed, under her breath, and,

-falling back into the bushes which bordered the

-roadside, she stood tingling from head to foot with

-a new and unexpected sensation, her eager eyes on

-the loitering pair. "So *that's* it, is it? The young

-scamp has picked *her* out, devil that he is by blood

-and birth. Well, I might have known it. Who

-could know better than me what a new generation

-of that cursed stock would be up to? Right now

-he's the living image of what his father was at the

-same age. He's lying to her, too, with tongue,

-eyes, voice, and very bend of body. Great God,

-isn't she pretty? I never, in my best day, saw the

-minute that I could have held a candle to her, and

-yet they all said—but that makes no difference. I

-wonder why I never thought before that he'd pick

-her out. As much as I hate her mammy, and her,

-too, I must acknowledge she's sweet-looking. She's

-pure-minded, too—as pure of thought as I was away

-back there when I wore my hair in a plait. But

-that man will crush your purity, you little, blind

-kitten, crush it like a fresh violet under a horse's

-hoof; *he'll* teach you what life is. That's the business

-the Chesters are good at. But, look! I do

-believe she's holding off from him." Ann crept onward

-through the bushes to keep pace with the

-couple, now and then stretching her neck or rising

-to her full height on tiptoe.

-

-"He hasn't been on her track very long," she

-mused, "but he has won the biggest part of his

-battle—he's got her to meet him privately. A

-sight of this would lay her old mammy out stiff

-as a board, but she'll be kept in the dark. That

-scamp will see to that part of the affair. But

-she'll know in the end. Somebody will tell her the

-truth. Maybe the girl will herself, when the awful,

-lonely pinch comes and there is no other friend

-in sight. *Then*, Jane Hemingway, it will all come

-home to you. Then you'll look back on the long,

-blood-hound hunt you've given another woman in

-the same plight. The Almighty is doing it. He's

-working it out for Jane Hemingway's life-portion.

-The girl is the very apple of her eye; she has often

-said she was the image of herself, and that, as her

-own marriage and life had come to nothing, she was

-going to see to it that her only child's path was

-strewn with roses. Well, Langdon Chester is strewing

-the roses thick enough. Ha, ha, ha!" the peering

-woman chuckled. "Jane can come along an'

-pick 'em up when they are withered and crumble

-like powder at the slightest touch. Now I really

-will have something to occupy me. I'll watch this

-thing take root, and bud, and leave, and bloom, and

-die. Maybe I'll be the first to carry the news to

-headquarters. I'd love it more than anything this

-life could give me. I'd like to shake the truth in

-Jane Hemingway's old, blinking eyes and see her

-unable to believe it. I'd like to stand shaking it

-in her teeth till she knew it was so, and then I honestly

-believe I'd fall right down in front of her and roll

-over and over laughing. To think that I, maybe *I*

-will be able to flaunt the very thing in her face

-that she has all these years held over me—the very

-thing, even to its being a son of the very scoundrel

-that actually bent over the cradle of my girlhood

-and blinded me with the lies that lit up his face."

-

-A few yards away the pair had paused. Chester

-had taken the girl's hand and was gently stroking

-it as it lay restlessly in his big palm. For a moment

-Ann lost sight of them, for she was stealthily creeping

-behind the low, hanging boughs of the bushes

-to get nearer. She found herself presently behind

-a big bowlder. She no longer saw the couple, but

-could hear their voices quite distinctly.

-

-"You won't even let me hold your hand," she

-heard him say. "You make me miserable, Virginia.

-When I am at home alone, I get to thinking over

-your coldness and indifference, and it nearly drives

-me crazy. Why did you jerk your hand away so

-quickly just now?"

-

-"I don't see what you were talking to a drummer

-about me for, in a public place like that," the girl

-answered, in pouting tones.

-

-"Why, it was this way, Virginia—now don't be

-silly!" protested Chester. "You see, this Masters

-and I were at college together, and rather intimate,

-and down at the store we were standing talking

-when you came in the front to buy something. He

-said he thought you were really the prettiest girl

-he had ever seen, and he was begging me to introduce

-him to you."

-

-"Introduce him!" Virginia snapped. "I don't

-want to know him. And so you stood there talking

-about me!"

-

-"It was only a minute, Virginia, and I couldn't

-help it," Chester declared. "I didn't think you'd

-care to know him, but I had to treat him decently.

-I told him how particular your mother was, and

-that I couldn't manage it. Oh, he's simply daft

-about you. He passed you on the road this morning,

-and hasn't been able to talk about anything

-since. But who could blame him, Virginia? You

-can form no idea of how pretty you are in the eyes

-of other people. Frankly, in a big gathering of

-women you'd create a sensation. You've got what

-every society woman in the country would die to

-have, perfect beauty of face and form, and the most

-remarkable part about it is your absolute unconsciousness

-of it all. I've seen good-looking women

-in the best sets in Augusta and Savannah and

-Atlanta, but they all seem to be actually making

-up before your very eyes. Do you know, it actually

-makes me sick to see a woman all rigged out in a

-satin gown so stiff that it looks like she's encased

-in some metallic painted thing that moves on rollers.

-It's beauty unadorned that you've got, and it's the

-real thing."

-

-"I don't want to talk about myself eternally,"

-said Virginia, rather sharply, the eavesdropper

-thought, "and I don't see why you seem to think

-I do. When you are sensible and talk to me about

-what we have both read and thought, I like you

-better."

-

-"Oh, you want me to be a sort of Luke King, who

-put all sorts of fancies in your head when you were

-too young to know what they meant. You'd better

-let those dreams alone, Virginia, and get down to

-everyday facts. My love for you is a reality. It's

-a big force in my life. I find myself thinking about

-you and your coldness from early morning till late

-at night. Last Monday you were to come to the

-Henry Spring, and I was there long before the time,

-and stayed in agony of suspense for four hours, but

-I had my walk for nothing."

-

-"I couldn't come," Ann Boyd heard the sweet

-voice say. "Mother gave me some work to do,

-and I had no excuse; besides, I don't like to deceive

-her. She's harsh and severe, but I don't like to do

-anything she would disapprove of."

-

-"You don't really care much for me," said Langdon—"that

-is the whole thing in a nutshell."

-

-Virginia was silent, and Ann Boyd bit her lip

-and clinched her hands tightly. The very words

-and tone of enforced reproach came back to her

-across the rolling surf of time. She was for a moment

-lost in retrospection. The young girl behind

-the bushes seemed suddenly to be herself, her companion

-the dashing young Preston Chester, the

-prince of planters and slave-holders. Langdon's insistent

-voice brought back the present.

-

-"You don't care for me, you know you don't,"

-he was saying. "You were simply born with all

-your beauty and sweetness to drag me down to

-despair. You make me desperate with your maddening

-reserve and icy coldness, when all this hot

-fire is raging in me."

-

-"That's what makes me afraid of you," Virginia

-said, softly. "I admit I like to be with you, my

-life is so lonely, but you always say such extravagant

-things and want to—to catch hold of me, and

-kiss me, and—"

-

-"Well, how can I help myself, when you are what

-you are?" Chester exclaimed, with a laugh. "I

-don't want to act a lie to you, and stand and court

-you like a long-faced Methodist parson, who begins

-and ends his love-making with prayer. Life is too

-beautiful and lovely to turn it into a funeral service

-from beginning to end. Let's be happy, little

-girl; let's laugh and be merry and thank our stars

-we are alive."

-

-"I won't thank my stars if I don't go on home."

-And Virginia laughed sweetly for the first time.

-

-"Yes, I suppose we had better walk on," Langdon

-admitted, "but I'm not going out into the

-open road with you till I've had that kiss. No,

-you needn't pull away, dear—I'm going to have

-it."

-

-The grim eavesdropper heard Virginia sharply

-protesting; there was a struggle, a tiny, smothered

-scream, and then something waked in the breast of

-Ann Boyd that lifted her above her sordid self. It

-was the enraged impulse to dart forward and with

-her strong, toil-hardened hands clutch the young

-man by the throat and drag him down to the ground

-and hold him there till the flames she knew so well

-had gone out of his face. Something like a prayer

-sprang to her lips—a prayer for help, and then, in a

-flush of shame, the slow-gained habit of years came

-back to her; she was taking another view—this time

-down a darkened vista.

-

-"It's no business of mine," she muttered. "It's

-only the way things are evened up. After all,

-where would be the justice in one woman suffering

-from a thing for a lifetime and another going scot

-free, and that one, too, the daughter of the one person

-that has deliberately made a life miserable?

-No, siree! My pretty child, take care of yourself,

-I'm not your mother. If she would let me alone

-for one minute, maybe her eyes would be open to

-her own interests."

-

-Laughing pleasantly over having obtained his

-kiss by sheer force, Langdon, holding Virginia's reluctant

-hand, led her out into an open space, and

-the watcher caught a plain view of the girl's profile,

-and the sight twisted her thoughts into quite another

-channel. For a moment she stood as if rooted

-to the ground behind the bushes which had shielded

-her. "That girl is going to be a hard one to fool,"

-she muttered. "I can see that from her high forehead

-and firm chin. Now, it really *would* be a joke

-on me if—if Jane Hemingway's offspring was to

-avoid the pitfall I fell into, with all the head I've

-got. Then, I reckon, Jane *could* talk; that, I reckon,

-would prove her right in so bitterly denouncing me;

-but will the girl stand the pressure? If she intends

-to, she's made a bad beginning. Meeting a chap

-like that on the sly isn't the best way to be rid of

-him, nor that kiss; which she let him have without

-a scratch or loss of a hair on his side, is another bad

-indication. Well, the game's on. Me 'n' Jane is on

-the track neck to neck with the wire and bandstand

-ahead. If the angels are watching this sport,

-them in the highest seats may shed tears, but it will

-be fun to the other sort. I'm reckless. I don't

-much care which side I amuse; the whole thing

-come up of its own accord, and the Lord of Creation

-hasn't done as much for my spiritual condition as

-the Prince of Darkness. I may be a she-devil, but

-I was made one by circumstances as naturally as a

-foul weed is made to grow high and strong by the

-manure around its root. And yet, I reckon, there

-must be *some* dregs of good left in my cup, for I felt

-like strangling that scamp a minute ago. But that

-may have been because I forgot and thought he was

-his daddy, and the girl was me on the brink of that

-chasm twenty years wide and deeper than the mystery

-of the grave of mankind. I don't know much,

-but I know I'm going to fight Jane Hemingway as

-long as I live. I know I'm going to do that, for

-I know she will keep her nose to my trail, and I

-wouldn't be human if I didn't hit back."

-

-The lovers had moved on; their voices were growing

-faint in the shadowy distance. The gray dusk

-had fallen in almost palpable folds over the landscape.

-The nearest mountain was lost like the sight

-of land at sea. She walked on to her cow that was

-standing bellowing to her calf in the stable-lot.

-Laying her hand on the animal's back, Ann said:

-"I'm not going to milch you to-night, Sooky; I'm

-going to let your baby have all he wants if it fills

-him till he can't walk. I'm going to be better to

-you—you poor, dumb brute—than I am to Jane

-Hemingway."

-

-Lowering the time-worn and smooth bars, she let

-the cow in to her young, and then, closing the opening,

-she went into her kitchen and sat down before

-the fire and pushed out her water-soaked feet to the

-flames to dry them.

-

-In an iron pot having an ash-covered lid was a

-piece of corn-pone stamped with the imprint of her

-fingers, and on some smouldering coals was a skillet

-containing some curled strips of fried bacon. These

-things Ann put upon a tin plate, and, holding it in

-her lap, she began to eat her supper. She was normal

-and healthy, and therefore her excitement had

-not subdued her appetite. She ate as with hearty

-enjoyment, her mind busy with what she had heard

-and seen.

-

-"Ah, old lady!" she chuckled, "you can laugh

-fit to split your sides when a loud-mouthed preacher

-talks in public about burning benches, but your

-laugh is likely to come back in an echo as hollow as

-a voice from the grave. If this thing ends as I want

-it to end, I'll be with you, Jane, as you've managed

-to be with me all these years."

-

-Till far in the night Ann sat nursing her new

-treasure and viewing it in all its possible forms,

-till, growing drowsy, from a long day of fatigue,

-she undressed herself, and, putting on a dingy

-gray night-gown, she crept into her big feather-bed.

-

-"It all depends on the girl," was her last reflection

-before sleep bore her off. "She isn't a bit stronger

-than I was at about the same age, and I'll bet the

-Chester power isn't a whit weaker than it was.

-Well, time will tell."

-

-Late in the night she was waked by a strange

-dream, and, to throw it out of mind, she rose and

-walked out into the entry and took a drink of water

-from the gourd. She had dreamed that Virginia

-had come to her bedraggled and torn, and had cried

-on her shoulder, and begged her for help and protection.

-In the dream she had pressed the girl's

-tear-wet face against her own and kissed her, and

-said: "I know what you feel, my child, for I've been

-through it from end to end; but if the whole world

-turns against you, come here to me and we'll live

-together—the young and old of the queerest fate

-known to womankind."

-

-"Ugh!" Ann ejaculated, with a shudder. "I

-wonder what's the matter with me." She went

-back to bed, lay down and drew her feet up under

-the sheets and shuddered. "To think I'd have a

-dream of that sort, and about *that woman's* child!"

-

-

-

-

-IX

-==

-

-

-It was the first Sunday in June. Mrs.

-Waycroft came along the stony hill-side

-road that slanted gently down

-from her house to Ann Boyd's. It

-was a dry, breezeless morning under

-an unclouded sun, and but for the earliness of the

-hour it would have been hot.

-

-"I was just wondering," she said to Ann, whom

-she found in the back-yard lowering a pail of butter

-into the well to keep it cool—"I was just wondering

-if you'd heard that a new man is to preach to-day.

-He's a Mr. Calhoun, from Marietta, a pretty good

-talker, I've heard."

-

-"No, I didn't know it," said Ann, as she let the

-hemp rope slowly glide through her fingers, till,

-with a soft sound, the pail struck the dark surface

-of the water forty feet below. "How am I to hear

-such things? Through the whole week, unless you

-happen along, I only have a pack of negroes about

-me, and they have their own meetings and shindigs

-to go to."

-

-Mrs. Waycroft put her hand on the smooth,

-wooden windlass and peered down into the well.

-"This is a better place, Ann, to keep milk and butter

-cool than a spring-house, if you can just make

-folks careful about letting the bucket down. I got

-my well filled with milk from a busted jug once,

-when one of the hands, in a big hurry, pushed the

-bucket in and let it fall to the water."

-

-"Nobody draws water here but me," said Ann.

-She had fixed her friend with a steady, penetrating

-stare. She was silent for a moment, then she said,

-abruptly: "You've got something else to say besides

-that about the new preacher; I have got so

-I read you like a book. I watched you coming along

-the road. I could see you over the roof of the house

-when you was high up in the edge of the timber,

-and I knew by your step you had something unusual

-on your mind. Besides, you know good and

-well that I'd never darken the door of that house

-again, not if forty new preachers held forth there.

-No, you didn't come all the way here so early for

-that."

-

-The other woman smiled sheepishly under her

-gingham bonnet.

-

-"I'm not going to meeting myself," she said,

-"and I reckon I was just talking to hear myself run

-on. I'm that away, you know."

-

-"You might learn not to beat the Old Nick around

-a stump with a woman like me," said Ann, firmly.

-"You know I go straight at a thing. I've found

-that it pays in business and everything else."

-

-"Well, then, I've come to tell you that I'm going

-over to Gilmer to-morrow to see my brother and his

-wife."

-

-"Ah, you say you are!" Ann showed surprise

-against her will. "Gilmer?"

-

-"Yes, you see, Ann, they've been after me for a

-long time, writing letters and sending word, so now

-that my crop is laid by I've not really got a good

-excuse to delay; seems like everything tends to pull

-me that way whether or no, for Pete McQuill is going

-over in the morning with an empty wagon, and, as

-he's coming back Thursday, why, it will just suit.

-I wouldn't want to stay longer than that."

-

-The two women stood staring at each other in silence

-for a moment, then Ann shrugged her powerful

-shoulders and averted her eyes.

-

-"That wasn't *all* you come to say," she said, almost

-tremulously.

-

-"No, it wasn't, Ann; I admit it wasn't *all*—not

-quite all."

-

-There was another silence. Ann fastened the end

-of the rope to a strong nail driven in the wood-work

-about the well with firm, steady fingers, then she

-sighed deeply.

-

-"You see, Ann," Mrs. Waycroft gathered courage

-to say, "your husband and Nettie live about

-half a mile or three-quarters from brother's, and I

-didn't know but what you—I didn't know but

-what I might accidentally run across them."

-

-Ann's face was hard as stone. Her eyes, resting

-on the far-off blue mountains and foot-hills, flashed

-like spiritual fires. It was at such moments that the

-weaker woman feared her, and Mrs. Waycroft's glance

-was almost apologetic. However, Ann spoke first.

-

-"You may as well tell me, Mary Waycroft," she

-faltered, "exactly what you had in mind. I know

-you are a friend. You are a friend if there ever was

-one to a friendless woman. What was you thinking

-about? Don't be afraid to tell me. You could

-not hurt my feelings to save your life."

-

-"Well, then, I will be plain, Ann," returned the

-widow. "I have queer thoughts about you sometimes,

-and last night I laid awake longer than usual

-and got to thinking about the vast and good blessings

-I have had in my children, and from that I got

-to thinking about you and the only baby you ever

-had."

-

-"Huh! you needn't bother about *that*," said Ann,

-her lips quivering. "I reckon I don't need sympathy

-in that direction."

-

-"But I *did* bother; I couldn't help it, Ann; for,

-you see, it seems to me that a misunderstanding

-is up between you and Nettie, anyway. She's a

-grown girl now, and I reckon she can hardly remember

-you; but I have heard, Ann, that she's never

-had the things a girl of her age naturally craves.

-She's got her beaus over there, too, so folks tell me,

-and wants to appear well; but Joe Boyd never was

-able to give her anything she needs. You see, Ann,

-I just sorter put myself in your place, as I laid there

-thinking, and it struck me that if I had as much

-substance as you have, and was as free to give to

-the needy as you are, that, even if the law *had*

-turned my child over to another to provide for, that

-I'd love powerful to do more for it than he was able,

-showing to the girl, and everybody else, that the

-court didn't know what it was about. And, Ann,

-in that way I'd feel that I was doing my duty in

-spite of laws or narrow public opinion."

-

-Ann Boyd's features were working, a soft flush

-had come into her tanned cheeks, her hard mouth

-had become more flexible.

-

-"I've thought of that ten thousand times," she

-said, huskily, "but I have never seen the time I

-could quite come down to it. Mary, it's a sort of

-pride that I never can overcome. I feel peculiar

-about Net—about the girl, anyway. It seems to

-me like she died away back there in her baby-clothes,

-with her playthings—her big rag-doll and

-tin kitchen—and that I almost hate the strange,

-grown-up person she's become away off from me.

-As God is my Judge, Mary Waycroft, I believe I

-could meet her face to face and not feel—feel like

-she was any near kin of mine, I can't see no reason

-in this way of feeling. I know she had nothing to

-do with what took place, but she represents Joe

-Boyd's part of the thing, and she's lost her place in

-my heart. If she could have grown up here with

-me it would have been different, but—" Ann went

-no further. She stood looking over the landscape,

-her hand clutching her strong chin. There was an

-awkward silence. Some of Ann's chickens came up

-to her very skirt, chirping and springing open-mouthed

-to her kindly hand for food. She gently

-and absent-mindedly waved her apron up and down

-and drove them away.

-

-"I understand all that," said Mrs. Waycroft;

-"but I believe you feel that way just because you've

-got in the habit of it. I really believe you ought

-to let me"—the speaker caught her breath—"ought

-to just let me tell Nettie, when I see her,

-about what I know you to be at heart, away down

-under what the outside world thinks. And you

-ought to let me say that if her young heart yearns

-for anything her pa can't afford to buy, that I know

-you'd be glad, out of your bounty, to give it to her.

-I really believe it would open the girl's eyes and

-heart to you. I believe she'd not only accept your

-aid, but she'd be plumb happy over it, as any other

-girl in the same fix would be."

-

-"Do you think that, Mary? Do you think she'd

-take anything—a single thing from my hands?"

-

-"I do, Ann, as the Lord is my Creator, I do; any

-natural girl would be only too glad. Young women

-hungering for nice things to put on along with

-other girls ain't as particular as some hide-bound

-old people. Then I'll bet she didn't know what it

-was all about, anyway."

-

-There was a flush in Ann's strong neck and face

-to the very roots of her hair. She leaned against

-the windlass and folded her bare arms. "Between

-me and you, as intimate friends, Mary Waycroft,

-I'd rather actually load that girl down with things

-to have and wear than to have anything on the

-face of this earth. I'd get on the train myself and

-go clean to Atlanta and lay myself out. What she

-had to wear would be the talk of the country for

-miles around. I'd do it to give the lie to the court

-that said she'd be in better hands than in mine

-when she went away with Joe Boyd. Oh, I'd do

-it fast enough, but there's no way. She wouldn't

-propose it, nor I wouldn't for my life. I wouldn't

-run the risk of being refused; that would actually

-humble me to the dust. No, I couldn't risk

-that."

-

-"I believe, Ann, that I could do it for you in such

-a way that——"

-

-"No, nobody could do it; it isn't to be done!"

-

-"I started to say, Ann, that I believed I could

-kind o' hint around and find out how the land lies

-without using your name at all."

-

-Ann Boyd held her breath; her face became fixed

-in suspense. She leaned forward, her great eyes

-staring eagerly at her neighbor.

-

-"Do you think you could do that?" she asked,

-finally, after a lengthy pause. "Do you think you

-could do it without letting either of them know I

-was—was willing?"

-

-"Yes, I believe I could, and you may let it rest

-right here. You needn't either consent or refuse,

-Ann, but I'll be back here about twelve o'clock

-Thursday, and I'll tell you what takes place."

-

-"I'll leave the whole thing in your hands," said

-Ann, and she moved towards the rear door of her

-house. "Now"—and her tone was more joyful than

-it had been for years—"come in and sit down."

-

-"No, I can't; I must hurry on back home," said

-the visitor. "I must get ready to go; Pete wants to

-make an early start."

-

-"You know you'll have plenty of time all this

-evening to stuff things in that carpet-bag of yours."

-Ann laughed, and her friend remarked that it was

-the first smile and joke she had heard from Ann

-Boyd since their girlhood together.

-

-"Well, I will go in, then," said Mrs. Waycroft.

-"I love to see you the way you are now, Ann. It

-does my heart good."

-

-But the mood was gone. Ann was serious again.

-They sat in the sitting-room chatting till the people

-who had been to meeting began to return homeward

-along the dusty road. Among them, in Sam Hemingway's

-spring wagon, with its wabbling wheels

-and ragged oil-cloth top, were Jane and her daughter

-Virginia, neither of whom looked towards the cottage

-as they passed.

-

-"I see Virginia's got a new hat," commented Mrs.

-Waycroft. "Her mother raked and scraped to get

-it; her credit's none too good. I hear she's in debt

-up to her eyes. Every stick of timber and animal

-down to her litter of pigs—even the farm tools—is

-under mortgage to money-lenders that won't stand

-no foolishness when pay-day comes. I saw two of

-'em, myself, looking over her crop the other day

-and shaking their heads at the sight of the puny

-corn and cotton this dry spell. But she'd have the

-hat for Virginia if it took the roof from over her

-head. Her very soul's bound up in that girl.

-Looks like she thinks Virginia's better clay than

-common folks. They say she won't let her go with

-the Halcomb girls because their aunt had that talk

-about her."

-

-"She's no better nor no worse, I reckon," said

-Ann, "than the general run of girls."

-

-"There goes Langdon Chester on his prancing

-horse," said Mrs. Waycroft. "Oh, my! that *was*

-a bow! He took off his hat to Virginia and bent

-clean down to his horse's mane. If she'd been a

-queen he couldn't have been more gallant. For all

-the world, like his father used to be to high and low.

-I'll bet that tickled Jane. I can see her rear herself

-back, even from here. I wonder if she's fool

-enough to think, rascal as he is, that Langdon

-Chester would want to marry a girl like Virginia

-just for her good looks."

-

-"No, he'll never marry her," Ann said, positively,

-and her face was hard, her eyes set in a queer stare

-at her neighbor. "He isn't the marrying sort. If

-he ever marries, he'll do it to feather his nest."

-

-The visitor rose to go, and Ann walked with her

-out to the gate. Mrs. Waycroft was wondering if

-she would, of her own accord, bring up the subject

-of their recent talk, but she did not. With her

-hand on the gate, she said, however, in a non-committal

-tone:

-

-"When did you say you'd be back?"

-

-"Thursday, at twelve o'clock, or thereabouts,"

-was the ready reply.

-

-"Well, take good care of yourself," said Ann.

-"That will be a long, hot ride over a rough road

-there and back."

-

-Going into her kitchen, Ann, with her roughly

-shod foot, kicked some live embers on the hearth

-under the pot and kettle containing her dinner,

-bending to examine the boiling string-beans and

-hunch of salt pork.

-

-"I don't feel a bit like eating," she mused,

-"but I reckon my appetite will come after I calm

-down. Let's see now. I've got two whole days to

-wait before she gets back, and then the Lord above

-only knows what the news will be. Seems to me

-sorter like I'm on trial again. Nettie was too

-young to appear for or against me before, but now

-she's on the stand. Yes, she's the judge, jury, and

-all the rest put together. I almost wish I hadn't

-let Mary Waycroft see I was willing. It may make

-me look like a weak, begging fool, and that's something

-I've avoided all these years. But the game

-is worth the risk, humiliating as it may turn out.

-To be able to do something for my own flesh and

-blood would give me the first joy I've had in many

-a year. Lord, Lord, maybe she will consent, and

-then I'll get some good out of all the means I've

-been piling up. Homely as they say she is, I'd

-like to fairly load her down till her finery would be

-the talk of the county, and shiftless Joe Boyd 'ud

-blush to see her rustle out in public. Maybe—I say

-*maybe*—nobody really knows what a woman will do—but

-maybe she'll just up and declare to him that

-she's coming back to me, where other things will

-match her outfit. Come back! how odd!—come

-back here where she used to toddle about and play

-with her tricks and toys, on the floor and in the yard.

-That would be a glorious vindication, and then—I

-don't know, but maybe I'd learn to love her. I'm

-sure I'd feel grateful for it—even—even if it was

-my money and nothing else that brought her to

-me."

-

-

-

-

-X

-=

-

-

-To Ann Boyd the period between Mrs.

-Waycroft's departure and return was

-long and fraught with conflicting

-emotions. Strange, half-defined new

-hopes fluttered into existence like

-young birds in air that was too chill, and this state

-of mind was succeeded by qualms of doubt and

-fear not unlike the misgivings which had preceded

-the child's birth; for it had been during that time

-of detachment from her little world that Ann's life

-secret had assumed its gravest and most threatening

-aspect. And if she had not loved the child

-quite as much after it came as might have seemed

-natural, she sometimes ascribed the shortcoming

-to that morbid period which had been filled with

-lurking shadows and constantly whispered threats

-rather than the assurances of a blessed maternity.

-

-Yes, the lone woman reflected, her kind neighbor

-had taken a reasonable view of the situation. And

-she tried valiantly to hold this pacifying thought

-over herself as she sat at her rattling and pounding

-loom, or in her walks of daily inspection over her

-fields and to her storage-houses, where her negro

-hands were at work. Yes, Nettie would naturally

-crave the benefits she could confer, and, to still

-darker promptings, Ann told herself, time after

-time, that, being plain-looking, the girl would all the

-more readily reach out for embellishments which

-would ameliorate that defect. Yes, it was not unlikely

-that she would want the things offered too

-much to heed the malicious and jealous advice of a

-shiftless father who thought only of his own pride

-and comfort. And while Ann was on this rack of

-disquietude over the outcome of Mrs. Waycroft's

-visit, there was in her heart a new and almost unusual

-absence of active hatred for the neighbors

-who had offended her. Old Abe Longley came by

-the second day after Mrs. Waycroft's departure.

-He was filled with the augmented venom of their

-last contact. His eyes flashed and the yellow

-tobacco-juice escaped from his mouth and trickled

-down his quivering chin as he informed her that

-he had secured from a good, law-abiding Christian

-woman the use of all the pasture-land he needed,

-and that she could keep hers for the devils' imps

-to play pranks on at night to her order. For just

-one instant her blood boiled, and then the thought

-of Mrs. Waycroft and her grave and spiritual mission

-cooled her from head to foot. She stared at

-the old man blankly for an instant, and then, without

-a word, turned into her house, leaving him astounded

-and considerably taken aback. That same

-day from her doorway she saw old Mrs. Bruce,

-Luke King's mother, slowly shambling along the

-road, and she went out and leaned on her gate till

-Mrs. Bruce was near, then she said, "Mrs. Bruce,

-I've got something to tell you."

-

-The pedestrian paused and then turned in her

-course and came closer.

-

-"You've heard from my boy?" she said, eagerly.

-

-"No, not since I saw you that day," said Ann.

-"But he's all right, Mrs. Bruce, as I told you, and

-prospering. I didn't come out to speak of him.

-I've decided to drop that law-suit against Gus Willard.

-He can keep his pond where it is and run his

-mill on."

-

-"Oh, you don't mean it, surely you don't mean

-it, Ann!" the old woman cried. "Why, Gus was

-just back from Darley last night and said your

-lawyers said thar was to be no hitch in the proceedings;

-but, of course, if *you* say so, why—"

-

-"Well, I *do* say so," said Ann, in a tone which

-sounded strange and compromising even to herself.

-"I *do* say so; I don't want your husband to lose his

-job. Luke wouldn't like for you to suffer, either,

-Mrs. Bruce."

-

-"Then I'll go at once and tell Willard," said the

-older woman. "He'll be powerful glad, Ann, and

-maybe he will think as I do, an' as Luke always

-contended against everybody, that you had a lots o'

-good away down inside of you."

-

-"Tell him what you want to," Ann answered,

-and she returned to her house.

-

-On the morning she was expecting Mrs. Waycroft

-to return, Ann rose even before daybreak,

-lighting an abundant supply of pine kindling-wood

-to drive away the moist darkness, and bustling about

-the house to kill time. It was the greatest crisis of

-her rugged life; not even the day she was wedded

-to Joe Boyd could equal it in impending gravity.

-She was on trial for her life; the jury had been in

-retirement two days and nights carefully weighing

-the evidence for and against the probability of a

-simple, untutored country girl's acceptance of certain

-luxuries dear to a woman's heart, and would

-shortly render a verdict.

-

-"She will," Ann said once, as she put her ground

-coffee into the tin pot to boil on the coals—"she will

-if she's like the ordinary girl; she won't if she's as

-stubborn as Joe or as proud as I am. But if she

-does—oh! if she does, won't I love to pick out the

-things! She shall have the best in the land, and

-she can wear them and keep them in the log-cabin

-her father's giving her till she will be willing to come

-here to this comfortable house and take the best

-room for herself. I don't know that I'd ever feel

-natural with a strange young woman about, but I'd

-go through it. If she didn't want to stay all the

-time, I'd sell factory stock or town lots and give

-her the means to travel on. She could go out and

-see the world and improve like Luke King's done.

-I'd send her to school if she has the turn and isn't

-past the age. It would be a great vindication for

-me. Folks could say her shiftless father took her

-off when she was too young to decide for herself, but

-when she got old enough to know black from white,

-and right from wrong, she obeyed her heart's promptings.

-But what am I thinking about, when right

-at this minute she may—?" Ann shrugged her

-shoulders as she turned from the cheerful fire and

-looked out on her fields enfolded in the misty robe

-of early morning. Above the dun mountain in the

-east the sky was growing yellow. Ann suddenly

-grew despondent and heaved a deep sigh.

-

-"Even if she *did* come here in the end, and I tried

-to do all I could," she mused, "Jane Hemingway

-would begin on her and make it unpleasant. She'd

-manage to keep all civilization away from the girl,

-and nobody couldn't stand that. No, I reckon the

-jig's up with me. I'm only floundering in a frying-pan

-that will cook me to a cinder in the end. This

-life's given me the power of making money, but it's

-yellow dross, and I hate it. It isn't the means to

-any end for me unless—unless—unless my dau—unless

-she *does* take Mrs. Waycroft's offer. Yes,

-she may—the girl actually may! And in that case

-she and I could run away from Jane Hemingway—clean

-off to some new place."

-

-Ann turned back to the fireplace and filled her

-big delft cup to the brim with strong coffee, and,

-blowing upon it to cool it, she gulped it down.

-

-"Let's see"—her musings ran on apace—"milching

-the three cows and feeding the cattle and horses

-and pigs and chickens will take an hour. I could

-stretch it out to that by mixing the feed-stuff for

-to-morrow. Then I could go to the loom and weave

-up all my yarn; that would be another hour. Then

-I might walk down to the sugar-mill and see if they

-are getting it fixed for use when the sorgum's ripe,

-but all that wouldn't throw it later than ten o'clock

-at latest, and there would still be two hours. Pete

-McQuill is easy on horses; he'll drive slow—a regular

-snail's pace; it will be twelve when he gets to

-the store, and then the fool may stop to buy something

-before he brings her on."

-

-The old-fashioned clock on the mantel-piece indicated

-that it was half-past eleven when Ann had

-done everything about the house and farm she could

-think of laying her hands to, and she was about to

-sit down in the shade of an apple-tree in the yard

-when she suddenly drew herself up under the inspiration

-of an idea. Why not start down the road

-to meet the wagon? No, that would not do. Even

-to such a close friend as Mrs. Waycroft she could

-not make such an obvious confession of the impatience

-which was devouring her. But, and she

-put the after-thought into action, she would go to

-the farthest corner of her own land, where her

-premises touched the main road, and that was fully

-half a mile. She walked to that point across her

-own fields rather than run the chance of meeting

-any one on the road, though the way over ploughed

-ground, bog, fen, and through riotous growth of

-thistle and clinging briers was anything but an

-easy one. Reaching the point to which she had

-directed her steps, and taking a hasty survey of

-the road leading gradually up the mountain, she

-leaned despondently on her rail-fence.

-

-"She won't, she won't—the girl won't!" she

-sighed. "I feel down in my heart of hearts that

-she won't. Joe Boyd won't let her; he'd see how

-ridiculous it would make him appear, and he'd

-die rather than give in, and yet Mary Waycroft

-knows something about human nature, and she said—Mary

-said—"

-

-Far up the road there was a rumble of wheels.

-Pete McQuill would let his horses go rapidly down-hill,

-and that, perhaps, was his wagon. It was.

-She recognized the gaunt, underfed white-and-bay

-pair through the trees on the mountain-side. Then

-Ann became all activity. She discovered that one

-of the rails of the panel of fence near by had quite

-rotted away, leaving an opening wide enough to

-admit of the passage of a small pig. To repair such

-a break she usually took a sound rail from some

-portion of the fence that was high enough to spare

-it, and this she now did, and was diligently at work

-when the wagon finally reached her. She did not

-look up, although she plainly heard Mrs. Waycroft's

-voice as she asked McQuill to stop.

-

-"You might as well let me out here," the widow

-said. "I'll walk back with Mrs. Boyd."

-

-The wagon was lumbering on its way when Ann

-turned her set face, down which drops of perspiration

-were rolling, towards her approaching friend.

-

-"You caught me hard at it." She tried to smile

-casually. "Do you know patching fence is the

-toughest work on a farm—harder 'n splitting rails,

-that men complain so much about."

-

-"It's a man's work, Ann, and a big, strong one's,

-too. You ought never to tax your strength like

-that. You don't mean to tell me you lifted that

-stack of rails to put in the new one."

-

-"Yes, but what's that?" Ann smiled. "I shouldered

-a hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of salt the

-other day, and it was as hard as a block of stone.

-I'm used to anything. But I'm through now.

-Let's walk on home and have a bite to eat."

-

-"You don't seem to care much whether—"

-Mrs. Waycroft paused and started again. "You

-haven't forgotten what I said I'd try to find out

-over there, have you, Ann?"

-

-"Me? Oh no, but I reckon I'm about pegged out

-with all I've done this morning. Don't I look tired?"

-

-"You don't looked tired—you look worried, Ann.

-I know you; you needn't try to hide your feelings

-from me. We are both women. When you are

-suffering the most you beat about the bush more

-than any other time. That's why this is going to

-be so hard for me."

-

-"It's going to be *hard* for you, then?" Ann's

-impulsive voice sounded hollow; her face had suddenly

-grown pale. "I know what *that* means. It

-means that Joe set his foot down against me and—"

-

-"I wish I could tell you all, every blessed word,

-Ann, but you've already had too much trouble in

-this life, and I feel like I was such a big, ignorant

-fool to get this thing up and make such a mess of it."

-

-Ann climbed over the fence and stood in the

-road beside her companion. Her face was twisted

-awry by some force bound up within her. She

-laid her big, toil-worn hand on Mrs. Waycroft's

-shoulder.

-

-"Now, looky here," she said, harshly. "I'm

-going to hear every word and know everything that

-took place. You must not leave out one single

-item. I've got the right to know it all, and I will.

-Now, you start in."

-

-"I hardly know how, Ann," the other woman

-faltered. "I didn't know folks in this world could

-have so little human pity or forgiveness."

-

-"You go ahead, do you hear me? You blaze

-away. I can stand under fire. I'm no kitten. Go

-ahead, I tell you."

-

-"Well, Ann, I met Joe and Nettie day before yesterday

-at bush-arbor meeting. Joe was there, and

-looked slouchier and more downhearted than he

-ever did in his life, and Nettie was there with the

-young man she is about to marry—a tall, serious-faced,

-parson-like young man, a Mr. Lawson. Well,

-after meeting, while he was off feeding his horse, I

-made a break and got the girl by herself. Well,

-Ann, from all I could gather, she—well, she didn't

-look at it favorably."

-

-"Stop!" Ann cried, peremptorily, "I don't want

-any shirking. I want to hear actually every word

-she said. This thing may never come up between

-you and me again while the sun shines, and I want

-the truth. You are not toting fair. I want the

-facts—\ *every word the girl said*, every look, every

-bat of the eye, every sneer. I'm prepared. You

-talk plain—\ *plain*, I tell you!"

-

-"I see I'll *have* to," sighed Mrs. Waycroft, her eyes

-averted from the awful stare in Ann's eyes. "The

-truth is, Ann, Nettie's been thinking all her life,

-till just about a month ago, that you were—dead.

-Joe Boyd told her you was dead and buried, and

-got all the neighbors to keep the truth from her.

-It leaked out when she got engaged to young Lawson;

-his folks, Ann, they are as hide-bound and

-narrow as the worst hard-shell Baptists here—his

-folks raised objections and tried to break it off."

-

-"On account of me?" said Ann, under her breath.

-

-"Well, they tried to break it off," evaded Mrs.

-Waycroft, "and, in all the trouble over it, Nettie

-found out the facts—Joe finally told her. They

-say, Ann, that it brought her down to a sick-bed.

-She's a queer sort of selfish girl, that had always

-held her head too high, and the discovery went hard

-with her. Then, Ann, the meanest thing that was

-ever done by a human being took place. Jane

-Hemingway was over there visiting a preacher's

-wife she used to know, and she set in circulation the

-blackest lie that was ever afloat. Ann, she told over

-there that all your means—all the land and money

-you have made by hard toil, big brain, and saving—come

-to you underhand."

-

-"Underhand?" Ann exclaimed. "What did she

-mean by that, pray? What could the old she-cat

-mean by—"

-

-Mrs. Waycroft drew her sun-bonnet down over

-her eyes. She took a deep breath. "Ann, she's a

-*terrible* woman. I used to think maybe you went

-too far in hating her so much, but I don't blame

-you now one bit. On the way over the mountain, I

-looked all the circumstances over, and actually made

-up my mind that you'd almost be justified in killing

-her, law or no law. Ann, she circulated a report

-over there that all you own in the world was

-given to you by Colonel Chester."

-

-"Ugh! Oh, my God!" Ann groaned like a strong

-man in sudden pain; and then, with her face hidden

-by her poke-bonnet, she trudged heavily along by

-her companion in total silence.

-

-"I've told you the worst now," Mrs. Waycroft

-said. "Nettie had heard all that, and so had Lawson.

-His folks finally agreed to raise no objections

-to the match if she'd never mention your name.

-Naturally, when I told her about what I thought

-*maybe*—you understand, *maybe*—you'd be willing to

-do she was actually scared. She cried pitifully, and

-begged me never to allow you to bother her. She

-said—I told you she looked like a selfish creature—that

-if the Lawsons were to find out that you'd

-been sending her messages it might spoil all. I

-told her it was all a lie of Jane Hemingway's making

-out of whole cloth, but the silly girl wouldn't

-listen. I thought she was going to have a spasm."

-

-They had reached the gate, and, with a firm,

-steady hand, Ann opened it and held it ajar for her

-guest to enter before her.

-

-They trudged along the gravel walk, bordered

-with uneven stones, to the porch and went in. On

-entering the house Ann always took off her bonnet.

-She seemed to forget its existence now.

-

-"Yes, I hate that woman," Mrs. Waycroft heard

-her mutter, "and if the Lord doesn't furnish me

-with some way of getting even I'll die a miserable

-death. I could willingly see her writhe on a bed

-of live coals. No hell could be hot enough for that

-woman." Ann paused suddenly at the door, and

-gazed across the green expanse towards Jane's

-house. Mrs. Waycroft heard her utter a sudden,

-harsh laugh. "And I think I see her punishment

-on the way. I see it—I see it!"

-

-"What is it you say you see?" the visitor asked,

-curiously.

-

-"Oh, nothing!" Ann said, and she sat down

-heavily in her chair and tightly locked her calloused

-hands in front of her.

-

-

-

-

-XI

-==

-

-

-The continuous dry weather during

-the month of June had caused many

-springs and a few wells to become dry,

-and the women of that section found

-it difficult to get sufficient soft water

-for the washing of clothes. Mrs. Hemingway,

-whose own well was fed from a vein of limestone

-water too hard to be of much use in that way, remembered

-a certain rock-bottom pool in a shaded

-nook at the foot of the rugged hill back of her

-house where at all times of the year a quantity of

-soft, clear water was to be found; so thither, with

-a great bundle of household linen tied up in a sheet,

-she went one morning shortly after breakfast.

-

-Her secret ailment had not seemed to improve

-under the constant application of the peddler's

-medicine, and, as her doubts of ultimate recovery

-increased correspondingly, her strength seemed to

-wane. Hence she paused many times on the way

-to the pool to rest. Finally arriving at the spot

-and lowering her burden, she met a great and irritating

-surprise, for, bending over a tub at the

-edge of the pool, and quite in command of the only

-desirable space for the placing of tubs and the

-sunning of articles, was Ann Boyd. Their eyes met

-in a stare of indecision like that of two wild animals

-meeting in a forest, and there was a moment's preliminary

-silence. It was broken by an angry outburst

-from the new-comer. "Huh!" she grunted,

-"you here?"

-

-It was quickly echoed by a satisfied laugh from

-the depths of Ann's sun-bonnet. "You bet, old

-lady, I've beat you to the tank. You've toted your

-load here for nothing. You might go down-stream

-a few miles and find a hole good enough for your

-few dirty rags. I've used about all this up. It's

-getting too muddy to do any good, but I've got

-about all I want."

-

-"This land isn't yours," Jane Hemingway asserted,

-almost frothing at the mouth. "It belongs

-to Jim Sansom."

-

-"Jim may hold deeds to it," Ann laughed again,

-"but he's too poor to fence it in. I reckon it's

-public property, or you wouldn't have lugged that

-dirty load all the way through the broiling sun on

-that weak back of yours."

-

-Jane Hemingway stood panting over her big

-snowball. She had nothing to say. She could not

-find a use for her tongue. Through her long siege of

-underhand warfare against the woman at the tub

-she had wisely avoided a direct clash with Ann's

-eye, tongue, or muscle. She was more afraid of those

-things to-day than she had ever been. A chill of

-strange terror had gone through her, too, at the

-mention of her weak back. That the peddler had

-told Ann about the cancer she now felt was more

-likely than ever. Without a word, Jane bent to lift

-her bundle, but her enemy, dashing the water from

-her big, crinkled hands, had advanced towards her.

-

-"You just wait a minute," Ann said, sharply, her

-great eyes flashing, her hands resting on her stocky

-hips. "I've got something to say to you, and I'm

-glad to get this chance. What I've got to hurl in

-your death-marked face, Jane Hemingway, isn't

-for other ears. It's for your own rotting soul. Now,

-you listen!"

-

-Jane Hemingway gasped. "Death-marked face,"

-the root of her paralyzed tongue seemed to articulate

-to the wolf-pack of fears within her. Her thin

-legs began to shake, and, to disguise the weakness

-from her antagonist's lynx eyes, she sank down upon

-her bundle. It yielded even to her slight weight,

-and her sharp knees rose to a level with her chin.

-

-"I don't want to talk to you," she managed to

-say, almost in a tone of appeal.

-

-"Oh, I know that, you trifling hussy, but I do

-to you, Jane Hemingway. I'm going to tell you

-what you are. You are worse than a thief—than

-a negro thief that steals corn from a crib at night,

-or meat from a smoke-house. You are a low-lived,

-plotting liar. For years you have railed out against

-my character. I was a bad woman because I admitted

-my one fault of girlhood, but you married a

-man and went to bed with him that you didn't love

-a speck. You did that to try to hide a real love for

-another man who was another woman's legal husband.

-Are you listening?—I say, are you *listening*?"

-

-"Yes, I'm listening," faltered Jane Hemingway,

-her face hidden under her bonnet.

-

-"Well, you'd better. When I had my first great

-trouble, God is witness to the fact that I thought I

-loved the young scamp who brought it about. I

-*thought* I loved him, anyway. That's all the excuse

-I had for not listening to advice of older people.

-I wasn't old enough to know right from wrong, and,

-like lots of other young girls, I was bull-headed. My

-mother never was strict with me, and nobody else was

-interested in me enough to learn me self-protection.

-I've since then been through college in that line, and

-such low, snaky agents of hell as you are were my

-professors. No wonder you have hounded me all

-these years. You loved Joe Boyd with all the soul

-you had away back there, and you happened to be

-the sort that couldn't stand refusal. So when you

-met him that day on the road, and he told you he

-was on the way to ask me the twentieth time to be

-his wife, you followed him a mile and fell on his

-neck and threatened suicide, and begged and cried

-and screamed so that the wheat-cutting gang at

-Judmore's wondered if somebody's house was afire.

-But he told you a few things about what he thought

-of me, and they have rankled with you through

-your honeymoon with an unloved husband, through

-your period of childbirth, and now as you lean over

-your grave. Bad woman that you are, you married

-a man you had no respect for to hide your disappointment

-in another direction. You are decent

-in name only. Thank God, my own conscience is

-clear. I've been wronged all my life more than I

-ever wronged beast or man. I had trouble; but I

-did no wrong according to my dim lights. But you—you

-with one man's baby on your breast went on

-hounding the wife of another who had won what

-you couldn't get. You, I reckon, love Joe Boyd to

-this day, and will the rest of your life. I reckon

-you thought when he left me that he would marry

-you, but no man cares for a woman that cries after

-him. You even went over there to Gilmer a month

-or so ago to try to attract his attention with new

-finery bought on a credit, and you even made up to

-the daughter that was stolen from me, but I have it

-from good authority that neither one of them wanted

-to have anything to do with you."

-

-"There's not a bit of truth in that," said the

-weaker woman, in feeble self-defence. She would

-have said some of the things she was always saying

-to others but for fear that, driven further, the strong

-woman might actually resort to violence. No, there

-was nothing for Jane Hemingway to do but to listen.

-

-"Oh, I don't care what you deny," Ann hurled

-at her. "I know what I'm talking about." Then

-Ann's rage led her to say something which, in calmer

-mood, she would, for reasons of her own, not have

-even hinted at. "Look here, Jane," she went on,

-bending down and touching the shrinking shoulder

-of her enemy, "in all your life you never heard me

-accused of making false predictions. When I say

-a thing, folks know that I know what I'm talking

-about and look for it to happen. So now I say,

-positively, that I'm going to get even with you.

-Hell and all its inmates have been at your back for

-a score of years, but God—Providence, the law of

-nature, or whatever it is that rights wrong—is bound

-to prevail, and you are going to face a misfortune—a

-certain sort of misfortune—that I know all about.

-I reckon I'm making a fool of myself in preparing

-you for it, but I'm so glad it's coming that I've got

-to tell it to somebody. When the grim time comes

-I want you to remember that you brought it on

-yourself."

-

-Ann ceased speaking and stood all of a quiver

-before the crouching creature. Jane Hemingway's

-blood, at best sluggish of action, turned cold.

-With her face hidden by her bonnet, she sat staring

-at the ground. All her remaining strength seemed

-to have left her. She well knew what Ann meant.

-The peddler had told her secret—had even revealed

-more of the truth than he had to her. Discovering

-that Ann hated her, he had gone into grim and minute

-particulars over her affliction. He had told Ann

-the cancer was fatal, that the quack lotion he had

-sold would only keep the patient from using a better

-remedy or resorting to the surgeon's knife. In any

-case, her fate was sealed, else Ann would not be so

-positive about it.

-

-"I see I hit you all right that pop, madam!" Ann

-chuckled. "Well, you will wait the day in fear and

-trembling that is to be my sunrise of joy. Now,

-pick up your duds and go home. I want you out of

-my sight."

-

-Like a subject under hypnotic suggestion, Jane

-Hemingway, afraid of Ann, and yet more afraid of

-impending fate, rose to her feet. Ann had turned

-back to her tub and bent over it. Jane felt a feeble

-impulse to make some defiant retort, but could not

-rouse her bound tongue to action. In her helplessness

-and fear she hated her enemy more than ever

-before, but could find no adequate way of showing it.

-The sun had risen higher and its rays beat fiercely

-down on her thin back, as she managed to shoulder

-her bundle and move homeward.

-

-

-

-

-XII

-===

-

-

-She had scarcely turned the bend in

-the path, and was barely out of Ann's

-view, when she had to lower her bundle

-and rest. Seated on a moss-grown

-stone near the dry bed of the stream

-which had fed Ann's pool before the drought, she

-found herself taking the most morbid view of her

-condition. The delicate roots of the livid growth

-on her breast seemed to be insidiously burrowing

-more deeply towards her heart than ever before.

-Ah, what a fool she had been at such a crisis to listen

-to an idle tramp, who had not only given her a

-stone when she had paid for bread, but had revealed

-her secret to the one person she had wished to keep

-it from! But she essayed to convince herself that all

-hope was not gone, and the very warning Ann had

-angrily uttered might be turned to advantage. She

-would now be open about her trouble, since Ann

-knew it, anyway, and perhaps medical skill might

-help her, even yet, to triumph. Under that faint

-inspiration she shouldered her burden and crept

-slowly homeward.

-

-Reaching her cottage, she dropped the ball of

-clothes at the door and went into the sitting-room,

-where Virginia sat complacently sewing at a window

-on the shaded side of the house. The girl had only a

-few moments before washed her long, luxuriant hair,

-and it hung loose and beautiful in the warm air.

-She was merrily singing a song, and hardly looked at

-her mother as she paused near her.

-

-"Hush, for God's sake, hush!" Jane groaned.

-"Don't you see I'm unable to stand?"

-

-In sheer astonishment Virginia turned her head

-and noticed her mother's pale, long-drawn face.

-"What is it, mother, are you sick?"

-

-By way of reply the old woman sank into one of

-the hide-bottomed chairs near the open doorway

-and groaned again. Quickly rising, and full of

-grave concern, the girl advanced to her. Standing

-over the bowed form, she looked out through the

-doorway and saw the bundle of clothes.

-

-"You don't mean to tell me, mother, that you

-have carried that load all about looking for water

-to wash in!" she exclaimed, aghast.

-

-"Yes, I took them to the rock-pool and back; but

-that ain't it," came from between Jane's scrawny

-hands, which were now spread over her face. "I

-am strong enough bodily, still, but I met Ann Boyd

-down there. She had all the place there was, and

-had muddied up the water. Virginia, she knows

-about that spot on my breast that the medicine

-peddler said was a cancer. She wormed it out of

-him. He told her more than he did me. He told

-her it would soon drag me to the grave. It's a great

-deal worse than it was before I began to rub his

-stuff on it. He's a quack. I was a fool not to go

-to a regular doctor right at the start."

-

-"You think, then, that it really *is* a cancer?"

-gasped the girl, and she turned pale.

-

-"Yes, I have no doubt of it now, from the way it

-looks and from the way that woman gloated over

-me. She declared she knew all about it, and that

-nothing on earth had made her so glad. I want to

-see Dr. Evans. I wish you'd run over to his house

-and have him come."

-

-"But he's not a regular doctor," protested the

-girl, mildly. "They say he is not allowed to practise,

-and that he only uses remedies of his own

-making. The physicians at Darley were talking of

-having him arrested not long ago."

-

-"Oh, I know all that," Jane said, petulantly,

-"but that's because he cured one or two after they

-had been given up by licensed doctors. He knows

-a lots, and he will tell me, anyway, whether I've

-got a cancer or not. He knows what they are. He

-told Mrs. Hiram Snodgrass what her tumor was,

-and under his advice she went to Atlanta and had

-it cut out, and saved her life when two doctors was

-telling her it was nothing but a blood eruption that

-would pass off. You know he is good-hearted."

-

-With a troubled nod, Virginia admitted that this

-was true. Her sweet mouth was drawn down in

-pained concern, a stare of horror lay in her big,

-gentle eyes. "I'll go bring him," she promised.

-"I saw him pass with a bag of meal from the mill

-just now."

-

-"Well, tell him not to say anything about it,"

-Jane cautioned her. "Evidently Ann Boyd has not

-talked about it much, and I don't want it to be all

-over the neighborhood. I despise pity. I'm not

-used to it. If it gets out, the tongues of these busy-bodies

-would run me stark crazy. They would

-roost here like a swarm of buzzards over a dying

-horse."

-

-Virginia returned in about half an hour, accompanied

-by a gray-headed and full-whiskered man of

-about seventy years of age, who had any other than

-the look of even a country doctor. He wore no

-coat, and his rough shirt was without button from

-his hairy neck to the waistband of his patched and

-baggy trousers. His fat hands were too much

-calloused by labor in the field and forest, and by

-digging for roots and herbs, to have felt the pulse

-of anything more delicate than an ox, and under

-less grave circumstances his assumed air of the regular

-visiting physician would have had its comic

-side.

-

-"Virginia tells me you are a little upset to-day,"

-he said, easily, after he had gone to the water-bucket

-and taken a long, slow drink from the gourd.

-He sat down in a chair near the widow, and laid his

-straw hat upon the floor, from which it was promptly

-removed by Virginia to one of the beds. "Let

-me take a look at your tongue."

-

-"I'll do no such of a thing," retorted Jane, most

-flatly. "There is nothing wrong with my stomach.

-I am afraid I've got a cancer on my breast, and I

-want to make sure."

-

-"You don't say!" Evans exclaimed. "Well, it

-wouldn't surprise me. I see 'em mighty often these

-days. Well, you'd better let me look at it. Stand

-thar in the door so I can get a good light. I'm wearing

-my wife's specks. I don't know whar I laid mine,

-but I hope I'll get 'em back. I only paid twenty-five

-cents for 'em in Darley, and yet three of my

-neighbors has taken such a liking to 'em that I've

-been offered as high as three dollars for 'em, and

-they are only steel rims and are sorter shackly at

-the hinges at that. Every time Gus Willard wants

-to write a letter he sends over for my specks and

-lays his aside. I reckon he thinks I'll get tired

-sendin' back for 'em and get me another pair. Now,

-that's right"—Mrs. Hemingway had taken a

-stand in one of the rear doors and unbuttoned her

-dress. Despite her stoicism, she found herself holding

-her breath in fear and suspense as to what his

-opinion would be. Virginia, pale and with a fainting

-sensation, sat on the edge of the nearest bed,

-her shapely hands tightly clasped in her lap. She

-saw Dr. Evans bend close to her mother's breast

-and touch and press the livid spot.

-

-"Do you feel that?" he asked.

-

-"Yes, and it hurts some when you do that."

-

-"How long have you had it thar?" he paused

-in his examination to ask, peering over the rims of

-his spectacles.

-

-"I noticed it first about a year ago, but thought

-nothing much about it," she answered.

-

-"And never showed it to nobody?" he said, reprovingly.

-

-"I let a peddler, who had stuff to sell, see it awhile

-back." There was a touch of shame in Jane's face.

-"He said his medicine would make it slough off,

-but—"

-

-"Slough nothing! That trifling skunk!" Evans

-cried. "Why, he's the biggest fake unhung! He

-sold that same stuff over the mountain to bald-headed

-men to make hair grow. Huh, I say! they

-talk about handling *me* by law, and kicking *me* out

-of the country on account of my knowledge and

-skill, and let chaps like him scour the country from

-end to end for its last cent. What the devil gets

-into you women? Here you've let this thing go on

-sinking its fangs deeper and deeper in your breast,

-and only fertilizing it by the treatment he was giving

-you. Are you hankering for a change of air?

-Thar was Mrs. Telworthy, that let her liver run on

-till she was as yaller as a pumpkin with jaundice

-before she'd come to me. I give 'er two bottles of

-my purifier, and she could eat a barbecued ox in

-a month."

-

-"What do you think I ought to do about this?"

-asked Jane; and Virginia, with strange qualms at

-heart, thought that her mother had put it that

-way to avoid asking if the worst was really to be

-faced.

-

-Evans stroked his bushy beard wisely. "Do

-about it?" he repeated, as he went back to his chair,

-leaving the patient to button her dress with stiff,

-fumbling fingers. "I mought put you on a course

-of my blood purifier and wait developments, and,

-Sister Hemingway, if I was like the regular run

-of doctors, with their own discoveries on the market,

-I'd do it in the interest of science, but I'm not

-going to take the resk on my shoulders. A man

-who gives domestic remedies like mine is on safe

-ground when he's treating ordinary diseases, but

-I reckon a medical board would decide that this was

-a case for a good, steady knife. Now, I reckon

-you'd better get on the train and take a run down

-to Atlanta and put yourself under Dr. Putnam, who

-is noted far and wide as the best cancer expert in

-the land."

-

-"Then—then that's what it is?" faltered Mrs.

-Hemingway.

-

-"Oh yes, that's what you've got, all right

-enough," said Evans, "and the thing now is to

-uproot it."

-

-"How—how much would it be likely to cost?"

-the widow asked, her troubled glance on Virginia's

-horror-stricken face.

-

-"That depends," mused Evans. "I've sent Putnam

-a number of cases, and he would, I think, make

-you a special widow-rate, being as you and me live

-so nigh each other. At a rough guess, I'd say that

-everything—board and room and nurse, treatment,

-medicines, and attention—would set you back a hundred

-dollars."

-

-"But where am I to get that much money?" Jane

-said, despondently.

-

-"Well, thar you have me," Evans laughed. "I

-reckon you know your resources better than anybody

-else, but you'll have to rake it up some way.

-You ain't ready to die yet. Callihan has a mortgage

-on your land, hain't he?"

-

-"Yes, and on my crop not yet gathered," Jane

-sighed; "he even included every old hoe and axe

-and piece of harness, and the cow and calf, and every

-chair and knife and fork and cracked plate in the

-house."

-

-"Well," and Evans rose and reached for his hat,

-"as I say, you'll have to get up the money; it will

-be the best investment you could make."

-

-When he had left, Virginia, horror-stricken, sat

-staring at her mother, a terrible fear in her face and

-eyes.

-

-"Then it really *is* a cancer?" she gasped.

-

-"Yes, I was afraid it was all along," said Jane.

-"You see, the peddler said so plainly, and he told

-Ann Boyd about it. Virginia, she didn't know I knew

-how bad it was, for she hinted at some awful end

-that was to overtake me, as if it would be news to me.

-Daughter, I'm going to try my level best to throw

-this thing off. I always had a fear of death. My

-mother had before me; she was a Christian woman,

-and was prepared, if anybody was, and yet she died

-in agony. She laid in bed and begged for help with

-her last breath. But my case is worse than hers,

-for my one foe in this life is watching over me like

-a hawk. Oh, I can't stand it! You must help me

-study up some way to raise that money. If it was

-in sight, I'd feel better. Doctors can do wonders

-these days, and I'll go to that big one if I possibly

-can."

-

-

-

-

-XIII

-====

-

-

-One afternoon, about a week later, as

-Ann Boyd sat in her weaving-room

-twisting bunches of carded wool into

-yarn on her old spinning-wheel, the

-whir of which on her busy days could

-be heard by persons passing along the road in front

-of her gate, a shadow fell on her floor, and, looking

-up, she saw a tall, handsome young man in the doorway,

-holding his hat in one hand, a valise in the

-other. He said nothing, but only stood smiling, as if

-in hearty enjoyment of the surprise he was giving her.

-

-"Luke King!" she exclaimed. "You, of all people

-on the face of the earth!"

-

-"Yes, Aunt Ann"—he had always addressed

-her in that way—"here I am, like a bad coin, always

-turning up."

-

-The yellow bunches of wool fell to the floor as

-she rose up and held out her hand.

-

-"You know I'm glad to see you, my boy," she

-said, "but I wasn't expecting you; I don't know

-as I ever looked for you to come back here again,

-where you've had such a hard time of it. When

-you wrote me you was the chief editor of a paying

-paper out there, I said to myself that you'd never

-care to work here in the mountains, where there is

-so little to be made by a brainy man."

-

-"If I were to tell you the main thing that brought

-me back you'd certainly scold me," he laughed;

-"but I never hid a fault from you, Aunt Ann. The

-truth is, good, old-fashioned home-sickness is at the

-bottom of it."

-

-"Homesickness, for *this*?" Ann sneered contemptuously,

-as she waved her hand broadly—"homesick

-for the hard bed you had at your step-father's,

-in a pine-pole cabin, with a mud chimney

-and windows without glass, when you've been

-the equal, out there, of the highest and best in the

-land, and among folks that could and would appreciate

-your talents and energy and were able to pay

-cash for it at the highest market-price?"

-

-"You don't understand, Aunt Ann." He flushed

-sensitively under her stare of disapproval as he

-sat down in a chair near her wheel. "Maybe you

-never did understand me thoroughly. I always had

-a big stock of sentiment that I couldn't entirely

-kill. Aunt Ann, all my life away has only made me

-love these old mountains, hills, and valleys more

-than ever, and, finally, when a good opportunity

-presented itself, as—"

-

-"Oh, you are just like the rest, after all. I'd hoped

-to the contrary," Ann sighed. "But don't think

-I'm not glad to see you, Luke." Her voice shook

-slightly. "God knows I've prayed for a sight of

-the one face among all these here in the mountains

-that seemed to respect me, but there was another

-side to the matter. I wanted to feel, Luke, that I

-had done you some actual good in the world—that

-the education I helped you to get was going to lift

-you high above the average man. When you wrote

-about all your good-luck out there, the big salary,

-the interest the stockholders had given you in the

-paper that bid fair to make a pile of money, and

-stood so high in political influence, I was delighted;

-but, Luke, if a sentimental longing for these heartless

-red hills and their narrow, hide-bound inhabitants

-has caused you actually to throw up—"

-

-"Oh, it's really not so bad as that," King hastened

-to say. "The truth is—though I really *was*

-trying to keep from bragging about my good-fortune

-before I'd had a chance to ask after your health—the

-truth is, Aunt Ann, it's business that really

-brings me back, though I confess it was partly for

-sentimental reasons that I decided on the change.

-It's this way: A company has been formed in Atlanta

-to run a daily paper on somewhat similar lines to

-the one we had in the West, and the promoters of

-it, it seems, have been watching my work, and that

-sort of thing, and so, only a few days ago, they

-wrote offering me a good salary to assume chief

-charge and management of the new paper. At

-first I declined, in a deliberate letter, but they

-wouldn't have it that way—they telegraphed me

-that they would not listen to a refusal, and offered

-me the same financial interest as the one I held."

-

-"Ah, they did, eh?" Ann's eye for business was

-gleaming. "They offered you as good as you had?"

-

-"Better, as it has turned out, Aunt Ann," said

-King, modestly, "for when my associates out there

-read the proposition, they said it was my duty to

-myself to accept, and with that they took my stock

-off my hands. They paid me ten thousand dollars

-in cash, Aunt Ann. I've got that much ready

-money and a position that is likely to be even better

-than the one I had. So, you see, all my home-sickness—"

-

-"Ten thousand dollars!" Ann cried, her strong

-face full of gratification. "Ten thousand dollars

-for my sturdy mountain-boy! Ah, that will open

-the eyes of some of these indolent know-it-all louts

-who said the money spent on your education was

-thrown in the fire. You are all right, Luke. I'm

-a judge of human stock as well as cattle and horses.

-If you'd been a light fellow you'd have dropped me

-when you began to rise out there; but you didn't.

-Your letters have been about the only solace I've

-had here in all my loneliness and strife, and here

-you are to see me as soon as you come—that is, I

-reckon, you haven't been here many days."

-

-"I got to Darley at two o'clock to-day," King

-smiled, affectionately. "I took the hack to Springtown

-and left my trunk there, to walk here. I

-haven't seen mother yet, Aunt Ann. I had to see

-you first."

-

-"You are a good boy, Luke," Ann said, with

-feeling, as was indicated by her husky voice and

-the softening of her features. "So you *are* going

-to see your mother?"

-

-"Yes, I'm going to see her, Aunt Ann. For several

-years I have felt resentment about her marrying

-as she did, but, do you know, I think success and

-good-fortune make one forgiving. Somehow, with

-all my joy over my good-luck, I feel like I'd like to

-shake even lazy old Mark Bruce by the hand and

-tell him I am willing to let by-gones be by-gones.

-Then, if I could, I'd like to help him and my mother

-and step-brother and step-sisters in some material

-way."

-

-"Huh! I don't know about that," Ann frowned.

-"Help given to them sort is certainly throwed away;

-besides, what's yours is yours, and if you started in

-to distribute help you'll be ridden to death. No,

-go to see them if you *have* to, but don't let them

-wheedle your justly earned money out of you. They

-don't deserve it, Luke."

-

-"Oh, well, we'll see about it," King laughed,

-lightly. "You know old Bruce may kick me out

-of the house, and if mother stood to him in it

-again"—King's eyes were flashing, his lip was

-drawn tight—"I guess I'd never go back any more,

-Aunt Ann."

-

-"Old Mark would never send you away if he

-thought you had money," Ann said, cynically. "If

-I was you I'd not let them know about that. You

-see, you could keep them in the dark easily enough,

-for I've told them absolutely nothing except that

-you were getting along fairly well."

-

-King smiled. "They never would think I had

-much to judge by this suit of clothes," he said. "It

-is an old knockabout rig I had to splash around in

-the mud in while out hunting, and I put it on this

-morning—well, just because I did not want to come

-back among all my poor relatives and friends

-dressed up as I have been doing in the city, Aunt

-Ann," he laughed, as if making sport of himself.

-"I've got a silk high-hat as slick as goose-grease,

-and a long jimswinger coat, and pants that are always

-ironed as sharp as a knife-blade in front. I

-took your advice and decided that a good appearance

-went a long way, but I don't really think I

-overdid it."

-

-"I'm glad you didn't put on style in coming

-back, anyway," Ann said, proudly. "It wouldn't

-have looked well in you; but you did right to dress

-like the best where you were, and it had something—a

-lots, I imagine—to do with your big success.

-If you want to go in and win in any undertaking,

-don't think failure for one minute, and the trouble

-is that shabby clothes are a continual reminder of

-poverty. Make folks believe at the outset that

-you are of the best, and then *be* the best."

-

-King was looking down thoughtfully. "There

-is one trouble," he said, "in making a good appearance,

-and that comes from the ideas of some as to

-what sort of man or woman is the best. Before I

-left Seattle, Aunt Ann, my associates gave me a

-big dinner at the club—a sort of good-bye affair to

-drink to my future, you know—and some of the

-most distinguished men in the state were there,

-men prominent in the business and political world.

-And that night, Aunt Ann"—King had flushed

-slightly and his voice faltered—"that night a well-meaning

-man, a sort of society leader, in his toast

-to me plainly referred to me as a scion of the old

-Southern aristocracy, and he did it in just such a

-way as to make it appear to those who knew otherwise

-that I would be sailing under false colors if

-I did not correct the impression. He had made

-a beautiful talk about our old colonial homes, our

-slaves in livery, our beautiful women, who invariably

-graced the courts of Europe, and concluded

-by saying that it was no wonder I had succeeded

-where many other men with fewer hereditary influences

-to back them had failed."

-

-"Ah, you *were* in a fix!" Ann said. "That is, it

-was awkward for you, who I know to be almost too

-sincere for your own good."

-

-"Well, I couldn't let it pass, Aunt Ann—I simply

-couldn't let all those men leave that table under

-a wrong impression. I hardly know what I said

-when I replied, but it seemed to be the right thing,

-for they all applauded me. I told him I did not

-belong to what was generally understood to be the

-old aristocracy of the South, but to what I considered

-the new. I told them about our log-cabin

-aristocracy, Aunt Ann, here in these blue mountains,

-for which my soul was famished. I told them of

-the sturdy, hard-working, half-starved mountaineers

-and their scratching, with dull tools, a bare existence

-out of this rocky soil. I told them of my bleak

-and barren boyhood, my heart-burnings at home,

-when my mother married again, the nights I'd

-spent at study in the light of pine-knots that filled

-the house with smoke. Then I told them about the

-grandest woman God ever brought to life. I told

-them about you, Aunt Ann. I gave no names,

-went into no painful particulars, but I talked about

-what you had done for me, and how you've been

-persecuted and misunderstood, till I could hardly

-hold back the tears from my eyes."

-

-"Oh, hush, Luke," Ann said, huskily—"hush

-up!"

-

-"Well, I may now, but I couldn't that night,"

-said King. "I got started, and it came out of me

-like a flood. I said things about you that night

-that I've thought for years, but which you never

-would let me say to you."

-

-"Hush, Luke, hush—you are a good boy, but

-you mustn't—" Ann's voice broke, and she placed

-her hand to her eyes.

-

-"There was a celebrated novelist there," King

-went on, "and after dinner he came over to me and

-held out his hand. He was old and white-haired,

-and his face was full of tender, poetic emotion. 'If

-you ever meet your benefactress again,' he said,

-'tell her I'd give half my life to know her. If I'd

-known her I could write a book that would be immortal.'"

-

-There was a pause. Ann seemed to be trying to

-crush out some obstruction to deliberate utterance

-in her big, throbbing throat.

-

-"If he knew my life just as it has been," she said,

-finally—"if he knew it all—all that I've been through,

-all I've thought through it all, from the time I was

-an innocent, laughing girl 'till now, as an old woman,

-I'm fighting a battle of hate with every living soul

-within miles of me—if he knew all *that*, he could

-write a book, and it would be a big one. But it

-wouldn't help humanity, Luke. My hate's mine,

-and the devil's. It's not for folks born lucky and

-happy. Some folks seem put on earth for love.

-I'm put here for hate and for joy over the misfortune

-of my enemies."

-

-"You know many things, Aunt Ann," King said,

-softly, "and you are older than I am, but you can't

-see the end of it all as clearly as I do."

-

-"You think not, my boy?"

-

-"No, Aunt Ann; I have learned that nothing

-exists on earth except to produce ultimate good.

-The vilest crime, indirectly, is productive of good.

-I confidently expect to see the day that you will

-simply rise one step higher in your remarkable

-life and learn to love your enemies. Then you'll

-be understood by them all as I understand you, for

-they will then look into your heart, your *real* heart,

-as I've looked into it ever since you took pity on the

-friendless, barefoot boy that I was and lifted me

-out of my degradation and breathed the breath

-of hope into my despondent body. And when that

-day comes—mark it as my prediction—you will

-slay the ill-will of your enemies with a glance from

-your eye, and they will fall conquered at your feet."

-

-"Huh!" Ann muttered, "you say that because

-you are just looking at the surface of things. You

-see, I know a lots that you don't. Things have

-gone on here and are still going on that nothing

-earthly could stop."

-

-"That's it, Aunt Ann," Luke King said, seriously—"it

-won't be anything earthly. It will be *heavenly*,

-and when the bolt falls you will acknowledge I am

-right. Now, I must go. It will be about dark

-when I get to my step-father's."

-

-Ann walked with him to the gate, and as she

-closed it after him she held out her hand. It was

-quivering. "You are a good boy, Luke," she said,

-"but you don't know one hundredth part of what

-they've said and done since you left. I never wrote

-you."

-

-"I don't care what they've done or said out of

-their shallow heads and cramped lives," King

-laughed—"they won't be able to affect your greater

-existence. You'll slay it all, Aunt Ann, with forgiveness—yes,

-and pity. You'll see the day you'll

-pity them rather than hate them."

-

-"I don't believe it, Luke," Ann said, her lips set

-firmly, and she turned back into the house. Standing

-in the doorway, she watched him trudge along

-the road, carrying his valise easily in his hand and

-swinging it lightly to and fro.

-

-"What a funny idea!" she mused. "Me forgive

-Jane Hemingway! The boy talks that way because

-he's young and full of dreams, and don't know

-any better. If he was going through what I am he'd

-hate the whole world and every living thing in it."

-

-She saw him pause, turn, and put his valise down

-on the side of the road. He was coming back, and

-she went to meet him at the gate. He came up

-with a smile.

-

-"The thought's just struck me," he said, "that

-you'd be the best adviser in the world as to what I

-ought to invest my ten thousand in. You never

-have made a mistake in money matters that I ever

-heard of, Aunt Ann; but maybe you'd rather not

-talk about my affairs."

-

-"I don't know why," she said, as she leaned over

-the gate. "I'll bet that money of yours will worry

-me some, for young folks these days have no caution

-in such matters. Ten thousand dollars—why,

-that is exactly the price—" She paused, her face

-full of sudden excitement.

-

-"The price of what, Aunt Ann?" he asked, wonderingly.

-

-"Why, the price of the Dickerson farm. It's

-up for sale. Jerry Dickerson has been wanting to

-leave here for the last three years, and every year

-he's been putting a lower and lower price on his

-big farm and comfortable house and every improvement.

-His brother's gone in the wholesale grocery

-business in Chattanooga, and he wants to join

-him. The property is worth double the money. I

-wouldn't like to advise you, Luke, but I'd rather

-see your money in that place than anything else.

-It would be a guarantee of an income to you as

-long as you lived."

-

-"I know the place, and it's a beauty," King said,

-"and I'll run over there and look at it to-morrow,

-and if it's still to be had I may rake it in. Think

-of me owning one of the best plantations in the valley—\ *me*,

-Aunt Ann, your barefoot, adopted son."

-

-Ann's head was hanging low as she walked back

-to the cottage door.

-

-"'Adopted son,'" she repeated, tenderly. "As

-God is my Judge, I—I believe he's the only creature

-alive on this broad earth that I love. Yes, I

-love that boy. What strange, sweet ideas he has

-picked up! Well, I hope he'll always be able to

-keep them. I had plenty of them away back at

-his age. My unsullied faith in mankind was the

-tool that dug the grave of my happiness. Poor,

-blind boy! he may be on the same road. He may

-see the day that all he believes in now will crumble

-into bitter powder at his touch. I wonder if God

-can really be *all*-powerful. It seems strange that

-what is said to be the highest good in this life is

-doing exactly what He, Himself, has failed to do—to

-keep His own creatures from suffering. That

-really *is* odd."

-

-

-

-

-XIV

-===

-

-

-Luke King was hot, damp with perspiration,

-and covered with the red

-dust of the mountain road when he

-reached the four-roomed cabin of his

-step-father among the stunted pines

-and gnarled wild cedars.

-

-Old Mark Bruce sat out in front of the door. He

-wore no shoes nor coat, and his hickory shirt and

-trousers had been patched many times. His gray

-hair was long, sunburned, and dyed with the soil,

-and the corrugated skin of his cheeks and neck was

-covered with long hairs. As his step-son came into

-view from behind the pine-pole pig-pen, the old

-man uttered a grunt of surprise that brought to

-the doorway two young women in unadorned home-spun

-dresses, and a tall, lank young man in his shirt-sleeves.

-It was growing dark, and they all failed

-to recognize the new-comer.

-

-"I suppose you have forgotten me," King said,

-as he put his valise on a wash-bench by a tub of

-suds and a piggin of lye-soap.

-

-"By Jacks, it's Luke King!" After that ejaculation

-of the old man he and the others stared speechlessly.

-

-"Yes, that's who I am," continued King. "How

-do you do, Jake?" (to the tall young man in the

-doorway). "We might as well shake hands for the

-sake of old times. You girls have grown into

-women since I left. I've stayed away a long time

-and seen a lot of the world, but I've always wanted

-to get back. Where is mother?"

-

-Neither of the girls could summon up the courage

-to answer, and, as they gave him their stiff

-hands, they seemed under stress of great embarrassment.

-

-"She's poorly," said the old man, inhospitably

-keeping his seat. "She's had a hurtin' in 'er side

-from usin' that thar battlin' stick too much on dirty

-clothes, hoein' corn an' one thing an' another, an' a

-cold settled on her chest. Mary, go tell yore ma

-her son's turned up at last. Huh, all of us, except

-her, thought you was dead an' under ground! She's

-always contended you was alive an' had a job somers

-that was payin' enough to feed an' clothe you.

-How's times been a-servin' you?"

-

-"Pretty well." King removed his valise from

-the bench and took its place wearily.

-

-"Is that so? Things is worse than ever here.

-Whar have you been hangin' out?"

-

-"Seattle was the last place," King answered.

-"I've worked in several towns since I left here."

-

-"Huh, about as I expected! An' I reckon you

-hain't got much to show fer it except what you got

-on yore back an' in that carpet-bag."

-

-"That's about all."

-

-"What you been followin'?"

-

-"Doing newspaper work," replied the young man,

-coloring.

-

-"I 'lowed you might keep at that. You used to

-git a dollar a day at Canton, I remember. Married?"

-

-"No."

-

-"Hain't able to support a woman, I reckon.

-Well, you've showed a great lot o' good sense thar;

-a feller of the wishy-washy, drift-about sort, like

-you, can sorter manage to shift fer hisself ef he

-hain't hampered by a pack o' children an' a sick

-woman."

-

-At this juncture Mary returned. She flushed as

-she caught King's expectant glance. She spoke to

-her father.

-

-"She said tell 'im to come in thar."

-

-Luke went into the front room and turned thence

-into a small chamber adjoining. It was windowless

-and dark, the only light filtering indirectly through

-the front room. On a low, narrow bed, beneath a

-ladder leading to a trap-door above, lay a woman.

-

-"Here I am, Luke," she cried out, warningly.

-"Don't stumble over that pan o' water. I've been

-takin' a hot mustard foot-bath to try and get my

-blood warm. I have chilly spells every day about

-this time. La me! How you take me by surprise!

-I've prayed for little else in many a year, an' was

-just about to give up. I took a little hope from

-some'n' old Ann Boyd said one day about you bein'

-well an' employed somers out West, but then I met

-Jane Hemingway, an' she give me the blues. She

-'lowed that old Ann just pretended you was doin'

-well to convince folks she'd made no mistake in

-sendin' you to school. But, thank God, here you

-are alive, anyway."

-

-"Yes, I'm as sound as a new dollar, mother."

-His foot came in contact with a three-legged stool

-in the darkness, and he recognized it as an old

-friend and drew it to the head of her bed and sat

-down. He took one of her hard, thin hands and

-bent over her. Should he kiss her? She had not

-taught him to do so as a child, and he had never

-done it later in his youth, not even when he had left

-home, but he had been out in the world and grown

-wiser. He had seen other men kiss their mothers,

-and his heart had ached. With his hand on her

-hard, withered cheek he turned her face towards

-him and pressed his lips to hers. She was much

-surprised, and drew herself from him instinctively,

-and wiped her mouth with a corner of the coverlet,

-but he knew she was pleased.

-

-"Why, Luke!" she said, quickly, "what on earth

-do you mean? Have you gone plumb crazy?"

-

-"I wanted to kiss you, that's all," he said, awkwardly.

-They were both silent for a moment, then

-she spoke, tremblingly: "You always was womanish

-and tender-like; it don't harm anybody, though;

-none o' the rest in this family are that way. But,

-my stars! I can't tell a bit how you look in this

-pitch-dark. Mary! oh, Mary!"

-

-"What you want, ma?" The nearness of the

-speaker in the adjoining room betrayed the fact

-that she had been listening.

-

-"I can't see my hand before me," answered

-the old woman. "I wish you'd fetch a light here.

-You'll find a stub of a candle in the clock under the

-turpentine-bottle. I hid it thar so as to have some'n'

-to read the Book with Sunday night if any preacher

-happened to drop in to hold family worship."

-

-The girl lighted the bit of tallow-dip and braced

-it upright in a cracked teacup with some bits of

-stone. She brought it in, placed it on a dry-goods

-box filled with cotton-seed and ears of corn, and

-shambled out. King's heart sank as he looked

-around him in the dim light. The room was only

-a lean-to shed walled with slabs driven into the

-ground and floored with puncheons. The bedstead

-was a crude, wooden frame supported by perpendicular

-saplings fastened to floor and rafters. The

-irregular cracks in the wall were filled with mud,

-rags, and newspapers. Bunches of dried herbs,

-roots, and red peppers hung above his head, and

-piles of clothing, earth-dyed and worn to shreds,

-and agricultural implements lay about indiscriminately.

-Disturbed by the light, a hen flew from

-her nest behind a dismantled cloth-loom, and with

-a loud cackling ran out at the door. There was a

-square cat-hole in the wall, and through it a lank,

-half-starved cat crawled and came purring and rubbing

-against the young man's ankle.

-

-The old woman shaded her eyes and gazed at him

-eagerly. "You hain't altered so overly much,"

-she observed, "'cept your skin looks mighty fair

-fer a man, and yore hands feel soft."

-

-Then she lowered her voice into a cautious whisper,

-and glanced furtively towards the door. "You

-favor your father—I don't mean Mark, but your

-own daddy. You are as like him as can be. He

-helt his head that away, an' had yore habit o' being

-gentle with women-folks. You've got his high temper,

-too. La me! that last night you was at home,

-an' Mark cussed you an' kicked yore writin'-paper

-in the fire, I didn't sleep a wink. I thought you'd

-gone off to borrow a gun. It was almost a relief to

-know you'd left, kase I seed you an' him couldn't

-git along. Your father was a different sort of a

-man, Luke, and sometimes I miss 'im sharp. He

-loved books an' study like you do. He had good

-blood in 'im; his father was a teacher an' circuit-rider.

-I don't know why I married Mark, unless

-it was kase I was afraid of bein' sent to the poor-farm,

-but, la me! this is about as bad."

-

-There was a low whimper in her voice, and the

-lines about her mouth had tightened. King's breast

-heaved, and he suddenly put out his hand and began

-to stroke her thin, gray hair. A strange, restful

-feeling stole over him. The spell was on her,

-too; she closed her eyes and a satisfied smile lighted

-her wan face. Then her lips began to quiver, and

-she quickly turned her face from him.

-

-"I'm a simpleton," she sobbed, "but I can't help

-it. Nobody hain't petted me nor tuck on over me

-a bit since your pa died. I never treated you right,

-neither, Luke. I ort never to 'a' let Mark run over

-you like he did."

-

-"Never mind that," King said. "He and I have

-already made friends; but you must not lie in this

-dingy hole; you need medicine, and good, warm

-food."

-

-"Oh, I'm goin' to git up," she answered, lightly.

-"I'm not sick, Luke. I jest laid down awhile to

-rest. I have to do this nearly every evening. I

-must git the house straight. Mary an' Jane hain't

-no hands at house-work 'thout I stand right over

-'em, an' Jake an' his pa is continually a-fussing. I

-feel stronger already. If you'll go in t'other room

-I'll rise. They'll never fix you nothin' to eat nor

-nowhar to sleep. I reckon you'll have to lie with

-Jake like you used to, till I can fix better. Things

-has been in an awful mess since I got so porely."

-

-He went into the front room. The old man had

-brought his hand-bag in. He had placed it in a

-chair and opened it and was coolly inspecting the

-contents in the firelight. Jake and the two girls

-stood looking on. King stared at the old man, but

-the latter did not seem at all abashed.

-

-"Huh," he said, "you seem to be about as well

-stocked with little tricks as a notion peddler—five

-or six pair o' striped socks and no end o' collars;

-them things folded under the shirts looks like another

-suit o' clothes. I reckon you have had a

-good job if you carry two outfits around. Though

-I *have* heard of printin'-men that went off owin'

-accounts here an' yan."

-

-"I paid what I owed before I left," King said,

-with an effort at lightness as he closed the valise

-and put it into a corner.

-

-In a few minutes his mother came in. She blew

-out the candle, and as she crossed to the mantel-piece

-she carefully extinguished the smoking wick

-with her fingers. The change in her was more

-noticeable to her son than it had been when she

-was reclining. She looked very frail in her faded

-black cotton gown. Somehow, bent as she was, she

-seemed shorter than of old, more cowed and hopeless.

-Her shoes were worn through, and her bare

-feet showed through the holes.

-

-"Mary," she asked, "have you put on the supper?"

-

-"Yes'm, but it hain't tuck up yet." The girl went

-into the next room, which was used at once for

-cooking and dining, and her mother followed her.

-In a few minutes the old woman came to the door.

-

-"Walk out, all of you," she said, wearily. "Luke,

-it seems funny to make company of you, but somehow

-I can't treat you like the rest. You'll have to

-make out with what is set before you, though hog-meat

-is mighty scarce this year. Just at fattenin'-time

-our pigs took the cholera an' six laid down in

-the swamp in one day and died. Pork is fetchin'

-fifteen cents a pound in town, and mighty few will

-sell on a credit."

-

-

-

-

-XV

-==

-

-

-After supper King left his mother and

-step-sisters removing the dishes from

-the table and went out. He was

-sickened to the depths of his sensitive

-soul by the sordid meal he had just

-seen the family partake of with evident relish, as if

-it were of unusual occurrence. And he was angry

-with himself, too, for feeling so, when such a life

-had been their lot so long.

-

-He crossed the little brook that ran on a bed of

-brown stone behind the cabin, and leaned against

-the rail-fence which surrounded the pine-pole corn-crib.

-He could easily leave them in their squalor

-and ignorance and return to the great, intellectual

-world—the world which read his editorials and followed

-his precepts, the key-note of which had always

-been the love of man for man as the greatest

-force in the universe—but, after all, would that not

-stamp him with the brand he most despised—hypocrisy?

-A pretty preacher, he, of such fine-spun

-theories, while his own mother and her step-children

-were burrowing in the soil like eyeless animals, and

-he living on the fat of the land along with the wealth

-and power of the country!

-

-The cabin door shone out, a square of red light

-against the blackness of the hill and the silent,

-serried pines beyond. He heard Jake whistling a

-tune he had whistled long ago, when they had

-worked Mark Bruce's crop side by side, and the

-spasmodic creaking of the puncheons as the family

-moved about within.

-

-A figure appeared in the doorway. It was his

-mother, and she was coming to search for him.

-

-"Here I am, mother!" he cried out, gently, as

-she advanced through the darkness; "look out and

-don't get your feet wet."

-

-She chuckled childishly as she stepped across the

-brook on the largest stones. When she reached him

-she put her hand on his arm and laughed: "La me,

-boy, a little wet won't hurt me—I'm used to a good

-soakin' mighty nigh every drenchin' rain. I slept

-with a stream of it tricklin' through the roof on my

-back one night, an' I've milched the cows in that

-thar lot when the mire was shoe-mouth deep in

-January. I 'lowed I'd find you out here. You

-used to be a mighty hand to sneak off to yoreself

-to study, and you are still that away. But you are

-different in some things, too. You don't talk our

-way exactly, an' I reckon that's what aggravates

-Mark. He was goin' on jest now about yore stuck-up

-way o' eatin with yore pocket-handkerchief

-spread out in yore lap."

-

-King looked past her at the full moon rising above

-the trees on the mountain-top.

-

-"Mother," said he, abruptly, and he put his arm

-impulsively around her neck, and his eyes filled—"mother,

-I can't stay here but a few days. I have

-work to do in Atlanta. Your health is bad, and

-you are not comfortable; the others are strong and

-can stand it, but you can't. Come down there with

-me for a while, anyway. I'll put you under a

-doctor and bring back your health."

-

-She looked up into his eyes steadily for a moment,

-then she slapped him playfully on the breast

-and drew away from him. "How foolish you talk

-fer a grown-up man!" she laughed; "why, you

-know I can't leave Mark and the children. He'd

-go stark crazy 'thout me around to grumble at, an'

-then the rest ud be without my advice an' counsel.

-La me, what makes you think I ain't comfortable?

-This cabin is a sight better 'n the last one we had,

-an' drier an' a heap warmer inside when fire-wood

-kin be got. Hard times like these now is likely to

-come at any time an' anywhar. It strikes rich an'

-pore alike. Thar's Dickerson offerin' that fine old

-farm, with all the improvements, fer a mere song to

-raise money to go into business whar he kin hope to

-pay out o' debt. They say now that the place—lock,

-stock, and barrel—kin be had fer ten thousand. Why,

-when you was a boy he would have refused twenty.

-Now, ef we-all had it instead o' him, Mark an' Jake

-could make it pay like rips, fer they are hard workers."

-

-"You think they could, mother?" His heart

-bounded suddenly, and he stood staring thoughtfully

-into her eyes.

-

-"Pay?—of course they could. Fellers that could

-keep a roof over a family's head on what they've

-had to back 'em could get rich on a place like that.

-But, la me, what's the use o' pore folks thinkin'

-about the property o' the rich an' lucky? It's like

-dreamin' you are a queen at night an' wakin' up

-in hunger an' rags."

-

-"I remember the farm and the old house very

-well," King remarked, reflectively, the queer light

-still in his earnest eyes.

-

-"The *old* one! Huh, Dickerson got on a splurge

-the year you left, an' built a grand new one with

-some money from his wife's estate. He turned the

-old one into a big barn an' stable an' gin. You

-must see the new house 'fore you go away, Luke.

-It's jest splendid, with green blinds to the winders,

-a fancy spring-house with a tin rooster on top

-that p'ints the way the wind blows, and on high

-stilts like thar's a big tank and a windmill to keep

-the house supplied with water. I hain't never been

-in it, but they say they've got wash-tubs long

-enough to lie down in handy to every sleepin'-room,

-and no end of fancy contraptions."

-

-"We'd better go in, mother," he said, abruptly.

-"You'll catch your death of cold out here in the

-dew."

-

-She laughed as they walked back to the cabin,

-side by side. A thick smoke and its unpleasant odor

-met them at the door.

-

-"It's Mark burnin' rags inside to oust the mosquitoes

-so he kin sleep," she explained. "They are

-wuss this year than I ever seed 'em. Seems like the

-general starvation has tackled them, too, fer they

-look like they will eat a body up whether or no.

-Jake an' the gals grease their faces with lamp-oil

-when they have any, but I jest kiver up my head

-with a rag an' never know they are about. I

-reckon we'd better go to bed. Jake has fixed him

-a pallet on the fodder in the loft, so you kin lie by

-yoreself. He's been jowerin' at his pa ever since

-supper about treatin' you so bad. I thought once

-they'd come to blows."

-

-The next morning, after breakfast, Jake threw a

-bag of shelled corn on the back of his mare, and,

-mounting upon it as if it were a saddle, he started

-off down the valley to the mill, and his father shouldered

-an axe and went up on the hill to cut wood.

-

-"Whar you going?" Mrs. Bruce asked, as she followed

-Luke to the door.

-

-His eyes fell to the ground. "I thought," he answered,

-"that I'd walk over to the Dickerson farm

-and take a look at the improvements. I used to

-hunt over that land."

-

-"Well, whatever you do, be sure you get back

-to dinner," she said. "Me an' Jane took a torch

-last night after you went to bed an' blinded a hen

-on the roost and pulled her down; I'm goin' to make

-you an' old-time chicken-pie like you used to love

-on Christmas."

-

-Half a mile up the road, which ran along the

-side of the hill from which the slow, reverberating

-clap, clap of Mark Bruce's axe came on the still air,

-King came into view of the rich, level lands of the

-Dickerson plantation. He stood in the shade of

-a tall poplar and looked thoughtfully at the lush

-green meadows, the well-tilled fields of corn, cotton,

-and sorghum, and the large, two-storied house, with

-its dormer-windows, tall, fluted columns, and broad

-verandas—at the well-arranged out-houses, barns,

-and stables, and the white-gravelled drives and

-walks from the house to the main road. Then he

-turned and looked back at the cabin—the home of

-his nearest kin.

-

-The house was hardly discernible in the gray

-morning mist that lingered over the little vale in

-which it stood. He saw Jake, far away, riding along,

-in and out, among the sassafras and sumach bushes

-that bordered a worn-out wheat-field, his long legs

-dangling at the sides of the mare. There was a

-bent, blurred figure at the wood-pile in the yard;

-it was his mother or one of the girls.

-

-"Poor souls!" he exclaimed; "they have been in

-a dreary tread-mill all their lives, and have never

-known the joy of one gratified ambition. If only I

-could conquer my own selfish desires, I could lay

-before them that which they never dreamed of possessing—a

-glorious taste of genuine happiness. It

-would take my last dollar of ready money, but I'd

-still have my interest in the new paper and this

-brain and will of mine. Aunt Ann would never see

-it my way, and she might throw me over for doing

-it, but why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I do it

-when my very soul cries out for it? Why have I

-been preaching this thing all this time and making

-converts right and left if I am to draw back the first

-time a real opportunity confronts me? It may

-be to test my mettle. Yes, that's what it is. I've

-got to do one or the other—keep the money—or

-give it to them."

-

-

-

-

-XVI

-===

-

-

-King turned towards the Dickerson place

-and walked on, a great weight of indecision

-on him. He had always held

-up Ann Boyd as his highest human

-example. She would laugh the idea

-to scorn—the idea of putting old Mark Bruce and

-his "lay-out" into such a home and circumstances;

-and yet, estimable as she was in many things, still

-she was not a free woman. She showed that by her

-slavery to the deepest hatred that ever burned in

-a human breast. No, it was plain to the young

-philosopher that in some things, at least, she was

-no guide for him. Rather might it not eventually

-result in the hate-hardened woman's learning

-brighter walks of life from him, young as he was?

-And yet, he told himself, the money was his, not

-theirs, and few really succeeded in life who gave

-away their substance.

-

-The road led him past Jane Hemingway's cottage,

-and at the fence, in the barn-yard, he saw Virginia.

-He saw her, bareheaded, with her wonderful

-hair and exquisite profile and curve of neck, shoulder,

-and breast, before she was aware of his approach,

-and the view brought him to a stand behind

-some bushes which quite hid him from her

-view.

-

-"It is Virginia—it must be—yes, it is Virginia!"

-he said, ecstatically. "She has become what I

-knew she would become, the loveliest woman in the

-world; she is exactly as I have fancied her all

-these years—proud, erect—and her eyes, oh! I

-must look into her eyes again! Ah, now I know

-what brought me home! Now I know why I was

-not content away. Yes, this was the cause—Virginia—my

-little friend and pupil—Virginia!"

-

-She had turned her head, and with the startled

-look of a wild young fawn on the point of running

-away, she stood staring at him.

-

-"Have you entirely forgotten me, Virginia?" he

-asked, advancing almost with instinctive caution

-towards her.

-

-"Oh no, now I know you," she said, with, he

-thought, quite the girlish smile he had taken with

-him in his roaming, and she leaned over the fence

-and gave him her hand. He felt it pulsing warmly

-in his, and a storm of feeling—the accumulation of

-years—rushed over him as he looked into the eyes

-he had never forgotten, and marvelled over their

-wonderful lights and shadows. It was all he could

-do to steady his voice when he next spoke.

-

-"It has been several years since I saw you," he

-said, quite aimlessly. "In fact, you were a little

-girl then, Virginia, and now you are a woman, a

-full-grown woman—just think of that! But why

-are you looking at me so steadily from head to

-foot?"

-

-"I—I can hardly realize that it really is you,"

-Virginia said. "You see, Luke—Mr. King, I mean—I

-thought you were—really, I thought you were

-dead. My mother has said it many times. She

-quite believed it, for some reason or other."

-

-"She *wanted* to believe it, Virginia, with all respect

-to your mother. She hates Aunt Ann—Mrs.

-Boyd, you know—and it seems she almost hoped

-I'd never amount to anything, since it was Mrs.

-Boyd's means that gave me my education."

-

-"Yes, that's the way it must have been," admitted

-the girl, "and it seems strange for you to be

-here when I have thought I'd perhaps never see

-you again."

-

-"So you really thought I was done for?" he said,

-trying to assume a calmness he was far from feeling

-under the titillating spell her beauty and sweet,

-musical voice had cast over him.

-

-"Yes, mother often declared it was so, and then—"

-She broke off, her color rising slightly.

-

-"And, then, Virginia—?" he reminded her, eagerly.

-

-She looked him frankly in the eyes; it was the

-old, fearless, childlike glance that had told him

-long ago of her strong, inherent nobility of character.

-

-"Well, I really thought if you *had* been alive

-you'd have come back to your mother. You would

-have written, anyway. She's been in a pitiful condition,

-Mr. King."

-

-"I know it now, Virginia," he said, his cheeks

-hot with shame. "I'm afraid you'll never understand

-how a sane man could have acted as I have,

-but I went away furious with her and her husband,

-and I never allowed my mind to dwell in tenderness

-on her."

-

-"That was no excuse," the girl said, still firmly,

-though her eyes were averted. "She had a right

-to marry again, and, if you and her husband couldn't

-get along together, that did not release you from

-your duty to see that she was given ordinary comfort.

-I've seen her walk by here and stop to rest,

-when it looked like she could hardly drag one foot

-after another. The thought came to me once that

-she was starving to give what she had to eat to the

-others."

-

-"You needn't tell me about it," he faltered, the

-flames of his shame mounting high in his face—"I

-stayed there last night. I saw enough to drag my

-soul out of my body. Don't form hasty judgment

-yet, Virginia. You shall see that I'll do my duty

-now. I'll work my hands to the bone."

-

-"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk that way," the

-girl answered. "It would make her so happy to

-have help from you."

-

-"Your ideas of filial duty were always beautiful,

-Virginia," he said, his admiring eyes feasting on her

-face. "I remember once—I shall never forget it—it

-was the day you let me wade across the creek

-with you in my arms. You said you were too big

-to be carried, but you were as light as a feather.

-I could have carried you that way all day and never

-been tired. It was then that you told me in all

-sincerity that you would really die for your mother's

-sake. It seemed a strangely unselfish thing for a

-little girl to say, but I believe now that you'd do it."

-

-"Yes, in my eyes it is the first, almost the *whole*

-of one's duty in life," Virginia replied. "I hardly

-have a moment's happiness now, owing to my mother's

-failing health."

-

-"Yes, I was sorry to hear she was afflicted," said

-King. "She's up and about, though, I believe."

-

-"Yes, but she is suffering more than mere bodily

-pain. She has her trouble on her mind night and

-day. She's afraid to die, Luke. That's queer to

-me. Even at my age I'd not be afraid, and she is

-old, and really ought not to care. I'd think she

-would have had enough of life, such as it has been

-from the beginning till now, full of strife, anger, and

-envy. I hear her calling me now, and I must go in.

-Come see her, won't you?"

-

-"Yes, very soon," King said, as she turned away.

-He stood at the fence and watched her as she moved

-gracefully over the grass to the gate near the cottage.

-At the door she turned and smiled upon

-him, and then was gone.

-

-"Yes, I now know why I came back," he said.

-"It was Virginia—little Virginia—that brought me.

-Oh, God, isn't she beautiful—isn't she strong of

-character and noble? Away back there when she

-wore short dresses she believed in me. Once" (he

-caught his breath) "I seemed to see the dawn of

-love in her eyes, but it has died away. She has out-grown

-it. She thought me dead; she didn't want

-to think me alive and capable of neglecting my

-mother. Well, she shall see. She, too, looks on

-me as an idle drift-about; in due time she shall

-know I am more serious than that. But I must go

-slowly; if I am too impulsive I may spoil all my

-chances, and, Luke King, if that woman does not

-become your wife you will be a failure—a dead

-failure at everything to which you lay your hands,

-for you'd never be able to put your heart into anything

-again—you couldn't, for it's hers for all time

-and eternity."

-

-It was dusk when he returned to his mother's

-cabin. Jake sat on his warm bag of meal just inside

-the door. Old Mark had taken off his shoes,

-and sat under a persimmon-tree "cooling off" and

-yelling impatiently at his wife to "hurry up supper."

-

-When she heard Luke had returned, she came to

-the door where he sat talking to Jake. "We didn't

-know what had become of you," she said, as she

-emerged from the cabin, bending her head to pass

-through the low doorway.

-

-"I got interested in looking over the Dickerson

-farm," he replied, "and before I realized it the sun

-was almost down."

-

-"Oh, it don't matter; I saved you a piece of pie;

-I'm just warming it over now. I'll bet you didn't

-get a bite o' dinner."

-

-"Yes, I did. The fact is, Dickerson remembered

-me, and made me go to dinner with him; but I'm

-ready to eat again."

-

-As they were rising from the table a few minutes

-later, King said, in a rather constrained tone, "I've

-got something to say to you all, and I may as well

-do it now."

-

-With much clatter they dragged their chairs after

-him to the front room and sat down with awkward

-ceremony—the sort of dignified quiet that usually

-governed them during the visit of some strolling

-preacher or benighted peddler. They stared with

-ever-increasing wonder as he placed his own chair in

-front of them. Old Mark seemed embarrassed by

-the formality of the proceedings, and endeavored to

-relieve himself by assuming indifference. He coughed

-conspicuously and hitched his chair back till it leaned

-against the door-jamb.

-

-There was a queer, boyish tremor in Luke King's

-voice when he began to speak, and it vibrated there

-till he had finished.

-

-"Since I went away from you," he began, his

-eyes on the floor, "I have studied hard and closely

-applied myself to a profession, and, though I've

-wandered about a good deal, I've made it pay

-pretty well. I'm not rich, now, but I'm worth

-more than you think I am. In big cities the sort

-of talent I happen to have brings a sort of market-price,

-and I have profited by my calling. You

-have never had any luck, and you have worked hard

-and deserve more than has fallen to your lot. You'd

-never be able to make anything on this poor land,

-even if you could buy your supplies as low as those

-who pay cash, but you have not had the ready

-money at any time, and the merchants have swindled

-you on every deal you've made with them. The

-Dickerson plantation is the sort of place you really

-need. It is worth double the price he asked for

-it. I happened to have the money to spare, and I

-bought it to-day while I was over there."

-

-There was a profound silence in the room. The

-occupants of the row of chairs stared at him with

-widening eyes, mute and motionless. A sudden

-breeze came in at the door and turned the oblong

-flame of the candle on the mantel towards the wall,

-and caused black ropes of smoke from the pine-knots

-in the chimney to curl out into the room like

-pyrotechnic snakes. Mrs. Bruce bent forward and

-peered into King's motionless face and smiled and

-slyly winked, then she glanced at the serious faces

-of the others, and broke into a childish laugh of

-genuine merriment.

-

-"La me! ef you-uns ain't settin' thar with

-mouths open like bull-frogs swallowin' down ever'thing

-that boy says, as ef it was so much law an'

-gospel."

-

-But none of them entered her mood; indeed, they

-gave her not so much as a glance. Without replying

-to her, King rose and took the candle from the

-mantel-piece. He stood it on the table and laid a

-folded document beside it. "There's the deed,"

-he said. "It's made out to mother as long as she

-lives, and to fall eventually to her step-daughters

-and step-son, Jake."

-

-He left the paper on the table and went back to

-his chair. An awkward silence ensued. It was

-broken by old Mark. He coughed and threw his

-tobacco-quid out at the door, and, smiling to hide

-his half-sceptical agitation, he moved to the table.

-His gaunt back was to them, and his grizzled face

-went out of view when he bent to hold the paper

-in the light.

-

-"By Jacks, that's what it is!" he blurted out.

-"There's no shenanigan about it. The Dickerson

-place is Mariar Habersham Bruce's, ef *I* kin read

-writin'."

-

-With a great clatter of heavy shoes and tilted chairs

-falling back into place, they rose and gathered about

-him, leaving their benefactor submerged in their

-combined shadow. Each took the paper, examined

-it in reverent silence, and then slowly fell back,

-leaving the document on the table. Mark Bruce

-started aimlessly towards the next room, but finally

-turned to the front door, where he stood irresolute,

-staring out at the night-wrapped mountain road.

-Mrs. Bruce looked at Luke helplessly and went into

-the next room, and, exchanging glances of dumb

-wonder with each other, the girls followed. Jake

-noticed that the wind was blowing the document

-from the table, and he rescued it and silently offered

-it to his step-brother.

-

-King motioned it from him. "Give it to mother,"

-he said. "She'll take care of it; besides, it's been

-recorded at the court-house. By-the-way, Dickerson

-will get out at once; the transfer includes all

-the furniture, and the crops, which are in a good

-condition."

-

-King had Jake's bed to himself again that night.

-For hours he lay awake listening to the insistent

-drone of conversation from the family, which had

-gathered under the apple-trees in front of the cabin.

-About eleven o'clock some one came softly into his

-room. The moon had risen, and its beams fell in

-at the open door and through a window with a sliding

-wooden shutter. It was Mrs. Bruce, and she

-was moving with catlike caution.

-

-"Is that you, mother?" he asked.

-

-For an instant she was so much startled at finding

-him awake that she made no reply. Then she

-stammered: "Oh, I was tryin' so hard not to wake

-you! I jest wanted to make shore yore bed was

-comfortable. We put new straw in the tick to-day,

-and sometimes new beds lie lumpy and uneven."

-

-"It's all right," he assured her. "I wasn't asleep,

-anyway."

-

-He could feel her still trembling in excitement as

-she sat down on the edge of the bed. "I reckon

-you couldn't sleep, nuther," she said. "Thar hain't

-a shut eye in this cabin. They've all laid down, an'

-laid down, an' got up over an' over." She laughed

-softly and twisted her hands nervously in her lap.

-"We are all that excited we don't know which end

-of us is up. Why, Luke, boy, it will be the talk of

-the whole county, and it'll be a big feather in old

-Ann Boyd's cap—you goin' off an' makin' money

-so fast after she give you your schoolin', an' they

-all predicted it ud come to no good end. Sech

-luck hain't fell to any family as pore as we are sence

-I kin remember. I don't know as I ever heard o'

-such a thing in my life. La me, it ud make you

-split your sides laughin' to set out thar an' listen

-to all the plans them children are a-makin'. But

-Mark, he has the least to say of all, an', Luke, as

-happy as I am, I'm sorter sorry fer that pore old

-fellow. He feels bad about the way he's always

-treated you, an' run down yore kind o' work. He's

-too back'ard an' shamefaced to ax yore pardon, an'

-in a sheepish sort of a way, jest now, he hinted he'd

-like fer me to plaster it over fer 'im. He's a good

-man, Luke, but he's gittin' old an' childish, an' has

-been hounded to death by debt an' circumstances."

-

-"He's all right," King said, strangely moved.

-"Tell him I have not the slightest ill-will against

-him, an' I hope he'll get along well on the new place."

-

-"Somehow you keep talkin' like you don't intend

-to stay long," she said, tentatively.

-

-"I know, but I sha'n't be far away," he replied.

-"I can run up from my work in Atlanta every now

-and then, and it would be great to rest up on a farm

-among home folks, here in the mountains."

-

-"Well, I'll be glad of that," Mrs. Bruce said,

-plaintively. "I have got sorter used to my step-children,

-but they ain't the same as a body's own

-flesh and blood. I'm proud of you, Luke," she

-added, tremulously. "After all my fears that

-you'd not come to much, you've turned out to be

-my main-stay. You'll be a great man before you

-die. Anybody that kin make an' throw away ten

-thousand dollars as easy as you have, ain't no small

-potato as men go these days. I reckon the trouble

-with us all is that none of us had brains enough to

-comprehend what yore aims was. But Ann Boyd

-did. She's the most wonderful woman that ever

-lived in this part of the country, anyhow—kicked

-an' shoved about, hated an' hatin', an' yet ever' now

-an' then hittin' the nail square on the head an'

-doin' somethin' big an' grand—something Christ-like

-an' holy—like what she done when she with-drawed

-her suit agin Gus Willard, simply because

-it would throw Mark out of a job to go on with it."

-

-"Yes, she's a good woman, mother."

-

-Mrs. Bruce went out, so that her son might go to

-sleep, but he slept very little. All night, at intervals,

-the buzz of low voices and sudden outbursts

-of merriment reached him and found soothing lodgment

-in his satisfied soul. Then, too, he was revelling

-in the memory of Virginia Hemingway's eyes

-and voice, and a dazzling hope that his meeting

-with her had inspired.

-

-His mother stole softly into his room towards

-the break of day. This time it was to bring an old

-shawl, full of holes and worn to shreds, which she

-cautiously spread over him, for the mountain air

-had grown cool. She thought him asleep, but as

-she was turning away he caught her hand and drew

-her down and kissed her.

-

-"Why, Luke!" she exclaimed; "don't be foolish!

-What's got in you? I—" But her voice had grown

-husky, and her words died away in an irrepressible

-sob. She did not stir for an instant, then she put

-her arms round his neck and kissed him.

-

-

-

-

-XVII

-====

-

-

-It was in the latter part of August.

-Breezes with just a touch of autumnal

-crispness bore down from the mountain-sides,

-clipping from their stems

-the first dead and dying leaves, and

-swept on across Ann Boyd's level cotton-fields, where

-she was at work at the head of a score of cotton-pickers—negro

-men, boys, women, and girls. There

-were certain social reasons why the unemployed poor

-white females would not labor under this strange

-woman, though they needed her ready money as

-badly as the blacks, and that, too, was a constant

-thorn in the flesh of Ann's pride. She could afford

-to pay well for work, inasmuch as her planting

-and harvesting were invariably profitable. She had

-good agricultural judgment, and she used it. Even

-her cotton picking would average up better to the

-acre than any other farmer's, for she saw to it that

-her workers put in good time and left no white,

-fluttering scrap on stalk, leaf, or bole to attract the

-birds looking for linings for their winter's nests.

-When her black band had left a portion of her field,

-it was as if a forest fire had swept over it, leaving it

-brown and bare. The negroes were always ready

-to work for her, for the best of them were never

-criticised for having done so. The most fault-finding

-of her enemies had even been glad of the

-opportunity to call attention to the fact that only

-negroes would sink so low as to toil by her side. But

-the blacks didn't care, and in their taciturn fidelity

-they never said aught against her. As a rule, the

-colored people had contempt for the "pore white

-trash," and reverenced the ex-slave-holder and his

-family; but Ann Boyd was neither one nor the

-other. She was rich, and therefore powerful—a

-creature to be measured by no existing standards.

-When they worked for their old owners and others of

-the same impoverished class, they were asked to

-take in payment old clothing, meat—and not the

-choicest—from the smoke-house, and grain from

-the barn, or a questionable order to some store-keeper

-who, being dubious about the planter's account

-himself, usually charged double in self-protection.

-But on Ann's place it was different. At

-the end of each day, hard, jingling cash was laid into

-their ready palms, and it was symbolic of the freedom

-which years before had been talked about so

-much, but which somehow had appeared in name

-only. Yes, Ann Boyd was different. Coming in

-closer contact with her than the whites, they knew

-her better and felt her inherent worth. They always

-addressed her as "Miss Ann," and as "Miss

-Ann" she was known among them far and near—a

-queer, powerful individuality about whose private

-life—having naught to lose or gain by it—they

-never gossiped.

-

-On the present day, when the sun dipped below

-the mountain-top, Ann raised the cow's horn, which

-she always wore at her belt, and blew a resounding

-blast upon it. This was the signal that the day's

-toil was ended, and yet so faithful were her black

-allies that each tried to complete the row he happened

-to be on before he brought in his bag. The

-crop for the year was good over all that portion of

-the state, and the newspapers, which Ann read

-carefully by candle-light at night, were saying that,

-owing to the little cotton being produced in other

-parts of the South, the price was going to be high.

-And that meant that Ann Boyd would be a "holder"

-in the market—not needing ready money, her bales

-would remain in a warehouse in Darley till the highest

-price had been reached in the long-headed woman's

-judgment, which in this, too, was always good—so

-good, in fact, that the Darley cotton speculators

-were often guided by it to their advantage.

-

-The gathering-bags all in the cotton-house, Ann

-locked the rusty padlock, paid the toilers from her

-leather bag, and trudged home to her well-earned

-supper. When that was prepared and eaten, she

-moved her chair to the front porch and sat down;

-but the air was cool to unpleasantness, and she

-moved back into the gracious warmth of the big,

-open fire. All the afternoon her heart had thrilled

-over a report that Jane Hemingway's small cotton

-crop was being hastily and carelessly gathered and

-sold at the present low price by the man who held

-a mortgage on it. It pleased Ann to think that

-Jane would later hear of her own high receipts and

-be stung by it. Then, too, she had heard that Jane

-was more and more concerned about her bodily

-affliction and the inability to receive proper treatment.

-Yes, Jane was getting payment for what

-she had done in such an underhanded way, and Ann

-was glad of it.

-

-Other things had not gone to please Ann of late.

-She had tried her best to be in sympathy with Luke

-King's action in paying out his last dollar of ready

-money for a farm for his family, whom she heartily

-despised for their treatment of her, but she could

-not see it from the young man's sanguine and cheerful

-stand-point. She had seen the Bruce family

-driving by in one of the old-fashioned vehicles the

-Dickersons had owned, and the sight had seemed

-ludicrous to her. "The boy will never amount to

-anything," she said. "He'll be poor all his life.

-He'll let anybody impose on him." And yet she

-loved him with a strange, insistent affection she

-could hardly understand. Even when she had bitterly

-upbraided him for that amazing act of impulsive

-generosity, as he sat in her doorway the

-next morning, and she saw the youthful blaze of

-enthusiasm in his eyes as he essayed to justify his

-course by the theories of life which had guided him

-in his professional career—even then an impulse

-was tugging at her heart to listen and believe the

-things he was so ardently declaring would free her

-from her bondage to hate and avarice. She could

-have kissed him as she might have kissed a happy,

-misguided son, and yet her coldness, her severity,

-she argued, was to be for his ultimate good. He had

-sent her copies of his new paper, with his editorials

-proudly marked in blue pencil. They were all in

-the same altruistic vein, and, strange to say, the extracts

-printed from leading journals all over the

-South in regard to his work were full of hearty

-approval. He had become a great factor for good

-in the world. He was one man who had the unfaltering

-courage of his convictions. Ann laughed

-to herself as she recalled all she had said to him

-that day. No wonder that he had thrown it off

-with a smile and a playful kiss, when such high

-authorities were backing him up. True, he might

-live in such a way as never to need the money which

-had been her weapon of defence, and he might

-finally rise to a sort of penniless greatness. Besides,

-his life was one thing, hers another. No great calamity

-had come to him in youth, such as she had

-known and so grimly fought; no persistent enemy

-was following his track with the scent and bay of

-a blood-hound, night and day seeking to rend him

-to pieces.

-

-These reflections were suddenly disturbed by a

-most unusual sound at that time of night. It was

-the sharp click of the iron gate-latch. Ann's heart

-sprang to her throat and seemed to be held there

-by taut suspense. She stood up, her hand on the

-mantel-piece, bending her ears for further sounds.

-Then she heard a heavy, even tread approaching.

-How could it be? And yet, though a score of years

-had sped since it had fallen on her ears, she knew

-it well. "It can't be!" she gasped. "It's somebody

-else that happens to walk like him; he'd never

-dare to—"

-

-The step had reached the porch. The sagging

-floor bent and creaked. It was Joe Boyd. She

-knew it now full well, for no one else would have paused

-like that before rapping. There was silence. The

-visitor was actually feeling for the door-latch. It

-was like Joe Boyd, after years of absence, to have

-thought to enter her house as of old without

-the formality of announcing himself. He tried the

-latch; the door was fast. He paused another moment,

-then rapped firmly and loudly. Ann stood

-motionless, her face pale and set almost in a grimace

-of expectancy. Then Boyd stalked heavily to

-the window at the end of the porch; she saw his

-bushy head and beard against the small square of

-glass. As one walking in sleep, Ann stepped close

-to the window, and through the glass their eyes

-met in the first visual greeting since he had gone

-away.

-

-"Open the door, Ann," he said, simply. "I want

-to see you."

-

-"Huh, you *do*, do you?" she cried. "Well, you

-march yourself through that gate an' come round

-here in daytime. I see myself opening up at night

-for you or anybody else."

-

-He pressed his face closer to the glass. His

-breath spread moisture upon it, and he raised his

-hands on either side of his head that he might more

-clearly see within.

-

-"I want to see you, Ann," he repeated, simply.

-"I've been riding since dinner, and just got here;

-my hoss is lame."

-

-"Huh!" she sniffed. "I tell you, Joe Boyd, I'll

-not—" She went no further. Something in his

-aging features tied her tongue. He had really altered

-remarkably; his face was full of lines cut

-since she had seen him. His beard had grown

-rough and bristly, as had his heavy eyebrows. How

-little was he now like the once popular beau of

-the country-side who had been considered the best

-"catch" among young farmers! No, she had not

-thought of him as such a wreck, such an impersonation

-of utter failure, and even resignation to it.

-

-"I reckon you'd better open the door an' let me

-in, Ann," he said. "I won't bother you long. I've

-just a few words to say. It's not about me. It's

-about Nettie."

-

-"Oh, it's about the child!" Ann breathed more

-freely. "Well, wait a minute, till I make a light."

-

-He saw her go to the mantel-piece and get a candle

-and bend over the fire. There was a sudden flare

-of bluish flame as the dripping tallow became ignited

-in the hot ashes, then she straightened up and

-placed the light on a table. She moved slowly to

-the door and opened it. They stood face to face.

-He started—as if from the habit of general greeting—to

-hold out his rough hand, but changed his mind

-and rubbed it awkwardly against his thigh as his

-dumb stare clung to hers.

-

-"Yes," he began, doggedly, "it's about Nettie."

-He had started to close the door after him, but,

-grasping the shutter firmly, Ann pushed it back

-against the wall.

-

-"Let the door stand open," she said, harshly.

-

-"Oh," he grunted, stupidly, "I didn't know but

-somebody passin' along the road might—"

-

-"Well, let 'em pass and look in, too," Ann retorted.

-"I'd a sight rather they'd pass and see

-you here in open candle-light than to have the door

-of my house closed with us two behind it. Huh!"

-

-"Well," he said, a blear in his big, weary eyes,

-"you know best, I reckon. I admit I don't go deep

-into such matters. It's sorter funny to see you so

-particular, though, and with—with *me*."

-

-He walked to the fire and mechanically held out

-his hands to the warmth. Then, with his back to

-the red glow, he stood awkwardly, his eyes on the

-floor. After a pause, he said, suddenly: "If you

-don't mind, Ann, I'd rather set down. I'm tired to

-death, nearly, from that blasted long ride. Coming

-down-hill for five or six miles on a slow, stiff-jointed

-hoss is heavy on a man as old as I am."

-

-She reached behind her and gave him a chair, but

-refused to sit down herself, standing near him as he

-sank into the chair; and, quite in his old way, she

-noticed he thrust out his pitifully ill-shod feet to

-the flames and clasped his hair-grown hands in his

-lap—that, too, in the old way, but with added

-feebleness.

-

-"You said it was about the child," Ann reminded

-him. "Ain't she well?"

-

-"Oh yes, she's well an' hearty," Boyd made

-haste to reply. "I reckon you may think it's odd

-fer me to ride away over here, but, Ann, I'm a man

-that feels like I want to do my full duty if I can in

-this life, and I've been bothering a lots here lately—a

-lots. I've lost sleep over a certain delicate matter,

-but nothing I kin do seems to help me out.

-It's a thing, you see, that I couldn't well ask advice

-on, and so I had to tussle with it in private. Finally

-I thought I'd just ride over and lay the whole thing

-before you."

-

-"Well, what is it?" Ann asked.

-

-"It's about the hardest thing to talk about that

-I ever tried to approach," Boyd said, with lowered

-glance, "but I reckon I'll have to get it out and be

-done with it, one way or another. You see, Ann,

-when the law gave me the custody of the child I

-was a younger man, with more outlook and health

-and management, in the judgment of the court, than

-I've got now, and I thought that what I couldn't

-do for my own flesh and blood nobody else could,

-and so I took her off."

-

-"*Yes, you took her off!*" Ann straightened up,

-and a sneer touched her set features; there was a

-sarcastic, almost triumphant cry of vindictiveness in

-her tone.

-

-"Yes, I thought all that," Boyd continued. "And

-I meant well, but miscalculated my own capacity

-and endurance. Instead of making money hand

-over hand as folks said almost any man could do

-out West, I sunk all I put in. We come back this

-way then, and I located in Gilmer, thinking I'd do

-better on soil I understood, and among the kind o'

-folks and religion I was used to, but it's been down-hill

-work ever since then. When Nettie was little

-it didn't seem like so much was demanded, but now,

-Ann, she's like all the balance o' young women of

-her age. She wants things like the rest around her,

-an' she pines for them, an' sulks, and—and makes

-me feel awful. It's a powerful hard matter for me

-to dress her like some o' the rest about us, and she's

-the proudest thing that ever wore shoe-leather."

-

-"Oh, I see!" said Ann. "She's going about, too,

-with—she's bein' courted by some feller or other."

-

-"Yes, Sam Lawson, over there, a likely young

-chap, has taken a big fancy to her, and he's good

-enough, too, but I reckon a little under the influence

-of his daddy, who is a hard-shell Baptist, a man that

-believes in sanctification and talks it all the time.

-Well, to come down to it, things between Nettie

-and Sam is sorter hanging fire, and Nettie's nearly

-crazy for fear it will fall through. And that's why,

-right now, I screwed up to the point of coming to

-see you."

-

-"You thought I could help her out in her courting?"

-Ann sneered, and yet beneath her sneer lay

-an almost eager curiosity.

-

-"Well, not that exactly"—Joe Boyd spread out

-his rough fingers very wide to embrace as much of

-his dust-coated beard as possible; he pulled downward

-on a rope of it, and let his shifting glance rest

-on the fire—"not that exactly, Ann."

-

-"Well, then, I don't understand, Joe Boyd," Ann

-said; "and let me tell you that no matter what sort

-of young thing I was when we lived together, I'm

-now a *business* woman, and a *successful* one, and I

-have a habit of not beating about the bush. I talk

-straight and make others do the same. Business is

-business, and life is short."

-

-"Well, I'll talk as straight as I can," Boyd swallowed.

-"You see, as I say, old Lawson is a narrow,

-grasping kind of a man, and he can't bear the idea

-of his only boy not coming into something, even

-if it's very little, and I happen to know that he's

-been expecting my little farm over there to fall to

-Nettie."

-

-"Well, *won't* it?" Ann demanded.

-

-Boyd lowered his shaggy head. There was a

-piteous flicker of despair in the lashes of the eyes

-Ann had once loved so well.

-

-"It's mortgaged to the hilt, Ann," he gulped,

-"and next Wednesday if I can't pay down five

-hundred to Carson in Darley, it will go under the

-hammer. That will bust Nettie's love business all

-to flinders. Old Lawson's got Sam under his thumb,

-and he'll call it off. Nettie knows all about it.

-She's no fool for a girl of her age; she found out

-about the debt; she hardly sleeps a wink, but mopes

-about with red eyes all day long. I thought I had

-trouble away back when me 'n' you—away back

-there, you know—but I was younger then, and this

-sorter seems to be *my* fault."

-

-Ann fell to quivering with excitement as she

-reached for a chair and leaned upon it, her stout

-knee in the seat, her strong, bare arms resting on

-the back.

-

-"Right here I want to ask you one question, Joe

-Boyd, before we go a step further. Did Mary Waycroft

-make a proposal to Nettie—did Mary Waycroft

-hint to Nettie that maybe I'd be willing to

-help her along in some substantial way?"

-

-The farmer raised a pair of shifting eyes to the

-piercing orbs above him, and then looked down.

-

-"I believe she did something of the sort, Ann," he

-said, reluctantly, "but, you see—"

-

-"I see nothing but *this*," Ann threw into the gap

-left by his sheer inability to proceed—"I see nothing

-but the fact that my proposition scared her nearly

-to death. She was afraid it would get out that she

-was having something to do with me, and now, if I

-do rescue this land from public sale, I must keep

-in the background, not even let her know where

-the money is coming from."

-

-"I didn't say *that*," Boyd said, heavily stricken

-by the combined force of her tone and words. "The—the

-whole thing's for *you* to decide on. I've tussled

-with it till I'm sick and tired. I wouldn't

-have come over if I hadn't thought it was my

-bounden duty to lay it before you. The situation

-has growed up unforeseen out of my trouble and

-yours. If you want the girl's land to go under

-hammer and bust up her marriage, that's all right.

-I won't cry about it, for I'm at the end of my rope.

-You see, law or no law, she's yore natural flesh and

-blood, jest as she is mine, an' she wasn't—the girl

-wasn't responsible fer what you an' me tuck a notion

-to do away back there. The report is out

-generally that everything you touch somehow turns

-to gold—that you are rolling in money. That's

-the reason I thought it was my duty—by God,

-Ann Lincoln"—his eyes were flashing with something

-like the fire which had blazed in them when

-he had gone away in his health and prime—"I

-wouldn't ask you for a red cent, for myself, not if

-I was dying for a mouthful of something to eat.

-I'm doing this because it seems right according

-to my poor lights. The child's happiness is at

-stake; you can look at it as you want to and act

-as you see fit."

-

-Ann bit her lip; a shudder passed over her strong

-frame from head to foot. She lowered her big head

-to her hands. "Sometimes," she groaned, "I wish

-I could actually curse God for the unfairness of my

-lot. The hardest things that ever fell to the fate of

-any human being have been mine. In agony, Jesus

-Christ prayed, they say, to let His cup pass if

-possible. *His* cup! What *was* His cup? Just death—that's

-all; but *this* is a million times worse than

-death—this here crucifixion of pride—this here

-forcing me to help and protect people who deny me,

-who shiver at a hint of my approach, yelling 'Unclean,

-unclean!' like the lepers outside the city

-gates—beyond the walls that encompass accepted

-humanity. Joe Boyd"—she raised her face and

-stared at him—"you don't no more know me

-than you know the stars above your head. I am

-no more the silly girl that you married than I am

-some one else. I learned the lesson of life away

-back there when you left in that wagon with the

-child of my breast. I have fought a long battle,

-and I'm still fighting. To me, with all my experience,

-you—you poor little thing—are a baby of a

-man. You had a wife who, if she *does* say it, had

-the brain of a dozen such men as you are, and yet

-you listened to the talk of a weak, jealous, disappointed

-woman and came and dared to wipe your

-feet on me, spit in my face, and drag my name into

-the mire of public court. I made no defence then—I

-don't make any now. I'll never make any. My

-life shall be my defence before God, and Him only.

-I wish it could be a lesson to all young women who

-are led into misfortune such as mine. To every

-unfortunate girl I'd say, 'Never marry a man too

-weak to understand and appreciate you.' I loved

-you, Joe Boyd, as much as a woman ever loved a

-man, but it was like the love of a strong man for a

-weak, dependent woman. Somehow I gloried in your

-big, hulking helplessness. What I have since done in

-the management of affairs I wanted to do for you."

-

-"Oh, I know all that, Ann, but this is no time or

-place to—"

-

-"But it's *got* to be the time and place," she retorted,

-shaking a stiff finger in his face. "I want

-to show you one side of this matter. I won't mention

-names, but a man, an old man, come to me one

-day. He set there on my door-step and told me

-about his life of his own free will and accord, because

-he'd heard of mine, and wanted to comfort

-me. He'd just buried his wife—a woman he'd

-lived with for thirty-odd years, and big tears rolled

-down his cheeks while he was talking. He said he

-was going to tell me what he'd never told a living

-soul. He said away back, when he was young, he

-loved his wife and courted her. He saw that she

-loved him, but she kept holding off and wouldn't

-give in till he was nearly distracted; then he said

-her mother come to him and told him what the

-trouble was. It was because the girl had had bad

-luck like I did. She loved him and wanted to

-make him a good wife, but was afraid it would be

-wrong. He said he told the girl's mother that it

-made no difference to him, and that he then and

-there promised never on this earth to mention it to

-her, and he never did. She was the woman he

-lived with for a third of a century in holy wedlock,

-and who he couldn't speak of without shedding tears.

-Now, Joe Boyd, here's my point—the only difference

-I can see in that woman's conduct and mine is that

-I would have told you, but I didn't think you was

-the kind of a man to tell a thing like that to. I

-didn't think you was strong enough, as a man, but

-I thought your happiness and mine depended on

-our marriage, and so after you had dogged my steps

-for years I consented. So you see, if—if, I say—you

-had gone and let the old matter drop, you

-wouldn't have been in the plight you are now, and

-our child would have had more of the things she

-needed."

-

-"There are two sides to it," Boyd said, raising a

-sullen glance to her impassioned face. "And that

-reminds me of an old man I knew about. He was

-the best husband that ever walked the earth. He

-loved his wife and children, and when he was seventytwo

-years of age he used to totter about with his

-grandchildren all day long, loving them, with his

-whole heart. Then one day proof was handed him—actual

-proof—that not a speck of his blood flowed

-in their veins. He was hugging one of the little

-ones in his arms when he heard the truth. Ann, it

-killed him. That's t'other side. You nor me can't

-handle a matter as big and endless as that is. The

-Lord God of the universe is handling ours. We can

-talk and plan, but most of us, in a pinch, will do as

-generations before us have done in sech delicate

-matters."

-

-"I suppose so." Ann's lips were white; there was

-a wild, hunted look in her great, staring eyes.

-

-"I tried to reason myself out of the action I

-finally took," Boyd went on, deliberately, "but

-there was nothing else to do. I was bothered nigh

-to death. The thing was running me stark crazy.

-I had to chop it off, and I'm frank to say, even at

-this late day, that I don't see how I could have done

-otherwise. But I didn't come here to fetch all this

-up. It was just the other matter, and the belief

-that it was my duty to give you a chance to act on

-it as you saw fit."

-

-"If her wedding depends on it, the farm must be

-saved," Ann said, quietly. "I give away money

-to others, why shouldn't I to—to her? I'll get a

-blank and write a check for the money."

-

-He lowered his head, staring at the flames.

-"That's for you to decide," he muttered. "When

-the debt is paid the land shall be deeded to her.

-I'll die rather than borrow on it again."

-

-Ann went to the clock on the mantel-piece and

-took down a pad of blank checks and a pen and bottle

-of ink. Placing them on the table, she sat down

-and began to write with a steady hand and a firm

-tilt of her head to one side.

-

-"Hold on!" Boyd said, turning his slow glance

-upon her. "Excuse me, but there's one thing we

-haven't thought of."

-

-Ann looked up from the paper questioningly.

-"What is that?"

-

-"Why, you see, I reckon I'd have to get that

-check cashed somewhere, Ann, and as it will have

-your name on it, why, you see, in a country where

-everybody knows everybody else's business—"

-

-"I understand," Ann broke in—"they would know

-I had a hand in it."

-

-"Yes, they would know that, of course, if I made

-use of that particular check."

-

-Ann Boyd rested her massive jaw on her hand in

-such a way as to hide her face from his view. She

-was still and silent for a minute, then she rose, and,

-going to the fire, she bent to the flame of a pine-knot

-and destroyed the slip of paper.

-

-"I don't *usually* keep that much money about the

-house," she said, looking down on him, "but I happen

-to have some hidden away. Go out and get

-your horse ready and I'll bring it to you at the

-fence."

-

-He obeyed, rising stiffly from his chair and reaching

-for his worn slouch hat.

-

-He was standing holding his bony horse by the

-rein when she came out a few minutes later and

-gave him a roll of bills wrapped in a piece of cloth.

-

-"Here it is," she said. "You came after it under

-a sense of duty, and I am sending it the same way.

-I may be made out of odd material, but I don't care

-one single thing about the girl. If you had come

-and told me she was dead, I don't think I'd have

-felt one bit different. It might have made me a

-little curious to know which of us was going next—you,

-me, or her—that's all. Good-bye, Joe Boyd."

-

-"Good-bye, Ann," he grunted, as he mounted his

-horse. "I'll see that this matter goes through

-right."

-

-

-

-

-XVIII

-=====

-

-

-Colonel Preston Chester and

-his son Langdon were at breakfast two

-days after this. The dining-room of

-the old mansion was a long, narrow

-chamber on the first floor, connected

-with the brick kitchen outside by a wooden passage,

-roofed, latticed at both sides, and vine-grown. The

-dining-room had several wide windows which opened

-on a level with the floor of the side veranda. Strong

-coffee, hot biscuits, and birds delicately browned

-were brought in by a turbaned black woman, who

-had once been a slave in the family, and then she

-discreetly retired.

-

-The old gentleman, white-haired, pink and clear

-of complexion, and wearing a flowing mustache

-and an imperial, which he nervously clutched and

-twisted in his soft fingers, was not in a good humor.

-

-"Here I am ready to go to Savannah, as I promised,

-to pay a visit and bring your mother back,"

-he fumed, "and now find that you have taxed my

-credit at the bank so heavily with your blasted idleness

-and poker debts that they actually gave me a

-lecture about my financial condition. But I've certainly

-headed you off, sir. I left positive orders

-that no check of yours is to be honored during my

-absence."

-

-"You did that, father? Why—"

-

-"Of course I did it. I can't put up with your

-extravagance and damnable habits, and I don't intend

-to."

-

-"But, father, I've heard you say you cost your

-parents on an average of four thousand dollars a

-year before you got married, and—"

-

-"Don't begin that twaddle over again," roared

-the Colonel in his coffee-cup. "What my father

-did for me in those easy times has nothing to do

-with our condition in the present day. Besides, it

-was the custom of the times to live high, while now

-it's coming to be a disgrace to be idle or to have

-luxuries. We've got to work like the rest at something

-or other. Here's that Luke King back from

-the West with enough money to install his whole

-gang of white trash in one of the best places in the

-entire river valley, and is conducting a paper in

-Atlanta that everybody is talking about. Why,

-blast it all, I heard Governor Crawford say at the

-Capital City Club the other day that if he—mind

-you, the governor of the State—if he could get

-King's influence he would be re-elected sure. Think

-of that, when I put a fortune into your education.

-You are doing nothing for your name, while he's

-climbing like that on the poor chances he had."

-

-"Oh, he had education, such as he needed,"

-Langdon replied, with a retaliatory glance at his

-father. "Ann Boyd sent him to school, you know."

-

-The old man's eyes wavered; he drank from his

-cup silently, and then carefully wiped his mustache

-on his napkin. It was not the first time Langdon

-had dared to pronounce the woman's name in his

-presence, and it looked as if the Colonel dreaded

-further allusions.

-

-"Well, I've got to make the trip to Savannah,"

-he said, still avoiding his son's glance, and trying to

-keep up his attitude of cold reproof. He was becoming

-convinced that Langdon was acquiring a

-most disagreeable habit of justifying his own wild

-conduct by what he had heard of his father's past,

-and this was decidedly irritating to the planter,

-who found enough to reproach himself with in reflecting

-upon what he had gone through without

-being held accountable for another career which

-looked quite as bad in the bud and might bear even

-worse fruit.

-

-"Yes, I think myself, all jokes aside, that you

-ought to go," Langdon said. "I'll do the best I

-can to keep things straight here. The hunting will

-be good, and I can manage to kill time. You'll

-want to take along some spending money, father.

-Those old chums of yours down there will draw you

-into a poker game sure."

-

-"I'll cut that out, I reckon"—the Colonel smiled

-in spite of himself. Langdon was such a copy of

-what he had been at the same age that it seemed,

-under stress of certain memories, almost wrong to

-reprove him. "No, I've sworn off from cards, and

-that's one thing I want you to let alone. I don't

-want to hear of your having any more of those

-all-night carouses here, leaving bullet-holes in your

-grandfather's portrait, as you and your dissolute

-gang did the last time I was away. It's a wonder

-to me you and those fellows didn't burn the house

-down."

-

-At this juncture Langdon was glad to see the

-overseer of the plantation on the veranda, and the

-Colonel went out to give him some instructions.

-

-Two nights later, when he had seen his father off

-at the door and turned back into the great, partly

-lighted house, Langdon set about thinking how he

-could spend the evening and rid himself of the

-abiding sense of loneliness that had beset him. He

-might stroll over to Wilson's store, but the farmers

-he met there would be far from congenial, for he

-was not popular with many of them, and unless he

-could meet, which was unlikely at night, some

-drummer who would play poker freely with the

-funds of the house he represented against Langdon's

-ready promises to pay, his walk would be fruitless.

-No, he would not go to the store, he decided; and

-still he was in no mood, at so early an hour, for the

-solitude of his room or the antiquated library, from

-the shelves of which frowned the puritanical books

-of his Presbyterian ancestors. Irresolute, he had

-wandered to the front veranda again, and as he

-stood looking eastward he espied, through the trees

-across the fields and meadows, a light. It was Jane

-Hemingway's kitchen candle, and the young man's

-pulse beat more rapidly as he gazed at it. He

-had occasionally seen Virginia outside the house of

-evenings, and had stolen chats with her. Perhaps

-he might have such luck again. In any case, nothing

-would be lost in trying, and the walk would kill

-time. Besides, he was sure the girl was beginning

-to like him; she now trusted him more, and seemed

-always willing to talk to him. She believed he

-loved her; who could doubt it when he himself had

-been surprised at his tenderness and flights of eloquence

-when inspired by her rare beauty and sweetness?

-Sometimes he believed that his feeling for

-the beautiful, trustful girl was a love that would

-endure, but when he reflected on the difference in

-their stations in life he had grave and unmanly

-doubts. As he walked along the road, the light of

-Jane's candle, like the glow of a fire-fly, intermittently

-appearing and disappearing ahead of him through

-the interstices of the trees and foliage, the memory

-of the gossip about his father and Ann Boyd flashed

-unpleasantly upon him. Was he, after all, following

-his parent's early bent? Was family history repeating

-itself? But when the worst was said about

-that affair, who had been seriously injured? Certainly

-not the easy-going Colonel, surely not the

-sturdy pariah herself, who had, somehow, turned

-her enforced isolation to such purpose that she was

-rich in the world's goods and to all appearances

-cared not a rap for public opinion.

-

-----

-

-That day had been the gloomiest in Virginia's

-life. Early in the morning Jane had gone to Darley

-for the twentieth time to try to borrow the

-money with which to defray her expenses to Atlanta.

-She had failed again, and came home at dusk absolutely

-dejected.

-

-"It's all up with me!" she groaned, as she sank

-heavily into a chair in front of the cheerful fire

-Virginia had in readiness, and pushed her worn

-shoes out to the flames. "I went from one old

-friend to another, telling them my condition, but

-they seemed actually afraid of me, treating me almost

-like a stranger. They all told tales of need,

-although they seemed to have plenty of everything.

-Judge Crane met me in Main Street and told me I

-could appeal to the county fund and get on the

-pauper list, but without offering to help me; he said

-he knew I'd almost rather die than fall so low. No,

-I'll not do that, Virginia. That's what would tickle

-Ann Boyd and some others powerfully."

-

-With lagging steps and a heart like lead, Virginia

-went about preparing the simple meal. Her mother

-ate only hot buttered toast with boiled milk on it

-to soften it for her toothless gums, but the fair cook

-scarcely touched food at all. Her mother's grewsome

-affliction was in the sensitive girl's mind all

-through each successive day, and even at night her

-sleep was broken by intermittent dreams of this

-or that opportunity to raise the coveted money.

-Sometimes it was the jovial face of a crude, penniless

-neighbor who laughed carelessly as he handed

-her a cumbersome roll of bank-bills; again she would

-find a great heap of gold glittering in the sun, only

-to wake with her delicate fingers tightly clasped on

-nothing at all—to wake that she might lie and listen

-to Jane's sighs and moans as the old woman crouched

-over the ash-buried coals to light a tallow-dip to

-look, for the thousandth time, at the angry threat

-of fate upon her withered breast.

-

-To-night, greatly wearied by her long ride and being

-on her feet so long, Jane went to bed early, and,

-when she was alone, Virginia, with a mental depression

-that had become almost physical pain, went out

-and sat on the front door-step in the moonlight. That

-very day a plan of her own in regard to the raising

-of the money had fallen to earth. She had heard

-of the munificent gift Luke King had made to his

-mother, and she determined that she would go to

-him, lay the case before him, and pledge herself to

-toil for him in any capacity till he was repaid; but

-when she had gone as far in the direction of the

-newly purchased farm as the Hincock Spring, she

-met Mary Bruce in a new dress and hat, and indirectly

-discovered that King had given up his last

-dollar of ready money to secure the property for his

-people. No, she would not take her own filial

-troubles to a young man who was so nobly battling

-with his own. At any other moment she might

-have had time to admire King's sacrifice, but her

-mind was too full of her own depressing problem to

-give thought to that of another. Her sharp reproof

-to him for his neglect of his mother during his absence

-in the West flitted through her memory, and

-at a less troubled moment she would have seen how

-ridiculously unjust her childish words must have

-sounded.

-

-As she sat, weighted down with these things, she

-heard a step down the road. It was slow and

-leisured, if not deliberately cautious. It was accompanied

-by a persistent spark of fire which flitted

-always on a straight line, in view and out, among

-the low bushes growing close to the fence along the

-roadside. A moment later a handsome face in the

-flare of a burning cigar appeared, smiling confidently

-at the gate. It was Langdon Chester.

-

-"Come out here," he said, in a soft, guarded

-voice. "I want to see you."

-

-Virginia rose, listened to ascertain if her mother

-was still asleep, and then, drawing her light shawl

-about her shoulders, she went to the fence. He

-reached over the gate and took her hand and pressed

-it warmly. "I was awfully afraid I'd not see you,"

-he said. "I've failed so many times. My father

-left to-day, and I am very lonely in that big house

-with not a soul nearer than the negro-quarter."

-

-"It must be lonely," Virginia said, trying to be

-pleasant and to throw off her despondency.

-

-"Your mother went to town to-day, didn't she?"

-Chester pursued, still holding the hand which showed

-an indifferent inclination to quit his clasp. "I

-think I saw her coming back. Did she get what

-she went for?"

-

-"No, she failed utterly," Virginia sighed. "I

-don't know what to do. She's suffering awfully—not

-in bodily pain, you know, for there is none at

-all, but in the constant and morbid fear of death.

-It is an awful thing to be face to face, day after day,

-night after night, with a mother who is in such

-agony. I never dreamed such a fate could be in

-store for any young girl. It is actually driving me

-crazy."

-

-"Yes, yes," Langdon said, hesitatingly. "I want

-to tell you something. I had a talk with my father

-about her just before he left. I've worried over it,

-too, little girl. Folks may run me down, you know,

-but I've got real feelings; and so, as a last resort, as

-I say, I told him about it. He's hard up himself,

-as you may know, along with our heavy family expenses,

-and interest on debts, and taxes, but I managed

-to put it in such a way as to get him interested,

-and he's promised to let me have the money

-provided he can make a certain deal down at Savannah.

-But he says it must be kept absolutely

-quiet, you understand. If he sends me this money,

-you must not speak of it to any one—the old man

-is very peculiar."

-

-Virginia's heart bounded, the hot blood of a dazzling

-new hope pulsed madly in her veins. The

-tensity of her hand in his warm clasp relaxed; her

-eyes, into which his own passionate ones were melting,

-held kindling fires of gratitude and trust.

-

-"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried, "if he only *would*!"

-

-"Well, there is a splendid chance of his doing it,"

-Langdon said. "I was awfully afraid to mention

-the subject to him, you know, for fear that he would

-suspect my interest was wholly due to you, but it

-happens that he has never seen us together, and so

-he thought it was simply my sympathy for one of

-our neighbors. I had to do something, Virginia.

-I couldn't stay idle when my beautiful little sweetheart

-was in such downright trouble."

-

-With a furtive glance towards the house and up

-and down the road, Langdon drew her towards him.

-Just one instant she resisted, and then, for the first

-time in her life, she allowed him to kiss her without

-open protest. She remained thus close to him,

-permitting him to stroke her soft, rounded cheeks

-gently. Never before were two persons impelled

-by diverse forces so closely united.

-

-"When do you—you think your father will

-write?" she asked, her voice low, her soul almost

-shrieking in joy.

-

-"That depends," said Chester. "You see, he

-may not get at the matter *the very day* he arrives

-in Savannah, for he is a great old codger to let

-matters slide in the background while he is meeting

-old friends. But, little girl, I don't intend to let it

-slip out of his mind. I'll drop him a line and urge

-him to fix it up if possible. That, I think, will bring

-him around. Your mother is sound asleep," he

-added, seductively; "let's walk a little way down

-the road. I sha'n't keep you long. I feel awfully

-happy with you all to myself."

-

-She raised no objection as he unfastened the

-latch of the gate with deft, noiseless fingers and,

-smiling playfully, drew her after him and silently

-closed the opening.

-

-"Now, this is more like it," he said. "Lovers

-should have the starry skies above them and open

-fields about. Forget your mother a little while,

-Virginia. It will all come out right, and you and

-I will be the happiest people in the world. Great

-Heavens! how perfectly lovely you are in the moonlight!

-You look like a statue of Venus waking to life."

-

-They had reached the brook which rippled on

-brown stones across the road at the foot of the

-slight rise on which the cottage stood, when they

-saw some one approaching. It was Ann Boyd driving

-her cow home, her heavy skirts pinned up half-way

-to her stout knees. With one sharp, steady

-stare at them, Ann, without greeting of any kind,

-lowered her bare, dew-damp head and trudged on.

-

-"It's that miserly old hag, Ann Boyd," Langdon

-said, lightly. "I don't like her any more than she

-does me. I reckon that old woman has circulated

-more lies about me than all the rest of the country

-put together."

-

-At the first sight of Ann, Virginia had withdrawn

-her hand from Langdon's arm and passionate clasp

-of fingers, but the action had not escaped Ann's

-lynx eyes.

-

-"It's coming, thank God, it's coming as fast as a

-dog can trot!" she chuckled as she plodded along

-after her waddling cow. "Now, Jane Hemingway,

-you'll have something else to bother about besides

-your blasted cancer—something that will cut your

-pride as deep as that does your selfish flesh. It

-won't fail to come, either. Don't I know the

-Chester method? Huh, if I don't, it isn't known.

-With his head bent that way, and holding her hand

-with hand and arm both at once, he might have been

-his father over again. Huh, I felt like tearing his

-eyes out, just now—the young beast! I felt like

-she was me, and the old brink was yawning again

-right at my feet. Huh, I felt that way about Jane

-Hemingway's daughter—that's the oddest thing of

-all! But she *is* beautiful; she's the prettiest thing

-I ever saw in all my life. No wonder he is after

-her; she's the greatest prize for a Chester in Georgia.

-Jane's asleep right now, but she'll wake before

-long and she'll wonder with all her wounded

-pride how God ever let her close her eyes. Yes,

-my revenge is on the way. I see the light its

-blaze has cast on ahead. It may be Old Nick's

-torch—what do I care? He can wave it, wave it,

-wave it!"

-

-She increased her step till she overtook her cow.

-Laying her hand on the animal's back, she gently

-patted it. "Go on home to your calf, you hussy,"

-she laughed. "The young of even *your* sort is safer,

-according to the plan that guides the world, than

-Jane Hemingway's. She's felt so safe, too, that

-she's made it her prime object in life to devil a person

-for exactly what's coming under her own roof—\ *exactly

-to a gnat's heel*!"

-

-

-

-

-XIX

-===

-

-

-One evening, about four days later,

-Mrs. Waycroft hurried in to see Ann.

-The sharp-sighted woman, as she

-nodded indifferently to the visitor, and

-continued her work of raking live coals

-under a three-legged pot on the hearth, saw that

-Mrs. Waycroft was the fluttering bearer of news of

-some sort, but she made no show of being ready to

-listen to it. The widow, however, had come to be

-heard, she had come for the sheer enjoyment of

-recital.

-

-"Ann," she panted, "let that oven alone and listen

-to me. I've got about the biggest piece of news

-that has come your way in many a long day."

-

-"You say you have?" Ann's brass-handled poker

-rang as she gave a parting thrust at a burning

-chunk, and struck the leg of the pot.

-

-"Yes, and I dropped on to it by the barest accident.

-About an hour after sunset to-day, I was

-in the graveyard, sitting over Jennie's grave, and

-planning how to place the new stones. I looked at

-the spot where I'd been sitting afterwards, and saw

-that it was well sheltered with thick vines. I was

-completely covered from the sight of anybody passing

-along the road. Well, as I was sitting there

-kind o' tired from my work and the walk, I heard a

-man's voice and a woman's. It was Langdon

-Chester and Virginia Hemingway. He seemed to

-be doing most of the talking, and since God made

-me, I never heard such tender love-making since I

-was born. I knew I had no business to listen, but

-I just couldn't help it. It took me back to the

-time I was a girl and used to imagine that some

-fine young man was coming to talk to me that way

-and offer me a happy home and all heart could desire.

-I never dreamed such tender words could fall

-from a man's tongue. I tried to see Virginia's face,

-but couldn't. He went on to say that his folks was

-to know nothing at present about him and her, but

-that everything would finally be satisfactorily arranged."

-

-"Huh, I reckon so!" Ann ejaculated, off her usual

-guard, and then she lapsed into discreet silence again.

-

-"But I got on to the biggest secret of all," Mrs.

-Waycroft continued. "It seems that Langdon has

-been talking in a roundabout way to his father

-about Jane's sad plight, and that Colonel Chester

-had agreed to send the money for the operation from

-Savannah."

-

-"Huh! he's got no money to give away," slipped

-again from Ann's too facile lips, "and if he *did* have

-it, he wouldn't—"

-

-"Well, that may be, or it may not," said Mrs.

-Waycroft; "but Langdon said he wasn't going to

-wait for the check. He said a man in Darley had

-been bantering him for a long time to buy his fine

-horse, Prince, and as he didn't care to keep the

-animal, he had sent him by one of the negroes on

-the place this morning."

-

-"Oh, he did that!" Ann panted. She carefully

-leaned the poker against the jamb of the fireplace

-and sat staring, her rugged face working under

-stress of deep and far-reaching thought.

-

-"So I heard him say as plainly as you and me

-are talking right now. He said the negro couldn't

-possibly make the transfer and get back with the

-money till about ten o'clock to-night. And that,

-to me, Ann—just between us two, was the oddest

-thing of all. For he was begging her to slip away

-from home at that hour and come to his house for

-the money, so she could surprise her ma with it the

-first thing in the morning."

-

-"He was, was he? huh!" Ann rose and went to

-the door and looked out. There she stood stroking

-her set face with a steady hand. She was tingling

-with excitement and trying to hide it. Then she

-turned back and bent low to look at the coals

-under her pot. "Well, I reckon she was willing

-to grant a little favor like that under the circumstances."

-

-"She had to be begged powerful," said the visitor.

-"I never in all my life heard such pleading. Part

-of the time he'd scold her and reproach her with not

-caring for him like he did for her. Then he'd accuse

-her of being suspicious of him, even when he was

-trying his level best to help her out of trouble.

-Finally, he got to talking about how folks died, slow-like,

-from cancers, and what her real duty was to

-her mother. It was then that she give in. I know

-she did, though I didn't hear what she said, for he

-laughed out sudden, and gladlike, and I heard him

-kiss her and begin over again, about how happy

-they were going to be and the like. I reckon, Ann,

-he really *does* mean to marry her."

-

-"I reckon so," Ann said. "I reckon so. Such

-things have been known to happen."

-

-"Well, we'll wait and see what comes of it," said

-Mrs. Waycroft. "Anyway, Jane will get her cancer-money,

-and that's all she cares for. They say she's

-in agony day and night, driving Virginia distracted.

-I'm sorry for that pore little thing. I don't like her

-mammy, for treating you as she has so long and

-persistent, but I can't hold Virginia accountable."

-

-Ann shrugged her broad shoulders. There was

-a twinkling light of dawning triumph in each of her

-non-committal eyes, and unwonted color in her

-cheeks, all of which escaped the widow's notice.

-

-"Well, that wasn't the end," she said, tentatively.

-

-"I couldn't hear any more, Ann. They walked

-on. I stood up and watched them as they went on

-through the bushes, arm in arm, towards her home.

-I'm sure he loves her. Anybody would know it that

-heard him talk; besides she is pretty—you know

-that, Ann. She is the most beautiful girl I have

-ever seen anywhere. They looked fine, too, walking

-side by side. They say he's a spendthrift and

-got bad habits, but maybe his folks will be glad to

-have him settle down with such a sensible girl if she

-is poor. She'll keep him straight. I'd rather nothing

-is said about where Jane's money is coming from,

-Ann. That seems to be their secret, and I have no

-right to circulate it."

-

-"I'll not talk it," Ann said. "It will be safe

-with me."

-

-When the widow had left, Ann became a changed

-creature in outward appearance. She stood on the

-porch till her guest had disappeared in the dusk, and

-then she paced the floor of her sitting-room in a

-spasm of ecstasy, now and then shaken by a hearty

-laugh.

-

-"I see through him," she chuckled. "He is trying

-to ease his dirty conscience by paying money

-down. It's a slick trick—on a par with a promise

-to marry. He's telling his filthy soul that he's saving

-her mother's life. The girl's as blind as a bat—the

-average woman can only see one thing at a time;

-she's simply bent on getting that money, and thinks

-of nothing else. But, Jane Hemingway—old lady—I've

-got you where I want you at last. It won't be

-long before your forked tongue will be tied fast in a

-knot. You can't keep on after me publicly for

-what is in your own dirty flesh. And when you

-know the truth you'll know, too, that it all come

-about to save your worthless life. You'll get down

-on your knees then and beg the Lord to have

-mercy on you. Maybe you'll remember all you've

-done against me from your girl-days till now as you

-set with your legs dangling in the grave. Folks will

-shun your house, too, unless you rid it of contagion.

-But you *bet I'll* call. I'll send in *my* card. Me'n'

-you'll be on a level then, and we'll owe it to the

-self-same high and mighty source."

-

-Ann suddenly felt a desire for the open air, as if

-the very walls of her house checked the pleasurable

-out-pourings of her triumph, and she went outside

-and strode up and down in the yard, fairly aflame

-with joy. All at once she paused; she was confronting

-the sudden fear that she might be fired by

-a false hope. Virginia, it was true, had agreed to

-go to Chester's at the appointed hour, but might

-she not, in calmer moments, when removed from

-Langdon's persistent influence, think better of it

-and stay at home? Ah, yes, there was the chance

-that the girl might fail to keep the appointment,

-and then—

-

-Cold from head to foot, Ann went back into the

-cottage and stood before the fire looking at the

-clock. It was fifteen minutes of ten, and ten was

-the hour. Why not make sure of the outcome?

-Why not, indeed? It was a good idea, and would

-save her days and days of suspense.

-

-Going out, Ann trudged across the dewy meadow,

-her coarse skirt clutched in her hands till she stood

-in one of the brier-grown fence-corners near the

-main road. Here, quite hidden from the open view

-of any one passing, by the shade of a young mulberry-tree,

-whose boughs hung over her like the ribs

-of an umbrella, she stood and waited. She must

-have been there ten minutes or more, her tense gaze

-on the road leading to Jane Hemingway's cottage,

-when she was sure she heard soft footsteps coming

-towards her. Yes, it was some one, but could it

-be—? It was a woman's figure; she could see that

-already, and, yes, there could be no mistake now—it

-*was* Virginia. There was no one in the neighborhood

-quite so slight, light of foot, and erect. Ann

-suddenly crouched down till she could peer between

-the lower rails of the fence. She held her breath

-while the girl was passing, then she clasped her

-hands over her knees and chuckled. "It's *her*!"

-she whispered. "It's her, and she's headed for

-everlasting doom if ever a creature walked into a

-net of damnation."

-

-When Virginia was thirty or forty yards away,

-Ann cautiously climbed over the fence, almost

-swearing in impatience as she pulled her skirts from

-the detaining clutch of thorns, briers, and splinters,

-and with her head down she followed.

-

-"I'll make dead sure," she said, between pressed

-lips. "This is a matter I don't want to have a

-shadow of a doubt about."

-

-Presently, the long, white palings comprising the

-front fence at the Chesters' appeared into view, and

-the dark, moving figure of the girl outlined against

-it could be seen more clearly.

-

-Virginia moved onward till she had reached the

-gate. The smooth, steel latch clicked; there was

-a rip of darkness in the ribbon of white; the hinges

-creaked; the gate closed with a slam, as if it had

-slipped from nerveless fingers, and the tall boxwood

-bordering the walk to the door of the old

-house swallowed Virginia from the sight of her grim

-pursuer.

-

-"That will do me," Ann chuckled, as she turned

-back, warm with content in every vein. On her

-rapid walk to her house she allowed her fancy to

-play upon scores of situations in which the happening

-of that night would bring dire humiliation and

-shame to her enemy. Ann well knew what was

-coming; she had only to hold the album of her

-own life open and let the breeze of chance turn the

-pages to view what Jane Hemingway was to look

-upon later.

-

-

-

-

-XX

-==

-

-

-Ann had just closed her gate, and was

-turning towards her door, when she

-heard a sound on the porch, and a

-man stepped down into the yard. It

-was Luke King.

-

-"Why, hello, Aunt Ann!" he cried out, cheerily.

-"Been driving hogs out of your field I'll bet. You

-need me here with my dog Pomp, who used to be

-such a dandy at that job."

-

-"Oh, it's you, Luke!" Ann cried, trying to collect

-herself, after the start he had given her.

-

-"Yes, I didn't mean to come at this hour of night,

-but as I was riding by just now, on my way home

-to see my mother, who is not exactly well, I noticed

-your door open, and not seeing you in sight, I hitched

-my horse up the road a piece and came back and

-watched at the gate. Then not hearing any sound,

-and knowing you never go to bed with your door

-open, I went in. Then you bet I *was* scared.

-Things do once in a while happen here in the mountains,

-and—"

-

-"Oh, well, nothing was the matter with me,"

-Ann smiled. "Besides, I can take care of myself."

-

-"I know that, too," he said. "I'm glad to get

-this chance to talk to you. I understand that

-mother is not as ill as they thought she was, and

-I'll have to catch the first train back to Atlanta in

-the morning. I'm doing pretty well down there,

-Aunt Ann."

-

-"I know it, Luke, and I'm glad," Ann said, her

-mind still on the things she had just witnessed.

-

-"But you haven't yet forgiven me for giving my

-people that farm. I can see that by your manner."

-

-"I thought it was foolish," she replied.

-

-"But that's because you simply don't know all

-about it, Aunt Ann," he insisted. "I don't want

-to make you mad again; but really I would do that

-thing over again and again. It has helped me more

-than anything I ever did. You see, you've been

-thinking on one line all your life and, of late years,

-I have been on quite another. You are a great

-woman, Aunt Ann, but you still believe that the

-only way to fight is to hit back. You have been

-hitting back for years, and may keep on at it for a

-while, but you'll see the truth one of these days,

-and you'll actually love your neighbors—even your

-vilest enemies. You'll come to see—your big brain

-will simply *have* to grasp it—that your retaliation,

-being obedient to bad life-laws, is as blamable as

-the antagonism of your enemies. The time will

-come when your very suffering will be the medium

-through which you will view and pity their sordid

-narrowness. Then you'll appear to them in their

-long darkness as a blazing light; they will look up

-to you as a thing divine; they will fall blinded at

-your feet; they will see your soul as it has always

-been, pure white and dazzlingly bright, and look

-upon you as the very impersonation of—"

-

-"Huh, don't be a fool!" Ann sank on the edge

-of the porch, her eyes fixed angrily on the ground.

-"You are ignorant of what you are talking about—as

-ignorant as a new-born baby. You are a silly

-dreamer, boy. Your life is an easy, flowery one,

-and you can't look into a dark, rugged one like

-mine. If God is at the head of all things, he put

-evil here as well as the good, and to-night I'm

-thankful for the evil. I'm tasting it, I tell you, and

-it's sweet, sweet, sweet!"

-

-"Ah, I know," King sighed. "You are trying

-to make yourself believe you are glad Mrs. Hemingway

-is in such agony over her affliction."

-

-"I didn't say anything about her affliction."

-Ann stared half fearfully into his honest face.

-

-"But I know you well enough to see that's what

-you are driving at." King sat down beside her,

-and for a moment rested his hand on her shoulder.

-"But it's got to end. It shall not go on. I am

-talking to you, Aunt Ann, with the voice of the

-New Thought that is sweeping the face of the world

-to-day—only that mountain in the east and that one

-in the west have dammed its flow and kept it from

-this benighted valley. I did not intend yet to tell

-you the great overwhelming secret of my life, but I

-want to do it to-night. You love me as a son. I

-know that, and I love you as a mother. You are

-in a corner—in the tightest place you've ever been

-in in all your life. I'm going to ask you to do

-something for my sake that will tear your very

-soul out by the roots. You'll have to grant my

-wish or refuse—if you refuse, I shall be miserable

-for life."

-

-"Luke, what's the matter with you?" Ann

-shook his hand from its resting-place on his shoulder,

-and with bated breath leaned towards him.

-

-King was silent for a moment, his brows drawn

-together, his head lowered, his strong, manly hands

-clasped between his knees. A buggy passed along

-the road. In it sat Fred Masters and another man.

-Both were smoking and talking loudly.

-

-"Well, listen, and don't break in, Aunt Ann,"

-King said, in a calm, steady voice. "I'm going to

-tell you something you don't yet know. I'm going

-to tell you of my first and only great love."

-

-"Oh, is *that* it?" Ann took a deep breath of relief.

-"You've been roped in down there already,

-eh? Well, I thought that would come, my boy,

-with the papers full of you and your work."

-

-"Wait, I told you not to break in," he said. "I

-don't believe I'm a shallow man. To me the right

-kind of love is as eternal as the stars, and every bit

-as majestic. Mine, Aunt Ann, began years ago,

-here in the mountains, on the banks of these streams,

-in the shadow of these green hills. I loved her when

-she was a child. I went far off and met women of

-all sorts and ranks, and in their blank faces I always

-saw the soulful features of my child sweetheart. I

-came back here—\ *here*, do you understand, to find

-her the loveliest full-grown human flower that ever

-bloomed in God's spiritual sunshine."

-

-"You mean—great God, you mean—? Look here,

-Luke King." Ann drew her body erect, her eyes

-were flashing fire. "Don't tell me it is Virginia

-Hemingway. Don't, don't—"

-

-"That's who it is, and no one else this side of

-heaven!" he cried, in an impassioned voice. "That's

-who it is, and if I lose her—if I lose her my life will

-be a total failure. I could never rise above it,

-*never*!"

-

-Their eyes met in a long, steady stare.

-

-"You love that girl!" Ann gasped; "*that girl!*"

-

-"With all my soul and body," he answered, fervidly.

-"Life, work, success, power, nothing under

-high heaven can knock it out of me. She has got

-to be mine, and you must never interfere, either.

-I love you as a son loves his mother, and you must

-not take her from me. You must do more—you

-must help me. I've never asked many things of

-you. I ask only this one—give her to me, help me

-to win her. That's all. Now we understand each

-other. She's the whole world to me. She's young;

-she may be thoughtless; her final character is just

-forming; but she is destined to be the grandest,

-loveliest woman on the face of the earth. She is to

-be my wife, Aunt Ann—\ *my wife*!"

-

-Ann's head sank till her massive brow touched

-her crossed arms; he could see that she was quivering

-from head to foot. There was a long pause,

-then the woman looked up, faint defiance struggling

-in her face.

-

-"You *are* a fool," she said. "A great, big, whimpering

-fool of a man. She's the only one, eh? Jane

-Hemingway's daughter is an angel on earth, above

-all the rest. Huh! and just because of her pretty

-face and slim body and high head. Huh, oh, you

-*are* a fool—an idiot, if there ever was one!"

-

-"Stop, talk sense, if you *will* talk," he said, sternly,

-his eyes flashing. "Don't begin to run her down.

-I won't stand it. I know what she is. I know she

-was made for me!"

-

-"She's not a whit better than the average," Ann

-retorted, her fierce eyes fixed on his face. "She's

-as weak as any of the rest. Do you know—do you

-know—" Ann looked away from him. "Do you

-know Langdon Chester has his eye on her, that he

-is following her everywhere, meeting her unbeknownst

-to her old mammy?"

-

-"Yes, I know that, too," King surprised her with

-the statement; "and between you and me, that as

-much as my mother's sickness made me lay down

-my work and come up here to-night. It is the

-crisis of my whole life. She is at the turning-point

-of hers, just as you were at yours when you were

-a young and happy girl. She might listen to him,

-and love him; it is as natural for her to believe in

-a well-acted lie, as it is for her to be good and pure.

-Listen and don't get mad—the grandest woman I

-ever knew once trusted in falseness, and suffered.

-Virginia might, too; she might enter the life-darkness

-that you were led into by sheer faith in mankind,

-and have a life of sorrow before her. But if

-it should happen, Aunt Ann, my career in the right

-way would end."

-

-"You wouldn't let a—a thing like that—" Ann

-began, anxiously, "a thing like that ruin your whole

-life, when—"

-

-"Wouldn't I? You don't know me. These two

-hands would be dyed to the bone with the slow

-death-blood of a certain human being, and I would

-go to the gallows with both a smile and a curse.

-That's why it's my crisis. I don't know how far it

-has gone. I only know that I want to save her

-from—yes, from what you've been through, and

-lay my life and energy at her feet."

-

-"Jane Hemingway's *daughter*!" Ann Boyd groaned.

-

-"Yes, Jane Hemingway's daughter. You hate

-her, I know, with the unreasonable hatred that

-comes from despising her mother, but you've got

-to help me, Aunt Ann. You put me where I am,

-in education and standing, and you must not see

-me pulled down."

-

-"How could I help you, even—even—oh, you

-don't know, you don't know that at this very

-minute—"

-

-"Oh yes, he may be with her right now, for all

-I know," King broke in, passionately. "He may

-be pouring his lies into her confiding ear at this very

-minute, as you say, but Fate would not be cruel

-enough to let them harm her. You must see her,

-Aunt Ann. For my sake, you must see her. You

-will know what to say. One word from you would

-open her eyes, when from me it would be an offence.

-She would know that you knew; it would shock her

-to her very soul, but it would—if she's actually in

-danger—save her; I know her well enough for that;

-it would save her."

-

-"You are asking too much of me, Luke," Ann

-groaned, almost in piteous appeal. "I can't do it—I

-just *can't*!"

-

-"Yes, you will," King said. "You have got a

-grand soul asleep under that crust of sordid hatred

-and enmity, and it will awake, now that I have laid

-bare my heart. You, knowing the grim penalty of

-a false step in a woman's life, will not sit idle and

-see one of the gentlest of your kind blindly take it.

-You can't, and you won't. You'll save her for me.

-You'll save me, too—save me from the fate of a

-murderer."

-

-He stood up. "I'm going now," he finished. "I

-must hurry on home. I won't have time to see you

-in the morning before I leave, but you now know

-what I am living for. I am living only for Virginia

-Hemingway. Men and women are made for each

-other, we were made for each other. She may

-fancy she cares for that man, but she doesn't, Aunt

-Ann, any more than you now care for—but I won't

-say it. Good-bye. You are angry now, but you

-will get over it, and—and, you will stand by me,

-and by her."

-

-

-

-

-XXI

-===

-

-

-Left alone, still crouching on her door-step,

-Ann, with fixed eyes and a face

-like carved stone, watched him move

-away in the soft moonlight, the very

-embodiment of youth and faith. She

-twisted her cold hands between her knees and

-moaned. What was the matter with her, anyway?

-Was it possible that the recent raging fires of her

-life's triumph were already smouldering embers,

-half covered with the ashes of cowardly indecision?

-Was she to sit quaking like that because a mere

-youth wanted his toy? Was she not entitled to

-the sweet spoils of victory, after her long struggle

-and defence? Yes, but Virginia! After all, what

-had the innocent, sweet-natured girl to do with the

-grim battle? Never, in all Ann had heard of the

-constant gossip against her, had one word come

-from Virginia. Once, years ago, Ann recalled a

-remark of Mrs. Waycroft that the girl had tried to

-keep her mother from speaking so harshly of the

-lone brunt of general reproach, and yet Virginia

-was at that very moment treading the crumbling

-edge of the self-same precipice over which Ann had

-toppled.

-

-The lone woman rose stiffly and went into the

-house to go to bed—to go to bed—to sleep! with

-all that battle of emotion in her soul and brain.

-The clock steadily ticking and throwing its round,

-brass pendulum from side to side caught her eye.

-It was too dark to see the hands, so she lighted a

-tallow-dip, and with the fixed stare of a dying person

-she peered into the clock's face. Half-past ten!

-Yes, there was perhaps time for the rescue. If she

-were to get to Chester's in time, her judgment of

-woman's nature told her one word from her would

-complete the rescue—the rescue of Jane Hemingway's

-child—Jane's chief hope and flag of virtue

-that she would still wave defiantly in her eyes.

-Without undressing—why, she could not have explained—Ann

-threw herself on her bed and buried

-her face in the pillow, clutching it with tense,

-angry hands.

-

-"Oh, what's the matter with me?" she groaned.

-"Why did that fool boy come here to-night, telling

-me that it would bring him to the gallows stained

-to the bone with the dye of hell, and that *I* must

-keep her in the right road—me? Huh, me keep a

-girl in the right track, so they can keep on saying

-I'm the only scab on the body of the community?

-I won't; by all the powers above and below, *I won't*!

-She can look out for herself, even if it *does* ruin an

-idiot of a man and pull him—It really *would* ruin

-him, though. Maybe it would ruin *me*. Maybe

-he's right and I ought to make a life business of

-saving others from what I've been through—saving

-even my enemies. Christ said it; there is no doubt

-about that. He said it. He never had to go

-through with what I have, though, for He was free

-from the desire to fight, but He meant that one thing,

-as the one great law of life—\ *the only law of life*!

-Oh, God, I must do something! I must either save

-the girl or let it go on. I don't know which to

-do, as God is my creator, I don't actually know

-which to do. I don't—I don't—I don't—really—know—which—I

-*want* to do. That's it—I don't

-know which I *want* to do. I'm simply crazy to-night.

-I've never felt this way before. I've always

-been able to tell whether I wanted, or didn't

-want, a thing, but now—"

-

-She turned over on her side. Then she sat up,

-staring at the clock. Next she put her feet on the

-floor and stood erect. "I won't," she said, between

-set teeth. "I won't. Before God, and all the imps

-of hell I'll not meddle with it. It's Jane Hemingway's

-business to look after her silly girl, and not

-mine."

-

-She went again to the porch and stood staring

-out into the white moonlight. The steady beat of

-the hoofs of Luke King's horse, dying out on the

-still night, came to her. Dear, dear boy! he did

-love the girl and he never would be the same again—never.

-It would mean his downfall from the glorious

-heights he had climbed. He would grapple as

-a wild beast with the despoiler, and, as he said, go

-willingly to his own end? Yes, that was Luke King;

-he had preached of the rugged road to heaven, he

-would take the easier way to hell, and laugh in his

-despair at the whole thing as a joke of fate.

-

-Before she knew it, Ann found herself out at her

-gate. Forces within her raised her hand to the

-latch and pushed her body through.

-

-"I'll not meddle," she said, and yet she moved on

-down the road. She met no one, heard nothing

-save the dismal croakings of the frogs in the marshes.

-On she went, increasing her speed at every step.

-Yes, she realized now that she must try to save the

-girl, for Virginia had done her no personal injury.

-No, she must abide another time and seek some

-other means for revenge against the mother. Chance

-would offer something. Why, the cancer—why

-hadn't she thought of that? Wasn't that enough

-for any human being to bear? Yes, Jane would get

-her reward. It was fast on the road. And for

-Luke's sake—for the sake of the brave, good-hearted,

-struggling boy, she would try to save his

-sweetheart. Yes, that seemed inevitable. The

-long, white fence of the Chester place suddenly cut

-across her view. Near the centre Ann descried the

-tall, imitation stone gate-posts, spanned at the top

-by a white crescent, and towards this portal she

-sped, breathing through her big nostrils like a laboring

-ox.

-

-Reaching the gate and opening it, she saw a

-buggy and a pair of horses hitched near the door.

-Ann paused among the boxwood bushes and stared

-in perplexity. What could it mean? she asked herself.

-Had Colonel Chester suddenly returned home, or

-was Langdon recklessly planning to flee the country

-with the thoughtless girl? Mystified, Ann trudged

-up the gravelled walk, seeing no one, till she stood

-on the veranda steps. The big, old-fashioned

-drawing-room on the right of the dark entrance-hall

-was lighted up. Loud, masculine laughter and

-bacchanalian voices burst through the half-open

-windows. Ann went up the steps and peered in

-at one of them, keeping her body well back in the

-shadow. There were three men within—two drummers,

-one of whom was Fred Masters, and Langdon

-Chester. The latter, calm and collected, and yet

-with a look of suppressed fury on his face, was reluctantly

-serving whiskey from an ancient cut-glass

-decanter. Ann saw that he was on the verge of an

-angry outburst, and began to speculate on the

-cause. Ah! she had an idea, and it thrilled her

-through and through. Quietly retracing her steps

-to the lawn, she inspected the exterior of the great,

-rambling structure. She was now sure that the

-visit of the men had come in the nature of an unwelcome

-surprise to the young master of the house,

-and she found herself suddenly clinging to the

-warm hope that the accident might have saved the

-girl.

-

-"Oh, God, let it be so!" Ann heard herself actually

-praying. "Give the poor young thing a chance to

-escape what I've been through!"

-

-But where was the object of her quest? Surely,

-Virginia had not gone back home, else Ann would

-have met her on the way. Looking long and steadily

-at the house, Ann suddenly descried a dim light

-burning up-stairs in the front room on the left-hand

-side of the upper hall. Instinct told her that she

-ought to search there, and, going back to the house,

-the determined rescuer crossed the veranda, walked

-boldly through the open doorway, and tiptoed to

-the foot of the broad, winding stairway. Loud

-laughter, the clinking of glasses, and blatant voices

-raised in harsh college-songs burst upon her. The

-yawning space through which the stairs reached

-upward was dark, but with a steady hand on the

-smooth walnut balustrade, Ann mounted higher

-and higher with absolutely fearless tread. She had

-just gained the first landing, and stood there encompassed

-in darkness, when the door of the drawing-room

-was suddenly wrenched open and Langdon

-and Masters, in each other's arms, playfully

-struggled into view.

-

-"You really must go now, boys," Chester was

-saying, in a persuasive voice. "I don't want to be

-inhospitable, you know, but I have that important

-work to do, and it must be done to-night. It is a

-serious legal matter, and I promised to mail the

-papers to my father the first thing in the morning."

-

-"Papers nothing!" Masters cried, in a drink-muffled

-tone. "This is the first time I ever honored

-your old ancestral shack with my presence,

-and I won't be sent off like a tramp from the door.

-Besides, you are not open and above-board—you

-never were so at college. That was your great forte,

-freezing your friends out of asking questions where

-your private devilment was concerned. That, and

-the reputation of your family for fighting duels,

-kept the whole school afraid of you. On my honor,

-Dick," he called out to the man in the drawing-room,

-"I tell you I'm sure I saw a woman with

-him on the steps of the veranda as we drove up.

-He had hold of her hand and was pulling her into

-the hall."

-

-"Ah, don't be absurd," Ann heard Chester say,

-with a smooth, guarded laugh. "Get in your rig,

-boys, and drive back to the hotel. I'll see you in

-the morning."

-

-"Get in the rig nothing!" Masters laughed. "We

-are going to spend the night here, aren't we, Dick?"

-

-"You bet; that's what I came for," a voice replied

-from within. "But let him go do his work, Fred.

-You and I can finish the game, and empty his decanter.

-You can't walk off with my money and

-not give me a chance to win it back."

-

-"Yes, yes, that's a bang-up idea," Masters laughed,

-and he pushed Chester by main force back into the

-light. "You go burn the midnight oil, old man,

-and I'll make this tenderfoot telegraph his house

-for more expense money."

-

-With a thunderous slam, the door was closed.

-Loud voices in hot argument came from the room,

-and then there was silence. Chester had evidently

-given up in despair of getting rid of his guests.

-Ann moved on up the steps. In the room on the

-left the light was still burning, she could see a pencil

-of it under the door-shutter. To this she groped

-and softly rapped, bending her ear to the key-hole

-to listen. There was no sound within. Ann rapped

-again, more loudly, her hand on the latch. She

-listened again, and this time she was sure she heard

-a low moan. Turning the bolt, she found the door

-locked, but at the same instant noticed that the key

-had been left in the door on the outside. Turning

-the key, Ann opened the door, went in, and softly

-closed the opening after her. A lamp, turned low,

-stood on the mantel-piece, and in its light she saw a

-crouching figure in a chair. It was Virginia, her

-face covered with her hand, moaning piteously.

-

-"Let me go home, for God's sake, let me go home!"

-she cried, without looking up. "You said I was

-to get the money, if I came only to the door, and

-now—oh, oh!" The girl buried her face still deeper

-in her apron and sobbed.

-

-Ann, an almost repulsive grimace on her impassive

-face, stood over her and looked about the

-quaintly furnished room with its quiet puritanical

-luxury of space, at the massive mahogany centre-table,

-with carved legs and dragon-heads supporting

-the polished top, the high-posted bed and rich,

-old, faded canopy, the white counterpane and pillows

-looking like freshly fallen snow.

-

-"Thank God," Ann said, aloud.

-

-Virginia heard, sat as if stunned for an instant,

-and then with a stare of bewilderment looked up.

-

-"Oh!" she gasped. "I thought it was—"

-

-"I know, huh, child! nobody could know better

-than I do. Don't ask me what I come here for. I

-don't know any better than you do, but I come, and

-I'm going to get you out of it—that is, if I'm in

-time to do any good at all. Oh, you understand

-me, Virginia Hemingway. If I'm in time, you'll

-march out of here with me, if not, God knows you

-might as well stay here as anywhere else."

-

-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, how can you ask me such an

-awful—"

-

-"Well, then, I won't!" Ann said, more softly.

-"Besides, I can see the truth in your young face.

-The Almighty has put lights in the eyes of women

-that only one thing can put out. Yours are still

-burning."

-

-Virginia rose to her feet and clutched Ann's

-strong arm convulsively.

-

-"Oh, if you only knew *why* I came, you'd not have

-the heart to think me absolutely bad. Mrs. Boyd,

-as God is my Judge, I came because he—"

-

-"You needn't bother to tell me anything about

-it," Ann grunted, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I

-know why you come; if I hadn't suspicioned the

-truth I'd have let you alone, but I ain't going to

-tell you why I come. I come, that's all. I come,

-and if we are going to get out of here without a

-scandal we've got to be slick about it. Those devils

-are still carousing down there. Let's go now while

-the parlor door is shut."

-

-They had reached the threshold of the chamber

-when Virginia drew back suddenly.

-

-"He told me not to dare to go that way!" she

-cried. "He said I'd be seen if I did. He locked

-me in, Mrs. Boyd—\ *he* locked the door!"

-

-"I know that, too," Ann retorted, impatiently.

-"Didn't I have to turn the key to get in? But we've

-*got* to go this way. We've got to go down them

-steps like I come, and past the room where they

-are holding high carnival. We've got to chance it,

-but we must be quick about it. We haven't time

-to stand here talking."

-

-She turned the carved brass knob and drew the

-shutter towards her. At the same instant she

-shrank back into Virginia's arms, for the drawing-room

-door was wrenched open, and Masters's voice

-rang out loudly in the great hall.

-

-"We will see where he bunks, won't we, Dick?

-By George, the idea of an old college-chum refusing

-to let a man see his house! I want to look at the

-photographs you used to stick up on the walls, you

-sly dog! Oh, you've got them yet! You don't

-throw beauties like them away when they cost a

-dollar apiece."

-

-"Go back to your game, boys!" Langdon commanded,

-with desperate coolness. "I'll show you

-the house after a while. Finish your game!"

-

-"The cold-blooded scoundrel!" Ann exclaimed,

-under her breath. "Not a drop has passed his lips

-to-night, as much as he likes a dram." She closed

-the door gently and stood looking about the room.

-On the edge of the mantel-piece she saw something

-that gleamed in the dim lamplight, and she went

-to it. It was a loaded revolver.

-

-"He threatened you with this, didn't he?" Ann

-asked, holding it before her with the easy clasp of

-an expert.

-

-"No, he didn't do that," Virginia faltered, "but

-he told me if—if I made a noise and attracted their

-attention and caused exposure, he'd kill himself.

-Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I didn't mean to come here to this

-room at first. I swear I didn't. He begged me to

-come as far as the front door to get the money the

-man had brought back from Darley, then—"

-

-"Then those drunken fools drove up, and he persuaded

-you to hide here," Ann interrupted, her

-mind evidently on something else. "Oh, I understand;

-they played into his hands without knowing

-it, and it's my private opinion that they saved you,

-silly child. You can't tell me anything about men

-full of the fire of hell. You'd 'a' gone out of this

-house at break of day with every bit of self-respect

-wrung out of you like water out of a rag. You'd

-'a' done that, if I hadn't come."

-

-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd—"

-

-"Don't oh Mrs. Boyd me!" Ann snapped out. "I

-know what I'm talking about. That isn't the point.

-The point is getting out to the road without a row

-and a scandal that will ring half-way round the

-world. Let a couple of foul-mouthed drummers

-know a thing like this, and they would actually

-pay to advertise it in the papers. I tell you, child—"

-

-Ann broke off to listen. The door of the drawing-room

-seemed to be opened again, and as quickly

-closed.

-

-"Come on." Ann held the revolver before her.

-"We've got to make a break for freedom. This

-ain't no place for a pure young woman. You've

-got what the highfaluting society gang at Darley

-would call a chaperon, but she isn't exactly of the

-first water, according to the way such things are

-usually graded. Seems like she's able to teach you

-tricks to-night."

-

-Virginia caught Ann's arm. "You are not going

-to shoot—" she began, nervously.

-

-"Not unless I *have* to," Ann said. "But only

-hell knows what two drunken men and a cold, calculating

-devil of that brand will do in a pinch. I'll

-see you down them steps, and out into God's moonlight,

-if I have to drag you over enough corpses to

-make a corduroy road. I know how to shoot. I

-killed a squirrel once in a high tree with a pistol.

-Come on; they happen to be quiet right now."

-

-Ann opened the door and led the quaking girl

-across the upper corridor to the stairs, and they

-began to grope down the steps, Ann's revolver

-harshly scratching as it slid along the railing. The

-voices in the drawing-room, as they neared the door,

-grew more boisterous. There was a spasmodic and

-abortive effort at song on the part of Masters, a

-dash of a deck of playing-cards on the floor, angry

-swearing, and the calm remonstrance of the master

-of the house. Down the steps the two women went

-till the drawing-room door was passed. Then the

-veranda was gained, and the wide lawn and gravelled

-walks stretched out invitingly in the moonlight.

-

-"Thank God," Ann muttered, as if to herself.

-"Now come on, let's hustle out into the shelter of

-the woods."

-

-Speeding down the walk, hand-in-hand, they

-passed through the gate and reached the road.

-"Slick as goose-grease," Ann chuckled. "Now we

-are plumb safe—as safe as we'd be anywhere in the

-world."

-

-Drawing Virginia into the shadow of the trees

-bordering the road, she continued, more deliberately:

-"I could take you through the woods and across

-my meadows and fields, but it's a rough way at

-night, and it won't be necessary. We can take the

-main road and dodge out of the way if we hear anybody

-coming."

-

-"I'm not afraid now," Virginia sighed. "I'm

-not thinking about that. I'm only worried about

-what you think—what you think, Mrs. Boyd."

-

-"Never you mind what *I* think, child," Ann said,

-quietly. "God knows I never would blame you

-like other folks, for I know a thing or two about

-life. I've learned my lesson."

-

-Virginia laid her hand firmly on Ann's strong

-one. "He promised me the money to have mother's

-operation performed. Oh, I couldn't let the chance

-escape, Mrs. Boyd—it meant so much to the poor

-woman. You have no idea what torture she is in.

-He wouldn't give it to me unless—unless I went all

-the way to his house for it. I hardly knew why,

-but—yes, I *knew*—"

-

-"That's right," Ann broke in, "it won't do any

-good to tell a story about it. You knew what he

-wanted; any girl of your age with common-sense

-would know."

-

-"Yes, I knew," Virginia confessed again, her head

-hanging, "but it was the only chance to get the

-money, and I thought I'd risk it. I *did* risk it, and

-have come away empty-handed. I'm safe, but my

-poor mother—"

-

-"Put that woman out of it for one minute, for

-God's sake!" Ann hurled at her. "And right here

-I want it understood I didn't leave a warm bed

-to-night to do her a favor. I done it, that's all

-there is about it, but keep her out of it."

-

-"All right," the girl gave in. "I don't want to

-make you mad after what you have done, but I

-owe it to myself to show you that I was thinking

-only of her. I am not bad at heart, Mrs. Boyd. I

-wanted to save my mother's life."

-

-"And you never thought of yourself, poor child!"

-slipped impulsively from Ann's firm lips. "Yes,

-yes, I believe that."

-

-"I thought only of her, till I found myself locked

-there in his room and remembered what, in my

-excitement, I had promised him. I promised him,

-Mrs. Boyd, to make no outcry, and—and—" Virginia

-raised her hands to her face. "I promised,

-on my word of honor, to wait there till he came

-back. When you knocked on the door I thought

-it was he, and when you opened it and came in and

-stood above me, I thought it was all over. Instead,

-it was you, and—"

-

-"And here we are out in the open air," Ann said,

-shifting the revolver to the other hand. She suddenly

-fixed her eyes on Virginia's thin-clad shoulders.

-"You didn't come here a cool night like this

-without something around you, did you?"

-

-"No, I—oh, I've left my shawl!" the girl cried.

-"He took it from me, and kept it. He said it

-was to bind me to my promise to stay till he got

-back."

-

-"The scoundrel!—the wily scamp!" Ann muttered.

-"Well, there is only one thing about it, child. I'm

-going back after that shawl. I wouldn't leave a

-thing like that in the hands of a young devil beat

-in his game; he'd make use of it. You go on home.

-I'll get your shawl by some hook or crook. You

-run over to my house on the sly to-morrow morning

-and I'll give it back to you."

-

-"But, Mrs. Boyd, I—"

-

-"Do as I tell you," the elder woman commanded,

-"and see that you keep this thing from Jane Hemingway.

-I don't want her to know the part I've taken

-to-night. Seems to me I'd rather die. What I've

-done, I've done, but it isn't for her to know. I've

-helped her daughter out of trouble, but the fight is

-still on between me and her, and don't you forget

-it. Now, go on; don't stand there and argue

-with me. Go on, I tell you. What you standing

-there like a sign-post with the boards knocked

-off for? Go on home. I'm going back for that

-shawl."

-

-Virginia hesitated for a moment, and then, without

-speaking again, and with her head hanging down,

-she turned homeward.

-

-

-

-

-XXII

-====

-

-

-As Ann Boyd reached the veranda, on

-her return to the house, loud and

-angry voices came from the parlor

-through an open window.

-

-"Blast you, I believe it *was* some

-woman," she heard Masters say in a maudlin tone,

-"and that's why you are so anxious to hurry us

-away. Oh, I'm onto you. George Wilson told

-me you were hanging round the girl you refused to

-introduce me to, and for all I know—"

-

-"That's no business of yours," Chester retorted,

-in a tone of sudden fury. "I've stood this about

-as long as I'm going to, Masters, even if you are

-drunk and don't know what you are about. Peterkin,

-you'd better take your friend home; my house

-is not a bar-room, and my affairs are my own. I

-want that understood."

-

-"Look here, Masters," a new voice broke in, "you

-*are* going too far, and I'm not going to stand for it.

-Chester's right. When you are full you are the

-most unreasonable man alive. This is my turnout

-at the door—come on, or I'll leave you to walk to

-Springtown."

-

-"Well, I'll go all right," threatened Masters, "but

-I am not done yet. I'll see you again, my boy.

-What they used to say in college is true; you won't

-tote fair. You are for number one every time, and

-would sacrifice a friend for your own interests at the

-drop of a hat."

-

-"Take him on, take him on!" cried Chester.

-

-"Oh, I'm going all right!" growled Masters.

-"And I'm not drunk either. My judgment of you

-is sober-headed enough. You—"

-

-They were coming through the hall to gain the

-door, and Ann quickly concealed herself behind one

-of the tall Corinthian columns that supported the

-massive, projecting roof of the veranda. She was

-standing well in the shadow when Masters, drawn

-forcibly by his friend, staggered limply out and

-down the steps. Langdon followed to the edge of

-the veranda, and stood there, frowning sullenly in

-the light from the window. He was pale and haggard,

-his lip quivering in the rage he was trying to

-control as he watched Peterkin half lifting and almost

-roughly shoving Masters into the vehicle.

-

-"The puppy!" Ann heard him muttering. "I

-ought to have slapped his meddlesome mouth."

-

-Several minutes passed. Ann scarcely dared to

-breathe freely, so close was she to the young planter.

-Masters was now in the buggy, leaning forward, his

-head lolling over the dashboard, and Peterkin was

-getting in beside him. The next moment the impatient

-horses had turned around and were off down

-the drive in a brisk trot.

-

-"Yes, I ought to have kicked the meddling devil

-out and been done with it!" Ann heard Langdon

-say. "She, no doubt, has heard all the racket and

-been scared to death all this time, poor little thing!"

-

-Chester was on the point of turning into the hall

-when a step sounded at the corner of the house

-nearest the negro quarter, and a short, portly figure

-emerged into the light.

-

-"Marse Langdon, you dar?" a voice sounded.

-

-"Yes, Aunt Maria." The young planter spoke

-with ill-disguised impatience. "What is it?"

-

-"Nothin', Marse Langdon, 'cep' dem rapscallions

-kept me awake, an' I heard you stormin' out at um.

-I tol' yo' pa, Marse Langdon, ef dey was any mo'

-night carouses while he was gone I'd let 'im know,

-but I ain't gwine mention dis, kase I done see how

-hard you tried to oust dat low white trash widout

-a row. You acted de plumb gentleman, Marse

-Langdon. Is de anything I kin do fer you, Marse

-Langdon?"

-

-"No, Aunt Maria." Chester's tone betrayed impatience

-even with the consideration of the faithful

-servant. "No, I don't want a thing. I'm going

-to bed. I've got a headache. If any one should

-call to-night, which is not likely at this hour, send

-them away. I sha'n't get up."

-

-Ann was now fearful lest in turning he would discover

-her presence before the negro had withdrawn,

-and, seeing her opportunity while his attention was

-still on the road, from which the trotting of the departing

-horses came in a steady beat of hoofs, she

-noiselessly glided into the big hall through the open

-door and stood against a wall in the darkness.

-

-"Now, I reckon, they will let me alone!" she

-heard Chester say, as he came into the hall and

-turned into the parlor. The next instant he had

-blown out the tall prismed lamp, lowered a window,

-and come out to close and lock the front door.

-

-His hand was on the big brass handle when, in a calm

-voice, Ann addressed him:

-

-"I want a word with you, Mr. Chester," she said,

-and she moved towards him, the revolver hanging

-at her side.

-

-She heard him gasp, and he stood as if paralyzed

-in the moonbeams which fell through the open doorway

-and the side-lights of frosted glass.

-

-"Who are you?" he managed to articulate.

-

-"Oh, you know me, I reckon, Mr. Chester. I'm

-Ann Boyd. I want to see you on a little private

-business, just between you and me, you know. It

-needn't go any further."

-

-"Oh, Ann Boyd!" he exclaimed, and the thought

-ran through his bewildered brain that she had mistaken

-him for his father, and that he was accidentally

-running upon evidence of an intercourse between

-the two that he had thought was a thing of the

-past. "But, Mrs. Boyd," he said, "you've made

-a mistake. My father is away; he left for Savannah—"

-

-"I didn't want to see your father," Ann snarled,

-angrily. "My business is with you, my fine young

-man, and nobody else."

-

-"Me?" he gasped, in growing surprise. "Me?"

-

-"Yes, you. I've come back for Virginia Hemingway's

-shawl. She says you kept it. Just between

-you and me," she went on, "I don't intend to

-leave a thing like that in the hands of a man of your

-stamp to hold over the poor girl and intimidate her

-with."

-

-"You say—you say—" He seemed unable to

-formulate expression for his abject astonishment,

-and he left the door and aimlessly moved to the

-railing of the stairs and stood facing her. His eyes

-now fell on the revolver in her hand, and the sight

-of it increased his wondering perturbation.

-

-"I said I wanted her shawl," Ann repeated, firmly,

-"and I don't see no reason why I should stand here

-all night to get it. You know what you did with it.

-Hand it to me!"

-

-"Her shawl?" he muttered, still staring at her

-wide-eyed and bewildered, and wondering if this

-might not be some trap the vindictive recluse was

-setting for him.

-

-"Oh, I see," Ann laughed—"you think the poor,

-frail thing is still up there locked in that room; but

-she ain't. I saw her coming this way to-night, and,

-happening to know what you wanted her for, I

-come after her. You was busy with them galoots

-in the parlor, and I didn't care to bother you, so I

-went up and fetched her down without waiting to

-send in a card. She's in her bed by this time, poor

-little thing! And I come back for the shawl. I

-wasn't afraid of you, even without this gun that I

-found in your room. Thank God, the girl's as pure

-as she was the day she drew milk from her mother's

-breast, and I'll see to it that you won't never bother

-her again. This night you have sunk lower than

-man ever sunk—even them in your own family.

-You tried everything hell could invent, and when

-you failed you went to heaven for your bribes.

-You knew how she loved her wretched old hag of a

-mammy and what she wanted the money for. Some

-sensible folks argue that there isn't no such place

-as a hell. I tell you, Langdon Chester, there *is* one,

-and it's full to running over—packed to the brink—with

-your sort. For your own low and selfish

-gratification you'd consign that beautiful flower of

-a girl to a long life of misery. You dirty scamp,

-I'm a good mind to—Look here, get me that

-shawl! You'll make me mad in a minute." She

-suddenly advanced towards him, the revolver raised

-half threateningly, and he shrank back in alarm.

-

-"Don't, don't point that thing at me!" he cried.

-"I don't want trouble with you."

-

-"Well, you get that shawl then, and be quick

-about it."

-

-He put a foot on the lower step of the stairs.

-"It's up at the door of the room," he said, doggedly.

-"I dropped it there just for a joke. I was only

-teasing her. I—I know she's a good girl. She—she

-knew I was going to give it back to her. I was

-afraid she'd get frightened and run down before

-those men, and—"

-

-"And your hellish cake would be dough!" Ann

-sneered. "Oh, I see, but that isn't getting the

-shawl."

-

-He took another slow step, his eyes upon her

-face, and paused.

-

-"You are trying to make it out worse than it is,"

-he said, at the end of his resources. "I promised

-to give her the money, which I had locked in the

-desk in the library for safe-keeping, and asked her

-to come get it. She and I were on the steps when

-those men drove up. I begged her to run up-stairs

-to that room. I—I locked the door to—to keep

-them out more than for—for any other reason."

-

-"Oh yes, I know you did, Langdon Chester, and

-you took her shawl for the same reason and made

-the poor, helpless, scared thing agree to wait for you.

-A good scamp pleases me powerful, but you are too

-good a sample for any use. Get the shawl."

-

-"I don't want to be misunderstood," Chester said,

-in an all but conciliatory tone, as he took a slow,

-upward step.

-

-"Well, you bet there's no danger of me not understanding

-you," Ann sneered. "Get that shawl."

-

-Without another word he groped up the dark

-steps. Ann heard him walking about on the floor

-above, striking matches and uttering exclamations

-of anger. Presently she heard him coming. When

-half-way down the stairs he paused and threw the

-shawl to her.

-

-"There it is," he said, sullenly. "Leave my revolver

-on the steps."

-

-Ann caught the shawl, which, like some winged

-thing, swooped down through the darkness, and the

-next instant she had lowered the hammer of the

-revolver and laid it on the lowest step of the stairs.

-

-"All right, it's an even swap," she chuckled—"your

-gun for our shawl. Now go to your bed and

-sleep on this. It's my opinion that, bad as you are,

-young man, I've done you a favor to-night."

-

-"There's one thing I'll try to find out," he summoned

-up retaliatory courage to say, "and that is

-why you are bothering yourself so much about the

-daughter of a woman you are doing all you can to

-injure."

-

-Ann laughed from the door as she crossed the

-threshold, the shawl under her arm. "It will do

-you good to study on that problem," she said.

-"You find that out, and I'll pay you well for the

-answer. I don't know that myself."

-

-From the window of his room above, Langdon

-watched her as she passed through the gate and disappeared

-on the lonely road.

-

-"She won't tell it," he decided. "She'll keep

-quiet, unless it is her plan to hold it over Jane

-Hemingway. That may be it—and yet if that is

-so, why didn't she—wait?"

-

-

-

-

-XXIII

-=====

-

-

-The sun had just risen the next morning,

-and its long, red streamers were

-kindling iridescent fires in the jewels

-of dew on the dying grass of the fields.

-White mists, like tenderly caressing

-clouds, hung along the rocky sides of the mountains.

-Ann Boyd, her eyes heavy from unwonted loss of

-sleep, was at the barn feeding her horses when she

-saw Virginia coming across the meadows. "She

-wants her shawl, poor thing!" Ann mused. "I'll

-go get it."

-

-She went back into the house and brought it out

-just as the beautiful girl reached the barn-yard

-fence and stood there wordless, timid, and staring.

-"You see, I kept my word," the elder woman

-said, with an effort at a smile. "Here is your shawl."

-Virginia reached out for it. She said nothing,

-simply folding the shawl on her arm and staring

-into Ann's eyes with a woe-begone expression. She

-had lost her usual color, and there were black rings

-round her wonderful eyes that gave them more

-depth and seeming mystery than ever.

-

-"I hope your mother wasn't awake last night

-when you got back," Ann said.

-

-"No, she wasn't—she was sound asleep," Virginia

-said, without change of expression. It was as

-if, in her utter depression, she had lost all individuality.

-

-"Then she don't know," Ann put in.

-

-"No, she don't suspect, Mrs. Boyd. If she did,

-she'd die, and so would I."

-

-"Well, I don't see as she is likely to know—\ *ever*,

-as long as she lives," Ann said, in a crude attempt

-at comfort-giving.

-

-"I fancied you'd *want* her to know," said the

-girl, looking at Ann frankly. "After I thought it

-over, I came to the conclusion that maybe you did

-it all so you could tell her. I see no other reason

-for—for you being so—so good to—to me."

-

-"Well, I don't know as I've been good to anybody."

-Ann's color was rising in spite of her cold

-exterior. "But we won't talk about that. Though

-I'll tell you one thing, child, and that is that I'll

-never tell this to a living soul. Nobody but you

-and me an' that trifling scamp will ever know it.

-Now, will *that* do you any good? It's the same,

-you see, as if it had never really taken place."

-

-"But it *did* take place!" Virginia said, despondently.

-

-"Oh yes, but you don't know when you are in

-luck," Ann said, grimly. "In things like that a

-miss is as good as a mile. Study my life awhile,

-and you'll fall down on your knees and thank God

-for His mercy. Huh, child, don't be silly! I know

-when a young and good-looking girl that has gone

-a step too far is fortunate. Look here—changing

-the subject—I saw your mammy standing in the

-back door just now. Does she know you left the

-house?"

-

-"Yes, I came to look for the cow," said Virginia.

-

-"Then she don't suspicion where you are at,"

-said Ann. "Now, you see, she may have noticed

-that you walked off without a shawl, and you'd

-better not wear one home. Leave it with me and

-come over for it some time in the day when she

-won't miss you."

-

-"I think I'd better take it back," Virginia replied.

-"She wears it herself sometimes and might miss it."

-

-"Oh, I see!" Ann's brows ran together reflectively.

-"Well, I'll tell you. Tote it under your arm

-till you get near the house, and then drop it somewhere

-in the weeds or behind the ash-hopper, and

-go out and get it when she ain't looking."

-

-"I'll do that, then," the girl said, wearily. "I

-was thinking, Mrs. Boyd, that not once last night

-did I remember to thank you for—"

-

-"Oh, don't thank *me*, child!" Had Ann been a

-close observer of her own idiosyncrasies, her unwary

-softness of tone and gentleness to a daughter of her

-sworn enemy would have surprised her. "Don't

-thank me," she repeated. "Thank God for letting

-you escape the lot of others just as young and

-unsuspecting as you ever were. I don't deserve

-credit for what I done last night. In fact, between

-you and me, I tried my level best not to interfere.

-Why I finally gave in I don't know, but I done it,

-and that's all there is to it. I done it. I got started

-and couldn't stop. But I want to talk to you.

-Come in the house a minute. It won't take long.

-Jane—your mother—will think the cow has strayed

-off, but there stands the cow in the edge of the

-swamp. Come on."

-

-Dumbly, Virginia followed into the house and

-sank into a chair, holding her shapely hands in her

-lap, her wealth of golden-brown hair massed on her

-head and exquisite neck. Ann shambled in her

-untied, dew-wet shoes to the fireplace and poured

-out a cup of coffee from a tin pot on the coals.

-

-"Drink this," she said. "If what I hear is true,

-you don't get any too much to eat and drink over

-your way."

-

-Virginia took it and sipped it daintily, but with

-evident relish.

-

-"I see you take to that," Ann said, unconscious

-of the genuine, motherly delight she was betraying.

-"Here, child, I'll tell you what I want you to do.

-These spiced sausages of mine, dry as powder in the

-corn-shuck, are the best and sweetest flavored that

-ever you stuck a tooth in. They fry in their own

-grease almost as soon as they hit a hot pan when

-they are sliced thin."

-

-"Oh no, I thank you," Virginia protested; "I

-really couldn't."

-

-"But I know you *can*," Ann insisted, as she cut

-down from a rafter overhead one of the sausages

-and deftly sliced it in a pan already hot on the coals.

-"You needn't tell me you ain't hungry. I can see

-it in your face. Besides, do you know it's a strange

-fact that a woman will eat just the same in trouble

-as out, while a man's appetite is gone the minute

-he's worried?"

-

-The girl made no further protest, and Ann soon

-brought some hot slices of the aromatic food, with

-nicely browned toast, and placed them in a plate in

-her lap. "How funny all this seems!" Ann ran on.

-

-"Here I am feeding you up and feeling sorry for

-you when only last night I—well, I've got to talk

-to you, and I'm going to get it over with. I'll have

-to speak of the part of my life that has been the cud

-for every idle woman in these mountains to chaw

-on for many, many years, but I'm going to do it,

-so you will know better what you escaped last night;

-but, first of all, I want to ask you a straight question,

-and I don't mean no harm nor to be meddling where

-I have no business. I want to know if you love this

-Langdon Chester as—well, as you've always fancied

-you'd love the man you became a wife to."

-

-There was a moment's hesitation on the part of

-the girl. Her cheeks took on color; she broke a

-bit of the sausage with her fork, but did not raise

-it to her lips.

-

-"I'm asking you a simple, plain question," Ann

-reminded her.

-

-"No, I don't," Virginia answered, haltingly;—"that

-is, not now, not—"

-

-"Ah, I see!" the old woman cried. "The feeling

-died just as soon as you saw straight down into

-his real nature, just as soon as you saw that he'd

-treat you like a slave, that he'd abuse you, beat you,

-lock you up, if necessary—in fact, do anything a

-brute would do to gain his aims."

-

-"I'm afraid, now, that I never really loved him,"

-Virginia said, a catch in her voice.

-

-"Humph!" Ann ejaculated. "I see. Then you

-went all the way over that lonely road to his house

-with just one thought in your mind, and that was

-to get that money for your mother."

-

-"As God is my Judge, Mrs. Boyd, that's all I went

-for," Virginia said, her earnest eyes staring steadily

-at her companion.

-

-"Well, I'm glad it was that way," Ann mused.

-"There was a time when I thought you were a

-silly girl whose head could easily be turned, but

-I've been hearing fine things about you, and I see

-you are made of good, solid, womanly stuff. Now,

-I want to tell you the whole truth, and then, if you

-want to consider me a friend and a well-wisher, all

-right. I'm no better-hearted than the average

-mortal woman. The truth is, Virginia Hemingway,

-I hate your mother as much as one human being

-can hate another this side of the bad place. She's

-been a thorn in my side the biggest part of my life.

-Away back when I was about your age, I got into

-just such a tight as you was in last night. For a

-long time afterwards I was nearly crazy, but when

-the prime cause of my trouble went off and married

-I begun to try to live again. I fell in love with a

-real good-natured, honest man. I wanted him to

-know the truth, but I never knew how to tell him,

-and so I kept holding off. He was a great beau

-among the girls of that day, making love to all of

-them, your mother among the rest. Finally, I give

-in. I couldn't resist his begging, my friends advised

-it, and me and him was married. That was

-the beginning of your mammy's enmity. It kept

-up, and when the truth about me finally leaked out

-she saw to it that my husband would not overlook

-the past—she saw to it that I was despised, kicked,

-and sneered at by the community—and my husband

-left with my only child. I sent up a daily prayer to

-be furnished with the means for revenge, but it

-didn't do any good, and then I got to begging the

-devil for what the Lord had refused. That seemed

-to work better, for one day a hint came to me that

-Langdon Chester was on your trail. That gave me

-the first glimpse of hope of solid revenge I'd had.

-I kept my eyes and ears open day and night. I saw

-your doom coming—I lived over what I'd been

-through, and the thought that you were to go

-through it was as sweet to me as honey in the comb.

-Finally the climax arrived. I saw you on the way

-to his house last night, and understood what it

-meant. I was squatting down behind a fence at

-the side of the road. I saw you pass, and followed

-you clean to the gate, and then turned back, at

-every step exulting over my triumph. The very

-sky overhead was ablaze with the fire of your fall

-to my level. But at my gate I was halted suddenly.

-Virginia—to go back a bit—there is a certain young

-man in this world that I reckon is the only human

-being that I love. I love him, I reckon, because he

-always seemed to love me, and believe me better

-than I am, and, more than that, he was the only

-person that ever pointed out a higher life to me. He

-was the poor boy that I educated, and who went off

-and done well, and has just come back to this

-country."

-

-"Luke King!" Virginia exclaimed, softly, and

-then she impulsively placed her hand on her lips

-and sat staring at the speaker, almost breathlessly

-alert.

-

-"Yes, Luke King," said Ann, with feeling.

-"Strange to say, he has always said the day would

-come when I'd rise above hatred and revenge; he

-has learned some queer things in the West. Well,

-last night when I met him he said he'd come up to

-see his mother, who he heard was a little sick, but

-he finally admitted that her sickness wasn't all

-that fetched him. He said he was worried. He

-was more downhearted than I ever saw him before.

-Virginia Hemingway, he said he was worried about

-*you*."

-

-"About *me*? Oh no," Virginia gasped.

-

-"Yes, about you," Ann went on. "The poor

-fellow sat down on the door-step and laid bare his

-whole young heart to me. He'd loved you, he said,

-ever since you was a little girl. He'd taken your

-sweet face off with him on that long stay, and it

-had been with him constantly. It was on your

-account he yielded to the temptation to locate in

-Georgia again, and when he come back and saw

-you a full-grown woman he told me he felt that

-you and he were intended for one another. He said

-he knew your beautiful character. He said he'd

-been afraid to mention it to you, seeing you didn't

-feel the same way, and he thought it would be wiser

-to let it rest awhile; but then he learned that Langdon

-Chester was going with you, and he got worried.

-He was afraid that Langdon wouldn't tote

-fair with you. I may as well tell you the truth,

-Virginia. I never was so mad in all my life, for

-there I was right at that minute gloating over your

-ruin. I was feeling that way while he was telling

-me, with tears in his eyes and voice, that if—if

-harm came to a hair of your bonny head he'd kill

-Langdon Chester in cold blood, and go to the gallows

-with a smile on his lips. He didn't know

-anything wrong, he was just afraid—that was all,

-just afraid—and he begged me—just think of it,

-*me*, who was right then hot with joy over your

-plight—he begged me to see you some day soon

-and try to get you to care for him. I was so mad

-I couldn't speak, and he went off, his last word being

-that he knew I wouldn't fail him."

-

-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I can't stand this!" Virginia

-bowed her head and began to sob. "He was always

-a good friend, but I never dreamed that he cared for

-me that way, and now he thinks that I—thinks

-that I—oh!"

-

-"Well," Ann went on, disregarding the interruption,

-"I was left to tussle with the biggest situation

-of my life. I tried to fight it. I laid down

-to sleep, but rolled and tossed, unable to close my

-eyes, till at last, as God is my Judge, something inside

-of me—a big and swelling something I'd never

-felt before—picked me up and made me go to that

-house. You know the rest. Instead of standing

-by in triumph and seeing the child of my enemy

-swept away by my fate, I was praying God to

-save her. I don't know what to make of my conduct,

-even now. Last night, when I come back to

-my house, I seemed all afire with feelings like none

-I ever had. As the Lord is my holy Guide, I felt

-like I wished I'd comforted you more—wished I'd

-taken you in my poor old arms there in the moonlight

-and held you to my breast, like I wish somebody

-had done me away back there before that

-dark chasm opened in front of me. I'm talking to

-you now as I never dreamt I could talk to a female,

-much less a daughter of Jane Hemingway; but I

-can't help it. You are Luke's chosen sweetheart,

-and to cast a slur on you for what took place last

-night would be to blight my own eternal chances of

-salvation; for, God bless your gentle little soul, you

-went there blinded by your mother's suffering, an

-excuse I couldn't make. No, there's just one thing

-about it. Luke is right. You are a good, noble

-girl, and you've had your cross to bear, and I want

-to see you get what I missed—a long, happy life of

-love and usefulness in this world. You will get it

-with Luke, for he is the grandest character I ever

-knew or heard about. I don't know but what right

-now it is his influence that's making me whirl about

-this odd way. I don't know what to make of it.

-As much as I hate your mother, I almost feel like

-I could let her stand and abuse me to my face and

-not talk back. Now, dry your eyes and finish that

-sausage. I reckon I hain't the virago and spitfire

-you've been taught to think I am. Most of us are

-better on the inside than out. Stop—stop now!

-crying won't do any good."

-

-"I can't help it," Virginia sobbed. "You are so

-good to me, and to think that it was from my mother

-that you got all your abuse."

-

-"Well, never mind about that," Ann said, laying

-her hand almost with shamefaced stealth on the

-girl's head and looking towards the swamp through

-the open door. "I see your cow is heading for home

-on her own accord. Follow her. This is our secret;

-nobody need know but us two. Your mammy

-would have you put in a house of detention if she

-knew it. Slip over and see me again when her

-back is turned. Lord, Lord, I wonder why I never

-thought about pitying you all along, instead of

-actually hating you for no fault of yours!"

-

-Virginia rose, put the plate on the table, and, with

-her face full of emotion, she impulsively put her

-arms around Ann's neck.

-

-"You are the best woman on earth," she said,

-huskily, "and I love you—I can't help it. I love

-you."

-

-"Oh, I reckon you don't do *that*," Ann said, coloring

-to the roots of her heavy hair. "That wouldn't

-be possible."

-

-"But I *do*, I tell you, I *do*," Virginia said again,

-"and I'll never do an unwomanly thing again in my

-life. But I don't want to meet Luke King again.

-I couldn't after what has happened."

-

-"Oh, you let that take care of itself," Ann said,

-accompanying Virginia to the door.

-

-She stood there, her red hands folded under her

-apron, and watched the girl move slowly across the

-meadow after the plodding cow.

-

-"What a pretty trick!" Ann mused. "And to

-think she'd actually put her arms round my old

-neck and hug me, and say she—oh, that was odd,

-very, very odd! I don't seem to be my own boss

-any longer."

-

-An hour later, as she stood in her front porch

-cutting the dying vines from the strings which held

-them upward, she saw Mrs. Waycroft hastening

-along the road towards her. "There, I clean forgot

-that woman," Ann said, her brow wrinkled.

-"She's plumb full of what she heard that scamp

-saying to Virginia at the graveyard. I'll have to

-switch her off the track some way, the Lord only

-knows how, but off she goes, if I have to lie to my

-best friend till I'm black in the face."

-

-"I've been wanting to get over all morning," the

-visitor said, as she opened the gate and hurried in.

-"I had my breakfast two hours ago, but Sally Hinds

-and her two children dropped in and detained me.

-They pretended they wanted to talk about the next

-preaching, but it was really to get something to eat.

-The littlest one actually sopped the gravy from the

-frying-pan with a piece of bread-crust. I wanted

-to slip out last night and come over here to watch

-the road to see if Virginia Hemingway kept her

-promise, but just about that hour Jim Dilk—he

-lives in my yard, you know—he had a spasm, and

-we all thought he was going to die."

-

-"Well, I reckon," Ann said, carelessly, as she

-pulled at a rotten piece of twine supporting a dead

-vine, and broke it from its nail under the eaves of

-the porch—"I reckon you'd 'a' had your trip for

-nothing, and maybe feel as sneaking about it as I

-confess I do."

-

-"Sneaking?" echoed Mrs. Waycroft.

-

-"Yes, the truth is, I was mean enough, Mary, to

-hold watch on the road in that chill night air, and

-got nothing but a twitch of rheumatism in my leg

-as a reward. The truth is, Virginia Hemingway is

-all right. She wanted that money bad enough, but

-it was just on old Jane's account, and she wasn't

-going to be led into sech a trap as that. I reckon

-Langdon Chester was doing most of the talking when

-you saw them together. She may be flirting a

-little with him, as most any natural young girl

-would, but, just between me 'n' you—now, see that

-this goes no further, Mary—there is a big, big case

-up between Virginia and Luke King."

-

-"You *don't say*! How did you drop onto that?"

-gasped Mrs. Waycroft.

-

-"Well, I don't feel at liberty exactly to tell how

-I got onto it," Ann said, pulling at another piece

-of twine; "but it will get out before long. Luke

-has been in love with her ever since she wore short

-dresses."

-

-"Huh, that *is* a surprise!" said Mrs. Waycroft.

-"Well, she is fortunate, Ann. He's a fine young

-man."

-

-

-

-

-XXIV

-====

-

-

-Towards sunset that afternoon, as Ann

-was returning from her cotton-house,

-she came upon Virginia in a thicket

-on the roadside picking up pieces of

-fallen tree-branches for fire-wood. Ann

-had approached from the rear, and Virginia was

-unaware of her nearness. To the old woman's surprise,

-the girl's eyes were red from weeping, and

-there was a droop of utter despondency on her as

-she moved about, her apron full of sticks, her

-glance on the ground. Ann hesitated for a minute,

-and then stepped across the stunted grass and

-touched her on the arm.

-

-"What's the matter *now*, child?" she asked.

-

-The girl turned suddenly and flushed to the roots

-of her hair, but she made no response.

-

-"What's gone wrong?" Ann pursued, anxiously.

-"Don't tell me your mother has found out

-about—"

-

-"Oh no, it's not that," Virginia said, wiping her

-eyes with her disengaged hand. "It's not that.

-I'm just miserable, Mrs. Boyd, that's all—thoroughly

-miserable. You mustn't think I'm like this all the

-time, for I'm not. I've been cheerful at home all

-day—as cheerful as I could be under the circumstances;

-but, being alone out here for the first time,

-I got to thinking about my mother, and the sadness

-of it all was too much for me."

-

-"She hain't worse, is she?" Ann asked.

-

-"Not that anybody could see, Mrs. Boyd," the

-girl replied; "but the cancer must be worse. Two

-doctors from Springtown, who were riding by,

-stopped to ask for a drink of water, and my uncle

-told them about mother's trouble. It looked like

-they just wanted to see it out of professional curiosity,

-for when they heard we had no money and were

-deeply in debt they didn't offer any advice. But

-they looked very much surprised when they made

-an examination, and it was plain that they didn't

-think she had much chance. My mother was watching

-their faces, and knew what they thought, and

-when they had gone away she fairly collapsed. I

-never heard such pitiful moaning in all my life.

-She is more afraid of death than any one I ever saw,

-and she just threw herself on her bed and prayed for

-mercy. Oh, it was awful! awful! Then my uncle

-came in and said the doctors had said the specialist

-in Atlanta could really cure her, if she had the

-means to get the treatment, and that made her

-more desperate. From praying she turned almost

-to cursing in despair. My uncle is usually indifferent

-about most matters, but the whole thing almost

-made him sick. He went out to the side of the

-house to keep from hearing her cries. Some of his

-friends came along the road and joked with him, but

-he never spoke to them. He told me there was

-a young doctor at Darley who was willing to

-operate on her, but that he would be doing it

-only as an experiment, and that nobody but

-the Atlanta specialist would be safe in such a

-case."

-

-"And the cost, if I understood right," said Ann—"the

-cost, first and last, would foot up to about a

-hundred dollars."

-

-"Yes, that's what it would take," Virginia sighed.

-

-Ann's brow was furrowed; her eyes flashed reminiscently.

-"She ought to have been laying by something

-all along," she said, "instead of making it

-her life business to harass and pull down a person

-that never did her no harm."

-

-"Don't say anything against her!" Virginia flared

-up. "If you do, I shall be sorry I said what I did

-this morning. You have been kind to me, but not

-to her, and she is my mother, who is now lying at

-the point of death begging for help that never will

-come."

-

-Ann stared steadily, and then her lashes began to

-flicker. "I don't know but I think more of you for

-giving me that whack, my girl," she said, simply.

-"I deserve it. I've got no right on earth to abuse

-a mother to her only child, much less a mother in

-the fix yours is in. No, I went too far, my child.

-You are not in the fight between me and her."

-

-"You ought to be ashamed to be in it, when she's

-down," said Virginia, warmly.

-

-"Well, I *am*," Ann admitted. "I *am*. Come on

-to my gate with me. I want to talk to you. There

-is a lot of loose wood lying about up there, and you

-are welcome to all you pick up; so you won't be

-losing time."

-

-With her apron drawn close up under her shapely

-chin, her eyes still red and her cheeks damp, Virginia

-obeyed. If she had been watching her companion

-closely, she might have wondered over the strange

-expression of Ann's face. Now and then, as she

-trudged along, kicking up the back part of her heavy

-linsey skirt in her sturdy strides, a shudder would

-pass over her and a weighty sigh of indecision escape

-her big chest.

-

-"To think this would come to me!" she muttered

-once. "*Me!* God knows it looks like my work

-t'other night was far enough out of my regular

-track without—huh!"

-

-Reaching the gate, she told Virginia to wait a

-minute at the fence till she went into the house.

-She was gone several minutes, during which time

-the wondering girl heard her moving about within;

-then she appeared in the doorway, almost pale, a

-frown on her strong face.

-

-"Look here, child," she said, coming out and

-leaning her big, bare elbows on the top rail of the

-fence, "I've thought this all over and over till my

-head spins like a top, and I can see but one way for

-your mother to get out of her trouble. I'm the

-greatest believer you ever run across of every human

-being doing his or her *full* duty in every case. Now,

-strange as it may sound, I left my home last night

-and deliberately made it my special business to step

-in between you and the only chance of getting the

-money your mother stands in need of. I thought

-I was doing what was right, and I still believe I was,

-as far as it went, but I was on the point of making

-a botched job of it. I'd get mighty few thanks, I

-reckon, for saving you from the clutches of that

-scamp if I left your mother to die in torment of

-body and soul. So, as I say, there ain't but one

-way out of it."

-

-Ann paused; she was holding something tightly

-clasped in her hand, and not looking at Virginia.

-

-"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," the girl

-said, wonderingly. "If you see any way out, it is

-more than I can."

-

-"Well, your mother's got to go to Atlanta," Ann

-said, sheepishly; "and, as I see it, there isn't but

-one person whose duty it is to put up the cash for

-it, *and that person is me*."

-

-"You? Oh no, Mrs. Boyd!"

-

-"But I know better, child. The duty has come

-on me like a load of bricks dumped from a wagon.

-The whole thing has driven me slap-dab in a corner.

-I know when I'm whipped—that's one of the things

-that has helped me along in a moneyed way in this

-life—it was always knowing when to let up. I've

-got to wave the white flag in this battle till my

-enemy's on her feet, then the war may go on.

-But"—Ann opened her hand and displayed the

-bills she was holding—"take this money home with

-you."

-

-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I couldn't think of—"

-

-"Well, don't think about it; take it on, and don't

-argue with a woman older than you are, and who

-knows better when and how a thing has to be

-done."

-

-Most reluctantly Virginia allowed Ann to press

-the money into her unwilling hand. "But remember

-this," Ann said, firmly: "Jane Hemingway

-must never know where you got it—never! Do

-you understand? It looks like I can stand most

-anything better than letting that woman know I

-put up money on this; besides, bad off as she is,

-she'd peg out before she'd let me help her."

-

-Virginia's face was now aflame with joy. "I tell

-you what I'll do," she said. "I'll accept it as a

-loan, and I'll pay it back some day if I have to

-work my hands to the bone."

-

-"Well, you can do as you like about that," Ann

-said. "The only thing I absolutely insist on is

-that she isn't told who sent it. It wouldn't be hard

-to keep her in the dark; if you'll promise me right

-here, on your word, not to tell, then you can say you

-gave your sacred promise to that effect, and that

-would settle it."

-

-"Well, I'll do that," Virginia finally agreed. "I

-know I can do that."

-

-"All right," Ann said. "It may set the old

-thing to guessing powerful, and she may bore you

-to tell, promise or no promise, but she'll never

-suspicion *me*—never while the sun shines from the

-sky."

-

-"No, she won't suspect you," Virginia admitted,

-and with a grateful, backward look she moved

-away.

-

-Ann stood leaning against the fence, her eyes on

-the receding figure as the girl moved along the sunlit

-road towards the dun cottage in the shadow of

-the mountain.

-

-"I reckon I'm a born idiot," she said; "but there

-wasn't no other way out of it—no other under the

-sun. I got my foot in it when I laid in wait watching

-for the girl to walk into that trap. If I hadn't

-been so eager for that, I could have left Jane Hemingway

-to her fate. Good Lord, if this goes on,

-I'll soon be bowing and scraping at that old hag's

-feet—\ *me!* huh! when it's been *her* all this time that

-has been at the bottom of the devilment."

-

-

-

-

-XXV

-===

-

-

-During this talk Jane Hemingway

-had gone out to the fence to speak to

-Dr. Evans, who had passed along the

-road, a side of bacon on his left shoulder,

-and she came back, and with a

-low groan sat down. Sam Hemingway, who sat

-near the fire, shrugged his shoulders and sniffed.

-"You are making too much of a hullabaloo over it,"

-he said. "I've been thinking about the matter a

-lots, and I've come to the final conclusion that

-you are going it entirely too heavy, considering the

-balance of us. Every man, woman, and child, born

-and unborn, is predestinated to die, and them that

-meet their fate graceful-like are the right sort.

-Seeing you takin' on after them doctors left actually

-turned *me* sick at the stomach, and that ain't

-right. I'll be sick enough when my own time comes,

-I reckon, without having to go through separate

-spells for all my kin by marriage every time they

-have a little eruption break out on them. Then

-here's Virginia having her bright young life blighted

-when it ought to be all sunshine and roses, if I may

-be allowed to quote the poets. I'll bet when you

-was a young girl your cheeks wasn't kept wet as

-a dish-rag by a complaining mother. No, what

-you've got to do, Sister Jane, is to pucker up courage

-and face the music—be resigned."

-

-"Resigned! I say, resigned!" was the rebellious

-reply—"I say, resigned! with a slow thing like this

-eating away at my vitals and nothing under high

-heaven to make it let go. You can talk, sitting

-there with a pipe in your mouth, and every limb

-sound, and a long life ahead of you."

-

-"But you are openly disobeying Biblical injunction,"

-said Sam, knocking his exhausted pipe on

-the heel of his shoe. "You are kicking agin the

-pricks. All of us have to die, and you are raising

-a racket because your turn is somewhere in sight.

-You are kicking agin something that's as natural

-as a child coming into the world. Besides, you are

-going back on what you preach. You are eternally

-telling folks there's a life in front of us that beats

-this one all hollow, and, now that Providence has

-really blessed you by giving you a chance to sorter

-peep ahead at the pearly gates, you are actually

-balking worse than a mean mule. I say you ought

-to give me and Virginia a rest. If you can't possibly

-raise the scads to pay for having the thing cut

-out, then pucker up and grin and bear it. Folks

-will think a sight more of you. Being a baby at

-both ends of life is foolish—there ain't nobody

-willing to do the nursing the second time."

-

-"I want you to hush all that drivel, Sam," the

-widow retorted. "I reckon folks are different.

-Some are born with a natural dread of death, and

-it was always in my family. I stood over my mother

-and watched her breathe her last, and it went awfully

-hard with her. She begged and begged for

-somebody to save her, even sitting up in bed while

-all the neighbors were crouched about crying and

-praying, and yelled out to them to stop that and do

-something. We'd called in every doctor for forty

-miles about, and she had somehow heard of a young

-one away off, and she was calling out his name when

-she fell back and died."

-

-"Well, she must have had some load on her mind

-that she wasn't ready to dump at the throne," said

-Sam, without a hint of humor in his drawling voice.

-"I've always understood your folks, in the woman

-line at least, was unforgiving. They say forgiveness

-is the softest pillow to expire on. I dunno,

-I've never tried it."

-

-"I'm miserable, simply miserable!" groaned Jane.

-"Dr. Evans has just been to Darley. He promised

-to see if any of my old friends would lend me the

-money, but he says nobody had a cent to spare."

-

-"Folks never have cash for an investment of that

-sort," answered Sam. "I fetched up your case to

-old Milward Dedham at the store the other day.

-He'd just sold five thousand acres of wild mountain

-land to a Boston man for the timber that was

-on it, and was puffed up powerful. I thought if

-ever a man would be prepared to help a friend he

-would. 'La me, Sam,' said he, 'you are wasting

-time trying to keep a woman from pegging out

-when wheat's off ten cents a bushel. Any woman

-ought to be happy lying in a grave that is paid

-for sech times as these.'"

-

-The widow was really not listening to Sam's talk.

-With her bony elbows on her knee, her hand intuitively

-resting on the painless and yet insistent

-seat of her trouble, she rocked back and forth, sighing

-and moaning. There was a clicking of the gate-latch,

-a step on the gravelled walk, and Virginia,

-flushed from exercise in the cool air, came in and

-emptied her apron in the chimney corner, from which

-her uncle lazily dragged his feet. He leaned forward

-and critically scanned the heap of wood.

-

-"You've got some good, rich, kindling pine there,

-Virginia," he drawled out. "But you needn't

-bother after to-day, though. I'll have my wagon

-back from the shop to-morrow, and Simpson has

-promised to lend me his yoke of oxen, and let me

-haul some logs from his hill. Most of it is good,

-seasoned red oak, and when it gets started to burning

-it pops like a pack of fire-crackers."

-

-Virginia said nothing. Save for the firelight,

-which was a red glow from live coals, rather than

-any sort of flame, the big room was dark, and her

-mother took no notice of her, but Sam had his

-eyes on her over his left shoulder.

-

-"Your mother has been keeping up the same old

-song and dance," he said, dryly; "so much so

-that she's clean forgot living folks want to eat at

-stated times. I reckon you'll have to make the

-bread and fry what bacon is left on that strip of

-skin."

-

-Virginia said nothing to him, for her glance was

-steadily resting on her mother's despondent form.

-"Mother," she said, in a faltering, almost frightened

-tone, for she had been accustomed to no sort of

-deception in her life, and the part she was to play

-was a most repellent one—"mother, I've got something

-to tell you, and I hardly know how to do it.

-Down the road just a while ago I met a friend—a

-person who told me—the person told me—"

-

-"Well, what did the person tell you?" Sam asked,

-as both he and the bowed wreck at the fire stared

-through the red glow.

-

-"The person wants to help you out of trouble,

-mother, and gave me the hundred dollars you need.

-Before I got it I had to give my sacred word of

-honor that I'd never let even you know who sent

-it. I hardly knew what to do, but I thought perhaps

-I ought to—"

-

-"What? You mean—oh, Virginia, you don't

-mean—" Jane began, as she rose stiffly, her scrawny

-hand on the mantel-piece, and took a step towards

-her almost shrinking daughter.

-

-"Here's the money, mother," Virginia said, holding

-out the roll of bills, now damp and packed close

-together by her warm, tense fingers. "That's all

-I am allowed to tell you. I had to promise not to

-let you know who sent it."

-

-As if electrified from death to life, Jane Hemingway

-sprang forward and took the money into her

-quivering fingers. "A light, Sam!" she cried.

-"Make a light, and let me see. If the child's plumb

-crazy I want to know it, and have it over with.

-Oh, my Lord! Don't fool me, Virginia. Don't

-raise my hopes with any trick anybody wants to

-play."

-

-With far more activity than was his by birth,

-Sam stood up, secured a tallow candle from the

-mantel-piece, and bent over the coals.

-

-"Crazy?" he said. "I *know* the girl's crazy, if

-she says there's any human being left on the earth

-after Noah's flood who gives away money without

-taking a receipt for it—to say nothing of a double,

-iron-clad mortgage."

-

-"It looks and feels like money!" panted the widow.

-"Hurry up with the light. I wonder if my

-prayer has been heard at last."

-

-"Hearing it and answering are two different

-things; the whole neighborhood has *heard* it often

-enough," growled Sam, as he fumed impatiently

-over the hot coals, fairly hidden in a stifling cloud

-of tallow-smoke.

-

-"Here's a match," said Virginia, who had found

-one near the clock, and she struck it on the top of

-one of the dog-irons, and applied it to the dripping

-wick. At the same instant the hot tallow in the

-coals and ashes burst into flame, lighting up every

-corner and crevice of the great, ill-furnished room.

-Sam, holding the candle, bent over Jane's hands

-as they nervously fumbled the money.

-

-"Ten-dollar bills!" she cried. "Oh, count 'em,

-Sam! I can't. They stick together, she's wadded

-'em so tight."

-

-With almost painful deliberation Sam counted

-the money, licking his rough thumb as he raised

-each bill.

-

-"It's a hundred dollars all right enough," he

-said, turning the roll over to his sister-in-law.

-"The only thing that's worrying me is who's had

-sech a sudden enlargement of the heart in this

-section."

-

-"Virginia, who gave you this money?" Mrs.

-Hemingway asked, her face abeam, her eyes gleaming

-with joy.

-

-"I told you I was bound by a promise not to tell

-you or anybody else," Virginia awkwardly replied,

-as she avoided their combined stare.

-

-"Oh, I smell a great big dead rat under the barn!"

-Sam laughed. "I'd bet my Sunday-go-to-meeting

-hat I know who sent it."

-

-"You do?" exclaimed the widow. "Who do you

-think it was, Sam?"

-

-"Why, the only chap around about here that

-seems to have wads of cash to throw at cats," Sam

-laughed. "He pitched one solid roll amounting to

-ten thousand at his starving family awhile back.

-Of course, he did this, too. He always *did* have

-a hankering for Virginia, anyway. Hain't I seen

-them two—"

-

-"He didn't send it!" Virginia said, impulsively.

-"There! I didn't intend to set you guessing, and

-after this I'll never answer one way or the other.

-I didn't know whether I ought to take it on those

-conditions or not, but I couldn't see mother suffering

-when this would help her so much."

-

-"No, God knows I'm glad you took it," said Jane,

-slowly, "even if I'm never to know. I'm sure it was

-a friend, for nobody but a friend would care that

-much to help me out of trouble."

-

-"You bet it was a friend," said Sam, "unless it

-was some thief trying to get rid of some marked

-bills he's hooked some'r's. Now, Virginia, for the

-love of the Lord, get something ready to eat.

-For a family with a hundred dollars in hand,

-we are the nighest starvation of any I ever heard

-of."

-

-While the girl was busy preparing the cornmeal

-dough in a wooden bread-tray, her mother walked

-about excitedly.

-

-"I'll go to Darley in the hack in the morning,"

-she said, "and right on to Atlanta on the evening

-train. I feel better already. Dr. Evans says I

-won't suffer a particle of pain, and will come back

-weighing more and with a better appetite."

-

-"Well, I believe I'd not put myself out to improve

-on mine," said Sam, "unless this person who

-is so flush with boodle wants to keep up the good

-work. Dern if I don't believe I'll grow *me* a cancer,

-and talk about it till folks pay me to hush."

-

-

-

-

-XXVI

-====

-

-

-It was one fairly warm evening, three

-days after Jane had left for Atlanta.

-Virginia had given Sam his supper,

-and he had strolled off down to the

-store with his pipe. Then, with a

-light shawl over her shoulders, the girl sat in the

-bright moonlight on the porch. She had not been

-there long when she saw a man on a horse in the

-road reining in at the gate. Even before he dismounted

-she had recognized him. It was Luke

-King. Hardly knowing why she did so, she sprang

-up and was on the point of disappearing in the

-house, when, in a calm voice, he called out to her:

-

-"Wait, Virginia! Don't run. I have a message

-for you."

-

-"For me?" she faltered, and with unaccountable

-misgivings she stood still.

-

-Throwing the bridle-rein over the gate-post, he

-entered the yard and came towards her, his big

-felt-hat held easily in his hand, his fine head showing

-to wonderful advantage in the moonlight.

-

-"You started to run," he laughed. "You needn't

-deny it. I saw you, and you knew who it was, too.

-Just think of my little friend dodging whenever she

-sees me. Well, I can't help that. It must be natural.

-You were always timid with me, Virginia."

-

-"Won't you come in and have a chair?" she returned.

-"Mother has gone away to Atlanta, and

-there is no one at home but my uncle and me."

-

-"I knew she was down there," King said, feasting

-his hungry and yet gentle and all-seeing eyes on

-her. "That's what I stopped to speak to you

-about. She sent you a message."

-

-"Oh, you saw her, then!" Virginia said, more at

-ease.

-

-"Yes, I happened to be at the big Union car-shed

-when her train came in, and saw her in the crowd.

-The poor woman didn't know which way to turn,

-and I really believe she was afraid she'd get lost

-or stolen, or something as bad. When she saw me

-she gave a glad scream and fairly tumbled into my

-arms. She told me where she wanted to go, and I

-got a cab and saw her safe to the doctor's."

-

-"Oh, that was very good of you!" Virginia said.

-"I'm so glad you met her."

-

-"She was in splendid spirits, too, when I last

-saw her," King went on. "I dropped in there this

-morning before I left, so that I could bring you the

-latest news. She was very jolly, laughing and joking

-about everything. The doctor had not had

-time to make an examination, but he has a way of

-causing his patients to look on the bright side.

-He told her she had nothing really serious to fear,

-and it took a big load off her mind."

-

-They were now in the house, and Virginia had

-lighted a candle and he had taken a seat near the

-open door.

-

-"Doctors have a way of pretending to be cheerful,

-even before very serious operations, haven't

-they?" she asked, as she sat down not far from

-him.

-

-She saw him hesitate, as if in consideration of

-her feelings, and then he said, "Yes, I believe that,

-too, Virginia; still, he is a wonderful man, and if

-any one can do your mother good he can."

-

-"If *anybody* can?—yes," she sighed.

-

-"You mustn't get blue," he said, consolingly;

-"and yet how can you well help it, here almost by

-yourself, with your mother away under such sad

-circumstances?"

-

-"Your own mother was not quite well recently,"

-Virginia said, considerately. "I hope she is no

-worse."

-

-"Oh, she's on her feet again," he laughed, "as

-lively as a cricket, moving about bossing that big

-place."

-

-"Why, I thought, seeing you back so—so soon,"

-the girl stammered; "I thought that you had perhaps

-heard—"

-

-"That she was sick again? Oh no!" he exclaimed,

-and then he saw her drift and paused, and,

-flushed and embarrassed, sat staring at the floor.

-

-"You didn't—surely you didn't come all the way

-here to—to tell me about my mother!" Virginia

-cried, "when you have important work to do down

-there?"

-

-There was a moment's hesitation on his part;

-then he raised his head and looked frankly into her

-eyes.

-

-"What's the use of denying it?" he said. "I

-don't believe in deception, even in small things. It

-never does any good. I *did* have work to do down

-there, but I couldn't go on with it, Virginia, while

-you were here brooding as you are over your

-mother's condition. So I stayed at my desk till

-the north-bound train was ready to pull out. Then

-I made a break for it, catching the last car as it

-whizzed past the crossing near the office. The

-train was delayed on the way up, and after I got

-to Darley I was afraid I couldn't get a horse at the

-stable and get here before you were in bed; but you

-see I made it. Sam Hicks will blow me up about

-the lather his mare is in. I haven't long to stay

-here, either, for I must get back to Darley to catch

-the ten-forty. I'll reach the office about four in

-the morning, if I can get the conductor to slow up

-in the Atlanta switch-yard for me to hop off at the

-crossing."

-

-"And you did all that simply to tell me about my

-mother?" Virginia said. "Why, she could have

-written."

-

-"Yes, but seeing some one right from the spot is

-more satisfying," he said, with embarrassed lightness.

-"I wanted to tell you how she was, and I'm

-glad, whether you are or not."

-

-"I'm glad to hear from her," said Virginia. "It

-is only because I did not want to put you to so

-much trouble."

-

-"Don't bother about that, Virginia. I'd gladly

-do it every night in the week to keep you from

-worrying. Do you remember the day, long ago,

-that I came to you down at the creek and told you

-I was dissatisfied with things here, and was going

-away off to begin the battle of life in earnest?"

-

-"Yes, I remember," Virginia answered, almost

-oblivious of the clinging, invisible current which

-seemed to be sweeping them together.

-

-He drew a deep breath, as if to take in courage for

-what he had to say, and then went on:

-

-"You were only a little girl then, hardly thirteen,

-and yet to me, Virginia, you were a woman capable

-of the deepest feeling. I never shall forget how you

-rebuked me about leaving my mother in anger. You

-looked at me as straight and frank as starbeams,

-and told me you'd not desert your mother in her

-old age for all the world. I never forgot what you

-said and just the way you said it, and through all

-my turbulent life out West your lecture was constantly

-before me. I was angry at my mother, but

-finally I got to looking at her marriage differently,

-and then I began to want to see her and to do my

-filial duty as you were doing yours. That was

-one reason I came back here. The other was because—Virginia,

-it was because I wanted to see

-*you*."

-

-"Oh, don't, don't begin—" but Virginia's protest

-died away in her pulsing throat. She lowered

-her head and covered her hot face with her hands.

-

-"But I have begun, and I must go on," he said.

-"Out West I met hundreds of attractive women,

-but I could never look upon them as other men did

-because of the—the picture of you stamped on my

-brain. I was not hearing a word about you, but

-you were becoming exactly what I knew you would

-become; and when I saw you out there in the barn-yard

-that first day after I got back, my whole being

-caught fire, and it's blazing yet—it will blaze as

-long as there is a breath of my life left to fan it.

-For me there can be but one wife, little girl,

-and if she fails me I'll go unmarried to my

-grave."

-

-"Oh, don't! don't!" Virginia sobbed, her tones

-muffled by her hands pressed tightly over her face.

-"You don't know me. I'm not what you think I

-am. I'm only a poor, helpless, troubled—"

-

-"Don't! don't!" he broke in, fearfully—"don't decide

-against me hastily! I know—God knows I

-am unworthy of you, and if you don't feel as I do

-you will never link your young life to mine. Sometimes

-I fear that your shrinking from me as you

-often do is evidence against my hopes. Oh, dear,

-little girl, am I a fool? Am I a crazy idiot asking

-you for what you can't possibly give?"

-

-A sob which she was trying to suppress shook her

-from head to foot, and she rose and stepped to the

-door and stood there looking out on the moonlit road,

-where his impatient horse was pawing the earth

-and neighing. There was silence. King leaned forward,

-his elbows on his knees, his strong fingers

-locked like prongs of steel in front of him, his face

-deep cut with the chisel of anxiety. For several

-minutes he stared thus at her white profile struck

-into sharp clearness by the combined light from

-without and within.

-

-"I see it all," he groaned. "I've lost. While I

-was away out there treasuring your memory and

-seeing your face night after night, day after day—holding

-you close, pulling these rugged old mountains

-about you for protection, you were not—you

-were not—I was simply not in your thoughts."

-

-Then she turned towards him. She seemed to

-have grown older and stronger since he began speaking

-so earnestly.

-

-"You must not think of me that way any longer,"

-she sighed. "You mustn't neglect your work to

-come to see me, either."

-

-"You will never be my wife, then, Virginia?"

-

-"No, I could never be that, Luke—no, not that—never

-on earth."

-

-He shrank together as if in sudden, sharp physical

-pain, and then he rose to his full height and reached

-for his hat, which she had placed on the table. His

-heavy-soled boots creaked on the rough floor; he

-tipped his chair over, and it would have fallen had

-he not awkwardly caught it and restored it to its

-place.

-

-"You have a good reason, I am sure of that,"

-he said, huskily.

-

-"Yes, yes, I—I have a reason." Her stiff lips

-made answer. "We are not for each other, Luke.

-If you've been thinking so, so long, as you say, it

-is because you were trying to make me fit your

-ideal, but I am not that in reality. I tell you I'm

-only a poor, suffering girl, full of faults and

-weaknesses, at times not knowing which way to

-turn."

-

-He had reached the door, and he stepped out into

-the moonlight, his massive head still bare. He

-shook back his heavy hair in a determined gesture

-of supreme faith and denial and said: "I know you

-better than you know yourself, because I know better

-than you do how to compare you to other women.

-I want you, Virginia, just as you are, with

-every sweet fault about you. I want you with a

-soul that actually bleeds for you, but you say it

-must not be, and you know best."

-

-"No, it can't possibly be," Virginia said, almost

-fiercely. "It can never be while life lasts. You

-and I are as wide apart as the farthest ends of the

-earth."

-

-He bowed his head and stood silent for a moment,

-then he sighed as he looked at her again. "I've

-thought about life a good deal, Virginia," he said,

-"and I've almost come to the conclusion that a

-great tragedy must tear the soul of every person

-destined for spiritual growth. This may be my

-tragedy, Virginia; I know something of the tragedy

-that lifted Ann Boyd to the skies, but her neighbors

-don't see it. They are still beating the material

-husk from which her big soul has risen."

-

-"I know what she is," Virginia declared. "I'm

-happy to be one who knows her as she is—the

-grandest woman in the world."

-

-"I'm glad to hear you say that," King said. "I

-knew if anybody did her justice it would be you."

-

-"If I don't know how to sympathize with her, no

-one does," said the girl, with a bitterness of tone he

-could not fathom. "She's wonderful; she's glorious.

-It would be worth while to suffer anything

-to reach what she has reached."

-

-"Well, I didn't come to talk of her, good as she

-has been to me," King said, gloomily. "I must

-get back to the grind and whir of that big building.

-I shall not come up again for some time. I have an

-idea I know what your reason is, but it would drive

-me crazy even to think about it."

-

-She started suddenly, and then stared steadily at

-him. In the white moonlight she looked like a

-drooping figure carved out of stone, even to every

-fold of her simple dress and wave of her glorious

-hair.

-

-"You think you know!" she whispered.

-

-"Yes, I think so, and the pronunciation of a single

-name would prove it, but I shall not let it pass my

-lips to-night. It's my tragedy, Virginia."

-

-"And mine," she said to herself, but to him it

-seemed that she made no response at all, and after

-a moment's pause he turned away.

-

-"Good-bye," he said, from the gate.

-

-"Good-bye, Luke," she said, impulsively.

-

-But at the sound of his name he whirled and came

-back, his brow dyed with red, his tender eyes flashing.

-"I'll tell you one other thing, and then I'll

-go," he said, tremulously. "Out West, one night,

-after a big ball which had bored the life out of me—in

-fact, I had only gone because it was a coming-out

-affair of the daughter of a wealthy friend of mine.

-In the smoking-room of the big hotel which had

-been rented for the occasion I had a long talk with

-a middle-aged bachelor, a man of the world, whom

-I knew well. He told me his story. In his younger

-days he had been in love with a girl back East,

-and his love was returned, but he wanted to see

-more of life and the world, and was not ready to

-settle down, and so he left her. After years spent

-in an exciting business and social life, and never

-meeting any one else that he could care for, a sudden

-longing came over him to hear from his old

-sweetheart. He had no sooner thought of it than

-his old desires came back like a storm, and he could

-not even wait to hear from her. He packed up

-hastily, took the train, and went back home. He

-got to the village only two days after she had married

-another man. The poor old chap almost cried

-when he told me about it. Then, in my sympathy

-for him, I told him of my feeling for a little girl back

-here, and he earnestly begged me not to wait another

-day. It was that talk with him that helped

-me to make up my mind to come home. But, you

-see, I am too late, as he was too late. Poor old

-Duncan! He'd dislike to hear of my failure. But

-I've lost out, too. Now, I'll go sure. Good-bye,

-Virginia. I hope you will be happy. I'm going to

-pray for that."

-

-Leaning against the door-jamb, she saw him pass

-through the gateway, unhitch his restive horse, and

-swing himself heavily into the saddle, still holding

-his hat in his hand. Then he galloped away—away

-in the still moonlight, the—to her—peaceful,

-mocking moonlight.

-

-"He thinks he knows," she muttered, "but he

-doesn't dream the *whole* truth. If he did he would

-no longer think that way of me. What am I, anyway?

-He was loving me with that great, infinite

-soul while I was listening to the idle simpering of a

-fool. Ah, Luke King shall never know the truth!

-I'd rather lie dead before him than to see that wondrous

-light die out of his great, trusting eyes."

-

-She heard Sam coming down the road, and through

-the silvery gauze of night she saw the red flare of

-his pipe. She turned into her own room and sat

-down on the bed, her little, high-instepped feet on

-the floor, her hands clasped between her knees.

-

-

-

-

-XXVII

-=====

-

-

-The events which took place at Chesters'

-that adventurous night had a remarkable

-effect on the young master of the

-place. After Ann Boyd had left him

-he restlessly paced the floor of the

-long veranda. Blind fury and unsatisfied passion

-held him in their clutch and drove him to and fro

-like a caged and angry lion. The vials of his first

-wrath were poured on the heads of his meddlesome

-guests, who had so unceremoniously thrust themselves

-upon him at such an inopportune moment,

-and from them his more poignant resentment was

-finally shifted to the woman whom for years he,

-with the rest of the community, had contemptuously

-regarded as the partner in his father's early

-indiscretions. That she—such a character—should

-suddenly rise to remind him of his duty to his manhood,

-and even enforce it under his own roof, was

-the most humiliating happening of his whole life.

-

-These hot reflections and secret plans for revenge

-finally died away and were followed by a

-state of mind that, at its lowest ebb, amounted to

-a racking despair he had never known. Something

-told him that Ann Boyd had spoken grim truth

-when she had said that Virginia would never again

-fall under his influence, and certainly no woman

-had ever before so completely absorbed him. Up

-to this moment it had been chiefly her rare beauty

-and sweetness of nature that had charmed him, but

-now he began to realize the grandeur of her character

-and the depths to which her troubles had

-stirred his sympathies. As he recalled, word by

-word, all that had passed between them in regard

-to her nocturnal visit, he was forced to acknowledge

-that it was only through her absorbing desire to

-save her mother that she, abetted by her very

-purity of mind, had been blindly led into danger.

-He flushed and shuddered under the lash of the

-thought that he, himself, had constituted that

-danger.

-

-He went to bed, but scarcely closed his eyes during

-the remainder of the night, and the next morning

-was up before the cook had made the fires in the

-kitchen range. He hardly knew what he would do,

-but he determined to see Virginia at the earliest

-opportunity and make an honest and respectful

-attempt to regain her confidence. He would give

-her the money she so badly needed—give it to her

-without restrictions, and trust to her gratitude to

-restore her faith in him. He spent all that morning,

-after eating a hasty breakfast, on a near-by

-wooded hill-side, from which elevation he had a fair

-view of Jane Hemingway's cottage. He saw Virginia

-come from the house in search of the cow,

-and with his heart in his mouth he was preparing

-to descend to meet her, when, to his consternation,

-he saw that she had joined Ann Boyd at the barn-yard

-of the latter, and then he saw the two go into

-Ann's house together. This augured ill for him,

-his fears whispered, and he remained at his post

-among the trees till the girl came out of the house

-and hastened homeward. For the next two days

-he hung about Jane Hemingway's cottage with

-no other thought in mind than seeing Virginia.

-Once from the hill-side he saw her as she was returning

-from Wilson's store, and he made all haste

-to descend, hoping to intercept her before she

-reached home, but he was just a moment too late.

-She was on the road a hundred yards ahead of him,

-and, seeing him, she quickened her step. He walked

-faster, calling out to her appealingly to stop, but

-she did not pause or look back again. Then he saw

-a wagon filled with men and women approaching

-on the way to market, and, knowing that such unseemly

-haste on his part and hers would excite

-comment, he paused at the roadside and allowed her

-to pursue her way unmolested. The next day being

-Sunday, he dressed himself with unusual care, keenly

-conscious, as he looked in the mirror, that his

-visage presented a haggard, careworn aspect that

-was anything but becoming. His eyes had the

-fixed, almost bloodshot stare of an habitual drunkard

-in the last nervous stages of downward progress.

-His usually pliant hair, as if surcharged with

-electricity, seemed to defy comb and brush, and

-stood awry; his clothes hung awkwardly; his quivering

-fingers refused to put the deft touch to his

-tie which had been his pride. At the last moment

-he discovered that his boots had not been blacked

-by the negro boy who waited on him every morning.

-He did this himself very badly, and then

-started out to church, not riding, for the reason that

-he hoped Virginia would be there, and that he

-might have the excuse of being afoot to join her

-and walk homeward with her. But she was not

-there, and he sat through Bazemore's long-winded

-discourse, hardly conscious that the minister, flattered

-by his unwonted presence, glanced at him

-proudly all through the service.

-

-So it was that one thing and another happened

-to prevent his seeing Virginia till one morning at

-Wilson's store he heard that Jane Hemingway had,

-in some mysterious way, gotten the money she

-needed and had already gone to Atlanta. He suffered

-a slight shock over the knowledge that Virginia

-would now not need the funds he had been

-keeping for her, but this was conquered by the

-thought that he could go straight to the cottage,

-now that the girl's grim-faced guardian was away.

-So he proceeded at once to do this. As he approached

-the gate, a thrill of gratification passed

-over him, for he observed that Sam Hemingway

-was out at the barn, some distance from the house.

-As he was entering the gate and softly closing it

-after him, Virginia appeared in the doorway. Their

-eyes met. He saw her turn pale and stand alert

-and undecided, her head up like that of a young

-deer startled in a quiet forest. It flashed upon him,

-to his satisfaction, that she would instinctively retreat

-into the house, and that he could follow and

-there, unmolested even by a chance passer-by, say

-all he wanted to say, and say it, too, in the old

-fashion which had once so potently—if only temporarily—influenced

-her. But with a flash of wisdom

-and precaution, for which he had not given

-her credit, she seemed to realize the barriers beyond

-her and quickly stepped out into the porch, where

-coldly and even sternly she waited for him to

-speak.

-

-"Virginia," he said, taking off his hat and humbly

-sweeping it towards the ground, "I have been moving

-heaven and earth to get to see you alone." He

-glanced furtively down the road, and then added:

-"Let's go into the house. I've got something important

-to say to you."

-

-Still staring straight at him, she moved forward

-till she leaned against the railing of the porch. "I

-sha'n't do it," she said, firmly. "If I've been silly

-once, that is no reason I'll be so always. There is

-nothing you can say to me that can't be spoken

-here in the open sunlight."

-

-Her words and tone struck him like a material

-missile well-aimed and deliberately hurled. There

-was a dignity and firm finality in her bearing which

-he felt could not be met with his old shallow suavity

-and seductive flattery. From credulous childhood

-she seemed, in that brief period, to have grown into

-wise maturity. If she had been beautiful in his

-eyes before, she was now, in her frigid remoteness,

-in her thorough detachment from their former intimacy,

-far more than that.

-

-"Well, I meant no harm," he found himself articulating,

-almost in utter bewilderment. "I only

-thought that somebody passing might—"

-

-"Might see me with you?" she flashed out, with

-sudden anger. "What do I care? I came out here

-just now and gave a tramp something to eat. If

-they see you here, I suppose it won't be the first

-time a girl has been seen talking to a man in front

-of her own home."

-

-"I didn't mean to offend you," he stammered, at

-the end of his resources; "but I've been utterly

-miserable, Virginia."

-

-"Oh! is that so?" she sneered.

-

-"Yes, I have. I feel awfully bad about what took

-place. I wanted to give you that money for your

-mother, and that night when I finally got rid of

-those meddlesome devils and—"

-

-"In the name of Heaven, stop!" Virginia cried.

-"I simply will not stand here and talk about that."

-

-"But I have the money still," he said, feebly.

-"You kept your word in coming for it, and I want

-to keep mine."

-

-"I wouldn't touch a cent of it to save my life,"

-she hurled at him. "If my mother lay before my

-eyes dying in agony and your money would save

-her, I wouldn't have it. I wouldn't take it to save

-my soul from perdition."

-

-"You are making it very hard for me," he said,

-desperately; and then, with a frankness she could

-not have looked for even from his coarsest side,

-he went on passionately: "I'm only a man, Virginia—a

-human being, full of love, admiration, and—passion.

-Young as you are, I can't blame you, and,

-still you *did* encourage me. You know you did.

-I'm nearly insane over it all. I want you, Virginia.

-These meetings with you, and the things you have let

-me say to you, if you have said nothing yourself,

-have lifted me to the very sky. I simply cannot bear

-up under your present actions, knowing that that old

-woman has been talking against me. I am willing

-to do anything on earth to set myself right. I admire

-you more than I ever dreamed I could admire

-a woman, and my love for you is like a torrent that

-nothing can dam. I must have you, Virginia. The

-whole thing has gone too far. You ought to have

-thought of this before you agreed to come to my

-house alone at night, when you knew I was—when

-you knew I had every reason to expect that you—"

-

-"Stop!" she cried, with white lips and eyes flashing.

-"You are a coward, as well as a scoundrel!

-You are daring to threaten me. You have made

-me hate myself. As for you, I despise you as I

-would a loathsome reptile. I hate you! I detest

-you! I wake up in the night screaming in terror,

-fancying that I'm again in that awful room, locked

-in like a slave, a prisoner subject to your will—waiting

-for you to bid good-night to your drunken

-friends—locked in by your hand to wait there in

-an agony of death. Love you? I hate you! I

-hate the very low-browed emptiness of your face.

-I hate my mother for the selfish fear of death which

-blinded me to my own rights as a woman. Oh,

-God, I want to die and be done with it!"

-

-She suddenly covered her impassioned face with

-her hands and shook convulsively from head to

-foot.

-

-"Oh, Virginia, don't, don't make a mountain out

-of a molehill," he began, with a leaning towards his

-old, seductive persuasiveness. "There is nothing to

-feel so badly about. You know that Ann Boyd

-got there before I—I—"

-

-"That's all *you* know about it," she said, uncovering

-eyes that flashed like lightning. "When I

-went there, with no interest in you further than a

-silly love of your honeyed words and *to get your

-money*, I did what I'll never wipe from my memory."

-

-"Virginia"—he tried to assume a light laugh—"this

-whole thing has turned your head. You will

-feel differently about it later when your mother

-comes back sound and well. Ann Boyd is not

-going to tell what took place, and—"

-

-"And you and I will have a secret of that nature

-between us!" she broke in, furiously. "That's got

-to blacken my memory, and be always before me!

-You are going to know *that* of me when—when, yes,

-I'll say it—when another man whose shoes you are

-unworthy to wipe believes me to be as free from

-contact with evil as a new-born baby."

-

-Chester drew his brows together in sudden suspicion.

-

-"You are referring to Luke King!" he snapped

-out. "Look here, Virginia, don't make this matter

-any more serious than it is. I will not have a man

-like that held up to me as a paragon. I have heard

-that he used to hang around you when you were

-little, before he went off and came back so puffed

-up with his accomplishments, and I understand he

-has been to see you recently, but I won't stand his

-meddling in my affairs."

-

-"You needn't be afraid," Virginia said, with a bitterness

-he could not fathom. "There is nothing

-between Luke King and myself—absolutely nothing.

-You may rest sure that I'd never receive the

-attentions of a man of his stamp after what has

-passed between me and a man of your—" She

-paused.

-

-He was now white with rage. His lower lip hung

-and twitched nervously.

-

-"You are a little devil!" he cried. "You know

-you are driving me crazy. But I will not be thrown

-over. Do you understand? I am not going to give

-you up."

-

-"I don't know how you will help yourself," she

-said, moving back towards the door. "I certainly

-shall never, of my own free will, see you alone again.

-What I've done, I've done, but I don't intend to

-have it thrown into my face day after day."

-

-"Look here, Virginia," he began, but she had

-walked erectly into the house and abruptly closed

-the door. He stood undecided for a moment, and

-then, crestfallen, he turned away.

-

-

-

-

-XXVIII

-======

-

-

-One bright, crisp morning a few days

-later, after her uncle had ridden his

-old horse, in clanking, trace-chain harness,

-off to his field to do some ploughing,

-Virginia stole out unnoticed and

-went over to Ann Boyd's. The door of the farm-house

-stood open, and in the sitting-room the

-girl saw Ann seated near a window hemming a

-sheet.

-

-"I see from your face that you've had more

-news," the old woman said, as she smiled in greeting.

-"Sit down and tell me about it. I'm on

-this job and want to get through with it before I

-put it down."

-

-"I got a letter this morning," Virginia complied,

-"from a woman down there who said she was my

-mother's nurse. The operation was very successful,

-and she is doing remarkably well. The surgeon

-says she will have no more trouble with her affliction.

-It was only on the surface and was taken

-just in time."

-

-"Ah, just in time!" Ann held the sheet in her

-tense hands for a moment, and then crushed it into

-her capacious lap. "Then *she's* all right."

-

-"Yes, she is all right, Mrs. Boyd. In fact, the

-doctor says she will soon be able to come home.

-The simple treatment can be continued here under

-their directions till she is thoroughly restored."

-

-There was silence. Ann's face looked as hard as

-stone. She seemed to be trying to conquer some

-rising emotion, for she coughed, cleared her throat,

-and swallowed. Her heavy brows were drawn together,

-and the muscles of her big neck stood up

-under her tanned skin like tent-cords drawn taut

-from pole to stake.

-

-"I may as well tell you one particular thing and

-be done with it," she suddenly gulped. "I don't

-believe in deception of any sort whatever. I hate

-your mother as much as I could hate anything or

-anybody. I want it understood between us now

-on the spot that I done what I did for *you*, not for

-her. It may be Old Nick in me that makes me feel

-this way at such a time, but, you see, I understand

-her well enough to know she will come back primed

-and cocked for the old battle. The fear of death

-didn't alter her in her feelings towards me, and, now

-that she's on her feet, she will be worse than ever.

-It's purty tough to have to think that I put her in

-such good fighting trim, but I did it."

-

-"I am afraid you are right about her future attitude,"

-Virginia sighed, "and that was one reason

-I did not want help to come through you."

-

-"That makes no odds now," Ann said, stoically.

-"What's done is done. I'm in the hands of two

-powers—good and evil—and here lately I never

-know, when I get out of bed in the morning,

-whether I'm going to feel the cool breath of one or

-the hot blast of the other. For months I had but

-one desire, and that was to see you, you poor,

-innocent child, breathing the fumes of the hell I sunk

-into; and just as my hopes were about to be realized

-the other power caught me up like a swollen river

-and swept me right the other way. Luke King

-really caused it. Child, since God made the world

-He never put among human beings a man with

-a finer soul. That poor, barefoot mountain boy

-that I picked up and sent off to school has come

-back—like Joseph that was dropped in a pit—a

-king among men. Under the lash of his inspired

-tongue I had to rise from my mire of hatred and

-do my duty. I might not have been strong enough

-in the right way if—if I hadn't loved him so much,

-and if he hadn't told me, poor boy, with tears in

-his eyes and voice, that you were the only woman

-in the world for him, and that his career would be

-wrecked if he lost you. I let him leave me without

-making promises. I was mad and miserable

-because I was about to be thwarted. But when he

-was gone I got to thinking it over, and finally I

-couldn't help myself, and acted. I determined, if

-possible, to pull you back from the brink you stood

-on and give you to him, that you might live the life

-that I missed."

-

-Virginia sank into a chair. She was flushed from

-her white, rounded neck to the roots of her hair.

-

-"Oh, I didn't deserve it!" she cried. "I have

-remained silent when my mother was heaping abuse

-upon you. I made no effort to do you justice

-when your enemies were crying you down. Oh,

-Mrs. Boyd, you are the best and most unselfish

-woman that ever lived."

-

-"No, I am not that," Ann declared, firmly. "I'm

-just like the general run of women, weak and wishy-washy,

-with dry powder in my make-up that anybody

-can touch a match to. There is no counting

-on what I'll do next. Right now I feel like being

-your stanch friend, but I really don't know but

-what, if your mammy hemmed me in a corner, I'd

-even throw up to her what you did that night. I say

-I don't know what notion might strike me. She

-can, with one word or look of hers, start perdition's

-fire in me. I don't know any more than a cat what

-made me go contrary to my plans that night. It

-wasn't in a thousand miles of what I wanted to

-do, and having Jane Hemingway come back here

-with a sound body and tongue of fire isn't what I

-saved money to pay for. If forgiveness is to be

-the white garment of the next life, mine will be as

-black as logwood dye."

-

-"The pretty part of it all is that you don't know

-yourself as you really are," Virginia said, almost

-smiling in her enthusiasm. "Since I've seen the

-beautiful side of your character I've come almost

-to understand the eternal wisdom even in human

-ills. But for your hatred of my mother, your kindness

-to me would not be so wonderful. For a long

-time I had only my mother to love, but now, Mrs.

-Boyd, somehow, I have not had as great anxiety

-about her down there as I thought I would have.

-Really, my heart has been divided between you two.

-Mrs. Boyd, I love you. I can't help it—I love you."

-

-Ann suddenly raised her sheet and folded it in her

-lap. Her face had softened; there was a wonderful

-spiritual radiance in her eyes.

-

-"It's powerful good and sweet of you to—to talk

-that way to a poor, despised outcast like I am. I

-can't remember many good things being said about

-me, and when you say you feel that way towards

-me, why—well, it's sweet of you—that's all, it's

-sweet and kind of you."

-

-"You have *made* me love you," Virginia said,

-simply. "I could not help myself."

-

-Ann looked straight at the girl from her moist,

-beaming eyes.

-

-"I'm a very odd woman, child, and I want to

-tell you what I regard as the oddest thing about

-me. You say you feel kind towards me, and, and—love

-me a little. Well, ever since that night in that

-young scamp's room, when I came on you, crouched

-down there in your misery and fear, looking so

-much like I must 'a' looked at one time away back

-when not a spark of hope flashed in my black sky—ever

-since I saw you that way, helpless as a fresh

-violet in the track of a grazing bull, I have felt a

-yearning to draw you up against this old storm-beaten

-breast of mine and rock you to sleep. That's

-odd, but that isn't the odd thing I was driving at,

-and it is this, Virginia—I don't care a snap of my

-finger about my *own* child. Think of that. If I

-was to hear of her death to-night it wouldn't be

-any more to me than the news of the death of any

-stranger."

-

-"That *is* queer," said Virginia, thoughtfully.

-

-"Well, it's only nature working, I reckon," Ann

-said. "I loved her as a baby—in a natural way, I

-suppose—but when she went off from me, and by

-her going helped—child though she was—to stamp

-the brand on me that has been like the mark of a

-convict on my brow ever since—when she went off,

-I say, I hardened my heart towards her, and day

-after day I kept it hard till now she couldn't soften

-it. Maybe if I was to see her in trouble like you

-were in, my heart would go out to her; but she's

-independent of me; the only thing I've ever heard

-of her is that she cries and shudders at the mention

-of my name. She shudders at it, and she'll

-go down to her grave shuddering at it. She'll teach

-her children not to mention me. No, I'll never love

-her, and that's why it seems odd for me to feel like

-I do about you. Heaven knows, it seems like a

-dream when I remember that you are Jane Hemingway's

-child and the chief pride of her hard life.

-As for my own girl, she's full grown now, and has

-her natural plans and aspirations, and is afraid my

-record will blight them. I don't even know how

-she looks, but I have in mind a tall, stiff-necked,

-bony girl inclined to awkwardness, selfish, grasping,

-and unusually proud. But I can love as well as

-hate, though I've done more hating in my life than

-loving. There was a time I thought the very seeds

-of love had dried up in me, but about that time I

-picked up Luke King. Even as a boy he seemed

-to look deep into the problems of life, and was sorry

-for me. Somehow me and him got to talking over

-my trouble as if he'd been a woman, and he always

-stood to me and pitied me and called me tender

-names. You see, nobody at his home understood

-him, and he had his troubles, too, so we naturally

-drifted together like a mother and son pulled towards

-one another by the oddest freak of circumstances

-that ever came in two lives. We used to

-sit here in this room and talk of the deepest questions

-that ever puzzled the human brain. Our

-reason told us the infinite plan of the universe must

-be good, but we couldn't make it tally with the

-heavy end of it we had to tote. He was rebellious

-against circumstances and his lazy old step-father's

-conduct towards him, and he finally kicked over

-the traces and went West. Well, he had his eyes

-open out there, and came back with the blaze of

-spiritual glory in his manly face. He started in to

-practise what he was preaching, too. He yanked

-out of his pocket the last dollar of his savings and

-forked it over to the last people on earth to deserve

-it. That made me so mad I couldn't speak to him

-for a while, but now I'm forced to admit that

-the sacrifice hasn't harmed him in the least. He's

-plunging ahead down there in the most wonderful

-way, and content—well, content but just for one

-thing. I reckon you know what that is?"

-

-Ann paused. Virginia was looking out through

-the open doorway, a flush creeping over her sensitive

-face. She started to speak, but the words

-hung in her throat, and she only coughed.

-

-"Yes, you know as well as I do," Ann went on,

-gently. "He come over here the other night after

-he left your house. He hitched his horse at the

-gate and come in and sat down. I saw something

-serious had happened, and as he was not due here,

-and was overwhelmed with business in Atlanta, I

-thought he had met with money trouble. I made

-up my mind then and there, too, that I'd back him

-to the extent of every thimbleful of land and every

-splinter of timber in my possession; but it wasn't

-money he wanted. It was something else. He sat

-there in the moonlight that was shining through

-the door, with his head on his breast plumb full of

-despair. I finally got it out of him. You'd refused

-him outright. You'd decided that you could

-get on without the love and life-devotion of the

-grandest man that ever lived. I was thoroughly mad

-at you then. I come in an inch of turning plumb

-against you, but I didn't. I fought for you as I'd

-have fought for myself away back in my girlhood.

-I did it, although I could have spanked you good

-for making him so miserable."

-

-"You know why I refused him," Virginia said,

-in a low voice. "You, of all persons, will know that."

-

-"I don't know as I do," Ann said, with a probing

-expression in her eyes. "I don't know, unless,

-after all, you have a leaning for that young scamp,

-who has no more real honor than a convict in his

-stripes. Women are that way, except in very rare

-cases. The bigger the scoundrel and the meaner

-he treats them the more they want him. If it's

-that, I am not going to upbraid you. Upbraiding

-folks for obeying the laws of nature is the greatest

-loss of wind possible. If you really love that scamp,

-no power under high heaven will turn you."

-

-"Love him? I loathe him!" burst passionately

-from Virginia's lips.

-

-"Then what under the sun made you treat Luke

-King as you did?" asked Ann, almost sternly.

-

-"Because I could not marry him," said the girl,

-firmly. "I'd rather die than accept the love and

-devotion of a man as noble as he is after—after—oh,

-you know what I mean!"

-

-"Oh, I see—I see," Ann said, her brows meeting.

-"There comes another law of nature. I reckon if

-you feel that way, any argument I'd put up would

-fall on deaf ears."

-

-"I could never accept his love and confidence

-without telling him all that took place that night,

-and I'd kill myself rather than have him know,"

-declared the girl.

-

-"Oh, *that's* the trouble!" Ann exclaimed. "Well,

-I hope all that will wear away in time. It's fortunate

-that you are not loved by a narrow fool, my

-child. Luke King has seen a lots of the world in

-his young life."

-

-"He has not seen enough of the world to make

-him overlook a thing of that kind, and you know

-it," Virginia sighed. "I really believe the higher a

-man becomes spiritually the higher his ideal of a

-woman is. I know what he thinks of me now, but

-I don't know what he would think if he knew the

-whole truth. He must never be told that, Mrs.

-Boyd. God knows I am grateful to you for

-all you have done, but you must not tell him

-that."

-

-Ann put down her sheet and went to the fireplace,

-and with the tip of her coarse, gaping shoe

-she pushed some burning embers under a three-legged

-pot on the stone hearth. With her tongs she

-lifted the iron lid and looked at a corn-pone browning

-within, and then she replaced it. Her brow was

-deeply wrinkled.

-

-"You told me everything that happened that

-night, if I remember right," she said, tentatively.

-"In fact, I know you did."

-

-Virginia said nothing; her thoughts seemed elsewhere.

-

-Leaning the tongs against the fireplace, Ann came

-forward and bent over her almost excitedly.

-

-"Look here, child," she said, "you told me that—that

-I got there in time. You told me—"

-

-"I told you all I thought was necessary for you

-to understand the situation," said Virginia, her eyes

-downcast, "but I didn't tell you all I'd have to tell

-Luke King—to be his wife."

-

-"You say you didn't." Ann sat down heavily in

-her chair. "Then be plain with me; what under

-the sun did you leave out?"

-

-"I left out the fact that I was crazy that night,"

-said Virginia. "I read in a book once that a woman

-is so constituted that she can't see reason in anything

-which does not coincide with her desires. I

-saw only one thing that night that was worth considering.

-I saw only the awful suffering of my

-mother and the chance to put an end to it by getting

-hold of that man's money. Do you understand

-now? I went there for that purpose. I'd

-have laid down my life for it. When those men

-came he urged me to run and hide in his room, as

-he and I stood on the veranda, and it was not fear

-of exposure that drove me up the stairs holding

-to his hand. It was the almost appalling fear that

-the promised money would slip through my fingers

-if I didn't obey him to the letter. And when he

-whispered, with his hot breath in my ear, there in

-his room, as his friends were loudly knocking at

-the door below, that he would rid himself of them

-and come back, and asked me if I'd wait, I said

-yes, as I would, have said it to God in heaven.

-Then he asked me if it was '*a promise*,' and I said

-yes again. Then he asked me, Mrs. Boyd, he asked

-me—"

-

-Virginia's voice died out. She fell to quivering

-from head to foot.

-

-"Well, well, go on!" Ann said, under her breath.

-"Go on. What did he ask you?"

-

-Virginia hesitated for another minute, then, with

-her face red with shame, she said: "He asked me to

-prove it by—kissing him—kissing him of my own

-free will. I hesitated, I think. Yes, I hesitated,

-but I heard the steps of the men in the hall below

-at the foot of the stairs. I thought of the money,

-Mrs. Boyd, and I kissed him."

-

-"You did?"

-

-"Yes. I did—there, *in his room*!"

-

-"Well, I'm glad you told me that," Ann breathed,

-deeply. "I think I understand it better now. I

-understand how you feel."

-

-"So you see, all that's what I'd have to tell Luke

-King," Virginia said; "and I'll never do it—never

-on this earth. I want him always to think of me

-as he does right now."

-

-Ann locked her big hands in her lap and bent

-forward.

-

-"I see my greatest trouble is going to lie with

-you," she said. "You are conscientious. Millions

-of women have kept worse things than that from

-their husbands and never lost a wink of sleep over

-them, but you seem to be of a different stripe. I

-think Luke King is too grand a man to hold that

-against you, under all the circumstances. I think

-so, but I don't know men any better than they know

-women, and I'm not going to urge you one way or

-the other. I thought my easy-going husband would

-do me justice, but he couldn't have done it to save

-his neck from the loop. In my opinion there never

-will be any happy unions between men and women

-till men quit thinking so much about the weakness

-of women's *bodies* and so little of the strength of

-their *souls*. The view you had that night of the

-dark valley of a living death, and your escape from

-it, has lifted you into a purity undreamt of by the

-average woman. If Luke King's able to comprehend

-that, he may get him a wife on the open mountain-top;

-if not, he can find her in the bushes at the foot.

-He'll obey his natural law, as you and I will ours."

-

-

-

-

-XXIX

-====

-

-

-In dire dread of facing the anger of his

-father, who was expected back from

-Savannah, for having sold the horse

-which the Colonel himself was fond of

-riding, and being in the lowest dregs

-of despondency and chagrin over the humiliating

-turn his affair with Virginia had taken, Langdon

-Chester packed his travelling-bag and hurried off to

-Atlanta.

-

-There he had a middle-aged bachelor cousin,

-Chester Sively, who was as fair an example as one

-could well find of the antebellum Southern man of

-the world carried forward into a new generation

-and a more active and progressive environment.

-Fortunately for him, he had inherited a considerable

-fortune, and he was enabled to live in somewhat the

-same ease as had his aristocratic forebears. He had

-a luxurious suite of rooms in one of the old-fashioned

-houses in Peachtree Street, where he always welcomed

-Langdon as his guest, in return for the hospitality

-of the latter during the hunting season on

-the plantation.

-

-"Another row with the head of the house?" he

-smiled, as he rose from his easy-chair at a smoking-table

-to shake hands with the new arrival, who,

-hot and dusty, had alighted from a rickety cab,

-driven by a sleepy negro in a battered silk top-hat,

-and sauntered in, looking anything but cheerful.

-

-"Why did you think that?" Langdon asked, after

-the negro had put down his bag and gone.

-

-"Why? Oh, because it has been brewing for a

-long time, old chap," Sively smiled; "and because

-it is as natural for old people to want to curb the

-young as it is for them to forget their own youth.

-When I was up there last, Uncle Pres could scarcely

-talk of anything but your numerous escapades."

-

-"We didn't actually have the *row*," Langdon

-sighed, "but it would have come if I hadn't lit out

-before he got back from Savannah. The truth is"—the

-visitor dropped his eyes—"he has allowed me

-almost no pocket-money of late, and, getting in a

-tight place—debts, you know, and one thing and

-another—I let my best horse go at a sacrifice the

-other day. Father likes to ride him, and he's going

-to raise sand about it. Oh, I couldn't stand it, and

-so I came away. It will blow over, you know, but

-it will do so quicker if I'm here and he's there.

-Besides, he is always nagging me about having no

-profession or regular business, and if I see a fair

-opening down here, I'm really going to work."

-

-"You'll never do it in this world." Sively laughed,

-and his dark eyes flashed merrily as he pulled at his

-well-trained mustache. "You can no more do that

-sort of thing than a cat-fish can hop about in a

-bird-cage. In an office or bank you'd simply pine

-away and die. Your ancestors lived in the open

-air, with other people to work for them, and you are

-simply too near that period to do otherwise. I

-know, my boy, because I've tried to work. If I

-didn't have private interests that pin me down to

-a sort of routine, I'd be as helpless as you are."

-

-"You are right, I reckon." Langdon reached

-out to the copper bowl on the table and took a

-cigar. "I know, somehow, that the few business

-openings I have heard of now and then have simply

-sickened me. When I get as much city life as is

-good for me down here, I like to run back to the

-mountains. Up there I can take my pipe and gun

-and dog and—"

-

-"And enjoy life right; you bet you can," Sively

-said, enthusiastically. "Well, after all, it's six of

-one and half a dozen of the other. My life isn't all

-it's cracked up to be by men who say they are

-yearning for it. Between you and me, I feel like

-a defunct something or other when I hear these

-thoroughly up-to-date chaps talking at the club

-about their big enterprises which they are making

-go by the very skin of their teeth. Why, I know

-one fellow under thirty who has got every electric

-car-line in the city tied to the tips of his fingers.

-I know another who is about to get Northern backing

-for a new railroad from here to Asheville, which

-he started on nothing but a scrap of club writing-paper

-one afternoon over a bottle of beer. Then

-there is that darned chap from up your way, Luke

-King. He's a corker. He had little education, I

-am told, and sprang from the lowest cracker stock,

-but he's the sensation of the hour down here."

-

-"He's doing well, then," Langdon said, a touch of

-anger in his tone as he recalled Virginia's reference

-to King on their last meeting.

-

-"Well? You'd think so. Half the capitalists in

-Atlanta are daft about him. They call him a great

-political, financial, and moral force, with a brain as

-big as Abraham Lincoln's. I was an idiot. I had

-a chance to get in on the ground-floor when that

-paper of his started, but I was wise—I was knowing.

-When I heard the manager of the thing was

-the son of one of your father's old tenants, I pulled

-down one corner of my eye and turned him over to

-my financial rivals. You bet I see my mistake now.

-The stock is worth two for one, and not a scrap on

-the market at that. Do you know what the directors

-did the other day? When folks do it for you

-or me we will feel flattered. They insured his life

-for one hundred thousand dollars, because if he

-were to die the enterprise wouldn't have a leg to

-stand on. You see, it's all in his big brain. I suppose

-you know something about his boyhood?"

-

-"Oh yes," Langdon said, testily; "we were near

-the same age, and met now and then, but, you know,

-at that time our house was so full of visitors that I

-had little chance to see much of people in the neighborhood,

-and then he went West."

-

-"Ah, yes," said Sively, "and that's where his

-boom started. They are circulating some odd stories

-on him down here, but I take them all with

-a grain of salt. They say he sold out his Western

-interests for a good sum and gave every red cent

-of it to his poor old mother and step-father."

-

-"That's a fact," said Langdon. "I happen to

-know that it is absolutely true. When he got back

-he found his folks in a pretty bad shape, and he

-bought a good farm for them."

-

-"Well, I call that a brave thing," said the older

-man—"a thing I couldn't do to save my neck from

-the halter. No wonder his editorials have stirred

-up the reading public; he means what he says.

-He's the most conspicuous man in Atlanta to-day.

-But, say, you want to go to your room, and I'm

-keeping you. Go in and make yourself comfortable.

-I may not get to see much of you for two or

-three days. I have to run out of town with some

-men from Boston who are with me in a deal for some

-coal and iron land, but I'll see you when I return."

-

-"Oh, I can get along all right, thanks," Langdon

-said, as Pomp, Sively's negro man-servant, came for

-his bag in obedience to his master's ring.

-

-Three days later, on his return to town from a

-trip to the country, Sively, not seeing anything of

-his guest, asked Pomp where he was.

-

-"Don't know whar he is now, boss," the negro

-said, dryly. "I haint seed 'im since dis mawnin',

-when he got out o' bed an' had me shave 'im up

-an' bresh his clothes. I tell you, Marse Sively, dat

-man's doin' powerful funny. He's certainly gone

-wrong somehow."

-

-"Why, what do you mean?" the bachelor asked,

-in alarm. "He looked all right when he got here."

-

-"Huh, I don't know what ails 'im, suh," the

-negro grunted, "but I kin see he's actin' curious.

-Dat fust mawnin' when I went in his room to clean

-up an' make de baid I come in easy like to keep fum

-wakin' 'im, but, bless you, he was already up, standin'

-at de window lookin' out in de street an' actually

-groanin' to hisse'f like some'n' was wrong wid his

-insides. I axed 'im what was de matter, an' if he

-wants me to telephone fer de doctor, but he lit in

-to cussin' me at sech a rate dat I seed it wasn't any

-ailment o' de flesh, anyway. He ordered me to go

-to de café fer his breakfast, an' I fetched 'im what he

-always did fancy—fried chicken, eggs on toast, an'

-coffee wid whipped cream—but, bless you, he let

-'em get stone cold on de table, an' wouldn't touch

-a thing but what was in yo' decanter."

-

-"You don't tell me," Sively said, anxiously.

-"What has he been doing of evenings? Did he go

-to the Kimball House dance? I had Colville send

-him tickets. The Williamsons asked him to their

-card-party, too. Did he go?"

-

-"Not a step," Pomp replied. "He had me lay

-out his claw-hammer coat an' get it pressed at

-de tailor-shop dat fust night, and stirred around

-considerable, wid several drinks in 'im. He even

-had me clean his patent-leather pumps and ordered

-a cab fum de stable. Said he wasn't goin' to ride in

-one o' dem rickety street hacks wid numbers on 'em

-an' disgrace you. But, suh, de cab come an' I had

-everything out clean on de baid even to a fresh

-tube-rose for his button-hole. He sat around

-smokin' and runnin' fer de decanter ever' now and

-den, but wouldn't take off a rag of his old clothes,

-an' kept walkin' de flo', fust to de winder an' den

-back to de lounge, whar he'd throw hisse'f down at

-full length an' roll an' toss like he had de cramps.

-I went to 'im, I did, at ten o'clock, an' told 'im he

-was gwine to miss de grand promenade an' let all

-de rest of 'em fill up de ladies' cards, but he stared

-at me, suh, like he didn't know what I was talkin'

-about, an' den he come to his senses, an' told me he

-wasn't goin' to no dance. He went to de window

-an' ordered de cab off. De next mawnin' he had

-all his nice dress-suit stuffed in a wad in his valise.

-It was a sight, I'm here to tell you, an' he was settin'

-on de baid smoking. He said he'd had enough

-o' dis town, an' believed he'd take de train home;

-but he didn't, suh. De next night I was sho'

-oneasy, an' I watched 'im de best I could widout

-makin' 'im mad. He et a bite o' de supper I fetched

-'im, and den, atter dark, he started out on foot. I

-followed 'im, kase I 'lowed you'd want me to ef you

-was here."

-

-"Yes, of course," Sively said; "and where did he

-go?"

-

-"Nowhar, suh—dat is, he didn't stop a single

-place. He just walked and walked everywhar and

-anywhar. It didn't make no odds to him, jest so

-he was movin' his laigs. He must 'a' covered five

-good miles in de most zigzag travellin' you ever

-seed—went clean to de gate o' de Exposition

-grounds, an' den back, an' plumb round de Capitol

-and out Washington Street, wid me on his scent

-like a blood-hound after a runaway nigger; but

-dar wasn't much danger o' me bein' seen, fer he

-didn't look round. Well, he finally turned an'

-come home an' tumbled in baid about two in de

-mawnin'. Yesterday de Williamson ladies an' deir

-maw driv' up to de do' an' axed about 'im. Dey

-said he was down on de list fer dinner at dey house,

-an', as he didn't come or send no word, dey 'lowed

-he was laid up sick. De lawd knows, I didn't know

-what to tell 'em. I've got myse'f in trouble befo'

-now lyin' fer white men widout knowin' what I was

-lyin' about, an' I let dat chance slide, an' told 'em

-I didn't know a blessed thing about it. Dey driv'

-off in a big huff; all three dey backs was as straight

-as a ironin'-board."

-

-"Have you any idea where he is now?" Sively

-inquired, anxiously.

-

-"I think he's over at de club, suh. De waiters

-in de café told me dat he makes a habit o' loungin'

-round de back smokin'-room by hisse'f."

-

-"Drinking?"

-

-"No, suh—dat is, not any mo'n he kin tote. He

-walks straight enough, it jest seems like it's some'n'

-wrong in his mind, Marse Sively," and Pomp touched

-his black brow significantly.

-

-"Well," Sively said, after a moment's reflection,

-"order the horses and trap. If I can find him I'll

-take him out to the Driving Club. I'm glad I got

-back. I'll take him in hand. Between me and

-you, Pomp, I think he's had bad news from his

-father. I'm afraid my uncle has really laid down

-the law to him, cut off his spending-money, or something

-of the kind."

-

-

-

-

-XXX

-===

-

-

-In the darkest corner of the quietest

-room in the club, Sively found his

-cousin gloomily smoking a cigar, a bottle

-of brandy on a table near him,

-and a copy of Luke King's paper on

-the floor at his feet. As he looked up his eyes had

-a shifting glare in them, and there was an air of

-utter dejection on him, though, on recognizing his

-cousin, he made a valiant effort to appear at ease.

-

-"Oh, you are back, are you?" he said, awkwardly,

-flicking the ashes of his cigar over a tray.

-

-"Yes, just in, old boy, and I've got my horses

-out for a spin to the Driving Club. Come along.

-The whole town is out on wheels; the afternoon is

-perfect. The idea of your sitting cooped up here, in

-smoke thick enough to cut with an axe, when you

-ought to be filling your lungs with ozone and enjoying

-life!"

-

-Langdon hesitated, but it was evident that he

-could formulate no reasonable excuse for declining

-the invitation, and so he reluctantly gave in. "Let

-me get my hat," he said, and together they strolled

-down the wide entrance-hall to the hat-rack.

-

-"I felt rather uneasy when I missed you at my

-rooms," Sively remarked, as they were approaching

-the trap at the door. "Pomp could give no account

-of you, and I didn't know but what you'd skipped

-out for home. Have a good time while I was away?"

-

-"Oh yes, yes," Chester answered, as he got into

-the vehicle and began to adjust the lap-robes about

-him. "I got along all right. You see, old man,

-I'm sort of getting on the social retired-list. Living

-in the country, where we have few formalities, has

-turned me somewhat against your teas, dinners, and

-dances. I never go without feeling out of it somehow.

-You Atlanta men seem to know how to combine

-business and society pretty well; but, having

-no business when I'm here, I get sick of doing the

-other thing exclusively."

-

-"Oh, I see," said Sively, who was too deeply

-versed in human nature to be misled.

-

-As they sped along the smooth asphalt pavement

-of Peachtree Street, dodging trolley-cars and passing

-or meeting open vehicles filled with pleasure-seekers,

-Sively's hat and arm were in continual

-motion bowing to friends and acquaintances. The

-conversation languished. Sively found it very difficult

-to keep it going as he noted the deep lines of

-care which marked his cousin's face. He was quite

-sure something of a very serious nature had happened

-to Langdon, and his sympathies were deeply

-stirred.

-

-After twenty minutes' brisk driving, they reached

-the club-house and entered the throng of fashionably

-dressed men and women distributed about at the

-numerous refreshment-tables under the trees. The

-club was on a slight elevation, and below them

-stretched the beautiful greensward of the extensive

-Exposition grounds. Several of the liveried servants,

-recognizing Sively, approached and offered

-chairs at their respective tables, but, sensing his

-cousin's desire not to be thrown with others, he led

-the way through the laughing and chattering assemblage

-to a quiet table in a little smoking-room

-quite in the rear of the building.

-

-"There," he smiled, "this will suit you better,

-I know."

-

-"Yes, I think it will, if it's all the same to you,"

-Chester admitted, with a breath of relief. "The

-Lord only knows what I'd talk about out there in

-that chattering gang."

-

-Sively ordered cigars, and, when the waiter had

-gone for them, he said, lightly: "No more liquor for

-you to-day, my boy. You hold your own all right,

-but you are too nervous to take any more."

-

-"Nervous? Do you think so? Do I look it?"

-Chester asked.

-

-"Oh yes, a little," said Sively. He was taking

-a bunch of cigars from the waiter, and, when he had

-signed his name to the accompanying slip of paper,

-he said, "Harry, pull the door to after you, and see

-that we are not disturbed."

-

-"Certainly, sir."

-

-Langdon, with widening eyes, watched the negro

-as he went out and closed the door, then he glanced

-at his cousin inquiringly.

-

-"I want to be alone with you, my boy," Sively

-said, with ill-assumed ease. "You can trust me,

-you know, and—well, the truth is, my boy, I want

-to know what you are in trouble about."

-

-"Me? Good gracious!"

-

-"Oh, don't begin that!" Sively said, firmly, as he

-struck a match and held it to the end of his cigar.

-"I won't stand it. You can't keep your feelings

-from me. At first, when Pomp told me about your

-not going out to those affairs when I was away, I

-thought your father had thrown you over for good

-and all, but it isn't that. My uncle couldn't do it,

-anyway. You are in trouble, my boy; what is it?"

-

-Langdon flushed and stared defiantly across the

-table into the fixed eyes of his cousin for a moment,

-and then he looked down.

-

-"No, my father is all right," he said. "He's

-found out about the horse, but he didn't take it so

-very hard. In fact, he went to Darley and bought

-him back for only a slight advance on what I sold

-him for. He is worried about me, and writes for

-me to come on home."

-

-"Then, as I supposed, it is *not* your father," said

-Sively.

-

-There was a pause. Langdon, with bloodless

-fingers, nervously broke his cigar half in two. He

-took another and listlessly struck a match, only to

-let its flame expire without using it.

-

-"What's the trouble, my boy?" pursued Sively.

-"I want to befriend you if I can. I'm older than

-you."

-

-"Well, I *am* in trouble," Langdon said, simply.

-Then, in a low tone, and with frequent pauses,

-he told all about his acquaintance with Virginia.

-Once started, he left out no detail, extending his

-confidence till it had included a humble confession

-even of his humiliation by Ann Boyd and the girl's

-bitter words of contempt a few days later. "Then

-I had to come away," Langdon finished, with a sigh

-that was a whispered groan. "I couldn't stand it.

-I thought the change, the life and excitement down

-here, would make me forget, but it's worse than

-ever. I'm in hell, old man—a regular hell."

-

-Sively leaned back in his chair. There was an

-expression of supreme disgust about his sensitive

-nose and mouth, and his eyes burned with indignant,

-spirit-fed fires.

-

-"Great God!" he exclaimed; "and it was *that* girl—that

-particular one—Jane Hemingway's daughter!"

-

-"You've seen her, then?" Langdon said, in

-awakening surprise.

-

-"Seen her? Great Heavens, of course, I've seen

-her, and, now that I know all this, her sweet, young

-face will never go out of my mind—never as long

-as life is in me."

-

-"I don't exactly see—I don't understand—"

-Langdon began, but his cousin interrupted him.

-

-"I had a talk with her one day," he said, feelingly.

-"I had been hunting with your gun and dogs, and

-stopped at her mother's house to get a drink of

-water. Virginia was the only one at home, and she

-brought it to me in the little porch. I've met

-thousands of women, Langdon, but her beauty,

-grace, intelligence, and dazzling purity affected me

-as I never was before. I am old enough to be her

-father, but do you know what I thought as I sat

-there and talked to her? I thought that I'd give

-every dollar I had for the love and faith of such a

-girl—to leave this rotten existence here and settle

-down there in the mountains to earn my living by

-the sweat of my brow. It was almost the only silly

-dream I ever had, but it was soon over. A thousand

-times since that day, in the midst of all this

-false show and glitter, my mind has gone back to

-that wonderful girl. She'd read books I'd never

-had time to open, and talked about them as freely

-and naturally as I would about things of everyday

-life. No doubt she was famished for what all

-women, good or bad, love—the admiration of men—and

-so she listened eagerly to your slick tongue.

-Oh, I know what you said, and exactly how you

-said it. You've inherited that gift, my boy, but

-you've inherited something—perhaps from your

-mother—something that your father never had in

-his make-up—you've inherited a capacity for remorse,

-self-contempt, the throes of an outraged

-conscience. I'm a man of the world—I don't go to

-church, I play cards, I race horses, I've gone all

-the gaits—but I know there is something in most

-men which turns their souls sick when they consciously

-commit crime. *Crime!*—yes, that's it—don't stop

-me. I used a strong word, but it must go. There

-are men who would ten thousand times rather shoot

-a strong, able-bodied man dead in his tracks than

-beguile a young girl to the brink of doom (of all

-ways) as you did—blinding her to her own danger

-by the holy desire to save her mother's life, pulling

-her as it were by her very torn and bleeding heart-strings.

-God!"

-

-"Oh, don't—don't make it any worse than it is!"

-Langdon groaned. "What's done's done, and, if

-I'm down in the blackest depths of despair over it,

-what's the use to kick me? I'm helpless. Do you

-know what I actually thought of doing this morning?

-I actually lay in bed and planned my escape.

-I wanted to turn on the gas, but I knew

-it would never do its work in that big, airy room."

-

-"Oh, don't be a fool, Langdon!" Sively said,

-suddenly pulled around. "Never think of such a

-thing again. When a man that *is* a man does a

-wrong, there is only one thing for him to do, and

-that is to set it right."

-

-"Set it right? But how?" Langdon cried, almost

-eagerly.

-

-"Why, there are several ways to make a stab

-at it, anyway," Sively said; "and that is better than

-wiping your feet on a gentle creature and then going

-off and smoking a gas-pipe. What I want to

-know is this: do you *love* that girl, really and

-genuinely *love* her?"

-

-"Why, I think I do," said Langdon; "in fact, I

-now *know* it; if I didn't, why should I be here miserable

-enough to die about what has happened and

-her later treatment of me?"

-

-"I couldn't take your diagnosis of your particular

-malady." Sively puffed thoughtfully at his

-cigar. "You'd be the last person, really, that could

-decide on that. There are some men in the world who

-can't tell the difference between love and passion,

-and they are led to the altar by one as often as the

-other. But the passion-led man has walked through

-the pink gates of hell. When his temporary desire

-has been fed, he'll look into the face of his bride

-with absolute loathing and contempt. She'll be

-too pure, as a rule, to understand the chasm between

-them, but she will know that for her, at

-least, marriage is a failure. Now, if I thought you

-really loved that pretty girl—if I thought you really

-were man enough to devote the rest of your days to

-blotting from her memory the black events of that

-night; if I thought you'd go to her with the hot

-blood of hell out of your veins, and devote yourself

-to winning her just as some young man on her own

-social level would do, paying her open and respectful

-attentions, declaring your honorable intentions

-to her relatives and friends—if I thought you were

-man enough to do that, in spite of the opposition

-of your father and mother, then I'd glory in your

-spunk, and I'd think more of you, my poor boy,

-than I ever have in all my life."

-

-Langdon leaned forward. He had felt his cousin's

-contemptuous words less for the hope they embodied.

-"Then you think if I did that, she might—"

-

-"I don't know what *she'd* do," Sively broke in.

-"I only know that when you finally saw her after

-that night and made no declarations of honorable

-intentions, that you simply emphasized the cold-blooded

-insult of what had already happened. She

-saw in your following her up only a desire to repeat

-the conduct which had so nearly entrapped her.

-My boy, I am not a mean judge of women, and I

-am afraid you have simply lost that girl forever.

-She has lowered herself, as she perhaps looks at it,

-in the eyes of another woman—the one who saved

-her—and her young eyes have been torn open to

-things she was too pure and unsuspecting even to

-dream of. However, all her life she has heard of

-the misfortune of this Mrs. Boyd, and she now realizes

-only too vividly what she has escaped. It

-might take you years to restore her confidence—to

-prove to her that you love her for herself alone, but

-if I stood in your shoes I'd do it if it took me a

-lifetime. She is worth it, my boy. In fact, I'm

-afraid she is—now pardon me for being so blunt—but

-I'm afraid she is superior to you in intellect.

-She struck me as being a most wonderful woman

-for her age. Given opportunity, she'd perhaps out-strip

-you. It is strange that she has had so little

-attention paid to her. Has she never had an admirer

-before?"

-

-Langdon exhaled a deep breath before replying.

-"That is something I've been worried about," he

-admitted. "From little things she has dropped

-I imagine this same Luke King used to be very

-fond of her before he left for the West. They have

-met since he got back, and I'm afraid she—"

-

-"Good gracious! that puts another face on the

-business," said Sively. "I don't mean any disparagement

-to you, but if—if there ever was any

-understanding between them, and he has come back

-such a success, why, it isn't unlikely that you'd

-have a rival worth giving attention to. A man of

-that sort rarely ever makes a mistake in marrying.

-If he is after that girl, you've got an interesting

-fight ahead of you—that is, if you intend to buck

-against him. Now, I see, I've made you mad."

-

-"Do you think I'd let a man of his birth and

-rearing thwart me?" Langdon cried—"a mountain

-cracker, a clodhopper, an uncouth, unrefined—"

-

-"Stop! you are going too far," said Sively, quickly.

-"Our old idea that refinement can only come

-from silk-lined cradles is about exploded. It seems

-to me that refinement is as natural as a love of art,

-music, or poetry. And not only has that chap got

-refinement of a decided sort, but he's got a certain

-sort of pride that makes him step clean over a reverence

-for our defunct traditions. When he meets

-a scion of the old aristocracy his clear eye doesn't

-waver as he stares steadily into the face as if to see

-if the old régime has left a fragment of brains there

-worth inspecting. Oh, he gets along all right in

-society! The Holts had him at the club reception

-and dinner the other night, and our best women

-were actually *asking* to be introduced to him,

-and—"

-

-"But why are you telling all this stuff to me?"

-Langdon thundered, as he rose angrily to signify

-that he was ready to go.

-

-"Why do I?" Sively said, pacifically. "Because

-you've simply got to know the genuine strength of

-your rival, if he *is* that, and you have to cross

-swords with him. If the fellow really intends to

-win that girl, he will perhaps display a power in

-the undertaking that you never saw. I'd as soon

-fight a buzz-saw with bare hands as to tackle him

-in a fight for a woman's love. Oh, I've got started,

-my boy, and I'll have to reel it all off, and be done

-with it. There is one thing you may get mad and

-jealous enough to do—that is, in case you are this

-fellow King's rival—"

-

-"What do you mean? What did you start to

-say?" Langdon glared down at his cousin.

-

-"Why, you might—I say might—fall low enough

-to try to use the poor girl's little indiscretion against

-her. But if you do, my boy, I'll go back on you.

-I'll do it as sure as there is a God in heaven. I

-wish you luck with her, but it all depends on you.

-If you will be a man, you may be happy in the end,

-get a beautiful, trusting wife, and wipe the mire off

-your soul which is making you so miserable. Go

-straight home and set about it in the right way.

-Begin with a humble proposal of marriage. That

-will show your intentions at the outset. Now, let's

-get out in the open air."

-

-They walked through the gay throng again to the

-carriage, and as they were getting in Langdon said,

-almost cheerfully: "I'm going to take your advice.

-I know I love her, honestly and truly, for I want

-her with every nerve in my body. I haven't slept

-a single night through since the thing happened.

-I've simply been crazy."

-

-"Well, the whole thing lies with you," said Sively.

-"The girl must have cared *something* for you at one

-time, and you must recover your lost place in her

-estimation. A humble proposal of marriage will,

-in my judgment, soften her more than anything else.

-It will be balm to her wounded pride, too, and you

-may win. You've got a fair chance. Most poor

-mountain girls would be flattered by the opportunity

-to marry a man above them in social position, and

-she may be that way. Be a man, and pay no attention

-to your father's objections. When the proper

-time comes, I'll talk to him."

-

-

-

-

-XXXI

-====

-

-

-After leaving Atlanta, with only her

-normal strength and flesh to regain,

-Jane Hemingway returned to her

-mountain home in most excellent spirits.

-She had heartily enjoyed her stay,

-and was quite in her best mood before the eager

-group of neighbors who gathered at her cottage the

-afternoon of her return.

-

-"What *I* can't understand," remarked old Mrs.

-Penuckle, "is why you don't say more about the

-cutting. Why, the knife wasn't going into *me* at

-all, and yet on the day I thought the doctors would

-be at work on you I couldn't eat my dinner. I went

-around shuddering, fancying I could feel the blade

-rake, rake through my vitals. Wasn't you awfully

-afraid?"

-

-"Bless your soul, no!" Jane laughed merrily.

-"There wasn't a bit more of a quiver on me than

-there is right now. We was all talking in a funny

-sort of way and passing jokes to the last minute

-before they gave me ether. They gave it to me

-in a tin thing full of cotton that they clapped over

-my mouth and nose. I had to laugh, I remember,

-for, just as he got ready, Dr. Putnam said, with his sly

-grin, 'Look here, I'm going to muzzle you, old lady,

-so you can't talk any more about your neighbors.'"

-

-"Well, he certainly give you a bliff there without

-knowing it," remarked Sam Hemingway, dryly.

-"But he's a fool if he thinks a tin thing full o' drugs

-would do that."

-

-"Oh, go on and tell us about the cutting," said

-Mrs. Penuckle, wholly oblivious of Sam's sarcasm.

-"That's what *I* come to hear about."

-

-"Well, I reckon getting under that ether was the

-toughest part of the job," Jane smiled. "I took

-one deep whiff of it, and I give you my word I

-thought the pesky stuff had burnt the lining out of

-my windpipe. But Dr. Putnam told me he'd give

-it to me more gradual, and he did. It still burnt

-some, but it begun to get easy, and I drifted off

-into the pleasantest sleep, I reckon, I ever had.

-When I come to and found nobody in the room but

-a girl in a white apron and a granny's cap, I was

-afraid they had decided not to operate, and, when I

-asked her if there'd been any hitch, she smiled and

-said it was all over, and I wouldn't have nothing to

-do but lie still and pick up."

-

-"It's wonderful how fine they've got things down

-these days," commented Sam. "Ten years ago folks

-looked on an operation like that as next to a funeral,

-but it's been about the only picnic Jane's had since

-she was flying around with the boys."

-

-The subject of this jest joined the others in a

-good-natured laugh. "There was just one thing on

-my mind to bother me," she said, somewhat more

-seriously, "and that was wondering who gave that

-money to Virginia. Naturally a thing like that

-would pester a person, especially where it was such

-a big benefit. I've been at Virginia to tell me, or

-give me some hint so I could find out myself, but

-the poor child looks awfully embarrassed, and keeps

-reminding me of her promise. I reckon there isn't

-but one thing to do, and that is to let it rest."

-

-"There's only one person round here that's *got*

-any spare money," said Sam Hemingway, quite

-with a straight face, "and it happens, too, that

-she'd like to have a thing like that done."

-

-"Why, who do you mean, Sam?" His sister-in-law

-fell into his trap, as she sat staring at him

-blandly.

-

-"Why, it's Ann Boyd—old Sister Ann. She'd pay

-for a job like that on the bare chance of the saw-bones

-making a miss-lick and cutting too deep, or

-blood-pizen settin' in."

-

-"Don't mention that woman's name to me!" Jane

-said, angrily. "You know it makes me mad, and

-that's why you do it. I tried to keep a humble and

-contrite heart in me down there; but, folks, I'm

-going to confess to you all that the chief joy I felt

-in getting my health back was on account of that

-woman's disappointment. I never mentioned it till

-now, but that meddlesome old hag actually knew

-about my ailment long before I let it out to a soul.

-Like a fool, I bought some fake medicine from a

-tramp peddler one day, and let him examine me.

-He went straight over to Ann Boyd's and told her.

-Oh, I know he did, for she met me at the wash-hole,

-during the hot spell, when water was scarce, and

-actually gloated over my coming misfortune. She

-wouldn't say what the ill-luck was, but I knew what

-she was talking about and where she got her information."

-

-"I never thought that old wench was as black as

-she was painted," Sam declared, with as much firmness

-as he could command in the presence of so

-much femininity. "If this had been a community

-of men, instead of three-fourths the other sort, she'd

-have been reinstated long before this. I'll bet, if

-the Scriptural injunction for the innocent to cast

-the first stone was obeyed, there wouldn't be no

-hail-storm o' rocks in this neighborhood."

-

-"Oh, she would just suit a lot of men!" Jane said,

-in a tone which indicated the very lowest estimation

-of her brother-in-law's opinion. "It takes women

-to size up women. I want to meet the old thing now,

-just to show her that I'm still alive and kicking."

-

-Jane had this opportunity sooner than she expected.

-Dr. Putnam had enjoined upon her a certain

-amount of physical exercise, and so one afternoon,

-shortly after getting back, she walked slowly

-down to Wilson's store. It was on her return

-homeward, while passing a portion of Ann's pasture,

-where the latter, with pencil and paper in hand, was

-laying out some ditches for drainage, that she saw

-her opportunity.

-

-"Now, if she don't turn and run, I'll get a whack

-at her," she chuckled. "It will literally kill the old

-thing to see me walking so spry."

-

-Thereupon, in advancing, Jane quickened her step,

-putting a sort of jaunty swing to her whole gaunt

-frame. With only the worm fence and its rough

-clothing of wild vines and briers between them, the

-women met face to face. There was a strange,

-unaggressive wavering in Ann's eyes, but her enemy

-did not heed it.

-

-"Ah ha!" she cried. "I reckon this is some surprise

-to you, Ann Boyd! I reckon you won't brag

-about being such a wonderful health prophet now!

-I was told down in Atlanta—by *experts*, mind you—that

-my heart and lungs were as sound as a dollar,

-and that, counting on the long lives of my folks on

-both sides, I'm good for fifty years yet."

-

-"Huh! I never gave any opinion on how long

-you'd live, that I know of," Ann said, sharply.

-

-"You didn't, heigh? You didn't, that day at the

-wash-place when you stood over me and shook your

-finger in my face and said you knew what my trouble

-was, and was waiting to see it get me down? Now,

-I reckon you remember!"

-

-"I don't remember saying one word about your

-cancer, if that's what you are talking about," Ann

-sniffed. "I couldn't 'a' said anything about it, for

-I didn't know you had it."

-

-"Now, I know *that's* not so; you are just trying

-to take backwater, because you are beat. That

-peddler that examined me and sold me a bottle of

-medicine went right to your house, and you pumped

-him dry as to my condition."

-

-"Huh! he said you just had a stiff arm," said Ann.

-"I wasn't alluding to that at all."

-

-"You say you wasn't, then what was you talking

-about? I'd like to know."

-

-"Well, that's for me to know and you to find

-out," Ann said, goaded to anger. "I don't have to

-tell you all I know and think. Now, you go on

-about your business, Jane Hemingway, and let me

-alone."

-

-"I'll never let you alone as long as there's a

-breath left in my body," Jane snarled. "You know

-what you are; you are a disgrace to the county.

-You are a close-fisted, bad woman—as bad as they

-make them. You ought to be drummed out of the

-community, and you would be, too, if you didn't

-have so much ill-gotten gains laid up."

-

-There was a pause, for Jane was out of breath.

-Ann leaned over the fence, crushing her sheet of

-paper in her tense fingers. "I'll tell you something,"

-she said, her face white, her eyes flashing

-like those of a powerful beast goaded to desperation

-by an animal too small and agile to reach—"I'll tell

-you one thing. For reasons of my own I've tried

-to listen to certain spiritual advice about loving

-enemies. Jesus Christ laid the law down, but He

-lived before you was born, Jane Hemingway.

-There isn't an angel at God's throne to-day that

-could love you. I'd as soon try to love a hissing

-rattlesnake, standing coiled in my path, as such a

-dried-up bundle of devilment as you are. Could I

-hit back at you now? *Could* I? Huh! I could tell

-you something, you old fool, that would humble you

-in the dust at my feet and make you crawl home with

-your nose to the earth like a whipped dog. And I

-reckon I'm a fool not to do it, when you are pushing

-me this way. You come to gloat over me because

-your rotten body feels a little bit stronger than it

-did. I could make you forget your dirty carcass.

-I could make you so sick at the soul you'd vomit a

-prayer for mercy every minute the rest of your life.

-But I won't do it, as mad as I am. I'll not do it.

-You go your way, and I'll go mine."

-

-Jane Hemingway stared wildly. The light of triumph

-had died out in her thin, superstitious face.

-She leaned, as if for needed support, on the fence

-only a few feet from her enemy. Superstition was

-her weakest point, and it was only natural now for

-her to fall under its spell. She recalled Ann's fierce

-words prophesying some mysterious calamity which

-was to overtake her, and placed them beside the

-words she had just had hurled at her, and their combined

-effect was deadening.

-

-"You think you know lots," she found herself

-saying, mechanically.

-

-"Well, I know what I *know*!" Ann retorted, still

-furious. "You go on about your business. You'd

-better let me alone, woman. Some day I may fasten

-these two hands around that scrawny neck of yours

-and shake some decency into you."

-

-Jane shrank back instinctively. She was less influenced,

-however, by the threat of bodily harm than

-by the sinister hint, now looming large in her imagination,

-that had preceded it. Ann was moving

-away, and she soon found herself left alone with

-thoughts which made any but agreeable companions.

-

-"What can the woman mean?" she muttered, as

-she slowly pursued her way. "Maybe she's just

-doing that to worry me. But no, she was in earnest—dead

-in earnest—both times. She never says things

-haphazard; she's no fool, either. It must be something

-simply awful or she wouldn't mention it just

-that way. Now, I'm going to let *this* take hold of

-me and worry me night and day like the cancer

-did."

-

-She paused and stood in the road panting, her

-hand, by force of habit, resting on her breast. Looking

-across the meadow, she saw Ann Boyd sturdily

-trudging homeward through the waist-high bulrushes.

-The slanting rays of the sun struck the

-broad back of the hardy outcast and illumined the

-brown cotton-land which stretched on beyond her

-to the foot of the mountain. Jane Hemingway

-caught her breath and moved on homeward, pondering

-over the mystery which was now running rife in

-her throbbing brain. Yes, it was undoubtedly something

-terrible—but what? That was the question—what?

-

-Reaching home, she was met at the door by Virginia,

-who came forward solicitously to take her

-shawl. A big log-fire, burning in the wide chimney

-of the sitting-room, lighted it up with a red glow.

-Jane sank into her favorite chair, listlessly holding

-in her hands the small parcel of green coffee she had

-bought at the store.

-

-"Let me have it," Virginia said. "I must parch

-it and grind it for supper. The coffee is all out."

-

-As the girl moved away with the parcel, Jane's

-eyes followed her. "Should she tell her daughter

-what had taken place?" she asked herself. Perhaps

-a younger, fresher mind could unravel the grave

-puzzle. But how could she bring up the matter

-without betraying the fact that she had been the

-aggressor? No, she must simply nurse her new

-fears in secret for a while and hope for—well, what

-could she hope for, anyway? She lowered her head,

-her sharp elbows on her knees, and stared into the

-fire. Surely fate was against her, and it was never

-intended for her to get the best of Ann Boyd in

-any encounter. Through all her illness she had been

-buoyed up by the triumphant picture of Ann Boyd's

-chagrin at seeing her sound of body again, and this

-had been the result. Instead of humiliating Ann,

-Ann had filled her quaking soul with a thousand

-intangible, rapidly augmenting fears. The cloud of

-impending disaster stretched black and lowering

-across Jane Hemingway's horizon.

-

-Sam came in with a bundle of roots in his arms,

-and laid them carefully on a shelf. "I've dug me

-some sassafras of the good, red variety," he said,

-over his shoulder, to her. "You folks that want to

-can spend money at drug stores, but in the fall of

-the year, if I drink plenty of sassafras tea instead

-of coffee, it thins my blood and puts me in apple-pie

-order. But I reckon you don't want *your* blood any

-thinner than them doctors left it. Right now you

-look as flabby and limber as a wet rag. What ails

-you, *anyway*?"

-

-"I reckon I walked too far, right at the start,"

-Jane managed to fish from her confused mind. "I'm

-going to be more careful in the future."

-

-"Well, you'd better," Sam opined. "You may

-not find folks as ready to invest in your burial outfit

-as they was to prevent you from needing one."

-

-

-

-

-XXXII

-=====

-

-

-The following morning, in her neatest

-dress and white sun-bonnet, Virginia

-walked to Wilson's store to buy some

-sewing-thread. She was on her way

-back, and was traversing the most sequestered

-part of the road, where a brook of clear

-mountain water ran rippling by, and an abundance

-of willows and reeds hid the spot from view of any

-one approaching, when she was startled by Langdon

-Chester suddenly appearing before her from behind

-a big, moss-grown bowlder.

-

-"Don't run, Virginia—for God's sake don't run!"

-he said, humbly. "I simply *must* speak to you."

-

-"But I told you I didn't want to meet you again,"

-Virginia answered, sternly. "Why won't you leave

-me alone? If I've acted the fool and lowered myself

-in my estimation for all the rest of my life, that

-ought to be enough. It is as much as I can stand.

-You've simply got to stop following me up."

-

-"You don't understand, Virginia," he pleaded.

-"You admit you feel different since that night;

-grant the same to me. I've passed through absolute

-torment. I thought, after you talked to me

-so angrily the last time I saw you, that I could forget

-it if I left. I went to Atlanta, but I suffered

-worse than ever down there. I was on the verge

-of suicide. You see, I learned how dear you had

-become to me."

-

-"Bosh! I don't believe a word of it!" Virginia retorted,

-her eyes flashing, though her face was deathly

-pale. "I don't believe any man could really care

-for a girl and treat her as you did me that night.

-God knows I did wrong—a wrong that will never

-be undone, but I did it for the sake of my suffering

-mother. That's the only thing I have to lessen my

-self-contempt, and that is little; but you—you—oh,

-I don't want to talk to you! I want to blot it all—everything

-about it—from my mind."

-

-"But you haven't heard me through," he said,

-advancing a step nearer to her, his face ablaze with

-admiration and unsatisfied passion. "I find that

-I simply can't live without you, and as for what

-happened that awful night, I've come to wipe it

-out in the most substantial way a self-respecting

-man can. I've come to ask you to marry me,

-Virginia—to be my wife."

-

-"To be your wife!" she gasped. "Me—you—\ *we*

-marry—you and I? Live together, as—"

-

-"Yes, dear, that's what I mean. I know you are

-a good, pure girl, and I am simply miserable without

-you. No human being could imagine the depth

-of my love. It has simply driven me crazy, along

-with the way you have acted lately. My father

-and mother may object, but it's got to be done,

-and it will all blow over. Now, Virginia, what will

-you say? I leave it all to you. You may name

-the place and time—I'm your slave from now on.

-Your wonderful grace and beauty have simply

-captured me. I'll do the best I can to hold up my

-end of the thing. My cousin, Chester Sively, is a

-good sort of chap, and, to be frank, when he saw

-how miserable I was down there, he drew it out of

-me. I told him my folks would object and make

-it hot for me, but that I could not live without you,

-and he advised me to come straight home and propose

-to you. You see, he thought perhaps I had

-offended you in not making my intentions plainer

-at the start, and that when you knew how I felt

-you would not be so hard on me. Now, you are

-not going to be, are you, little girl? After all those

-delicious walks we used to have, and the things

-you have at least let me believe, I know you won't

-go back on me. Oh, we'll have a glorious time!

-Chester will advance me some money, I am sure,

-and we'll take a trip. We'll sail from Savannah

-to New York and stay away, by George, till the old

-folks come to their senses. I admit I was wrong

-in all that miserable business. I ought to have

-given you that money and not made you come for

-it, but being a mad fool like that once doesn't

-prove I can't turn over a new leaf. Now, you try

-me."

-

-He advanced towards her, his hand extended to

-clasp hers, but she suddenly drew back.

-

-"I couldn't think of marrying you," she said,

-almost under her breath. "I couldn't under any

-possible circumstances."

-

-"Oh, Virginia, you don't mean that!" he cried,

-crestfallen. "You are still mad about being—being

-frightened that night, and that old hag finding out

-about it. No woman would relish having another

-come up at just such an awkward moment and get

-her vile old head full of all sorts of unfair notions.

-But this, you see—you are old enough to see that

-marriage actually puts everything straight, even to

-the bare possibility of anything ever leaking out.

-That's why I think you will act sensibly."

-

-To his surprise, Virginia, without looking at him,

-covered her face with her hands. He saw her pretty

-shoulders rise as if she had smothered a sob. Hoping

-that she was moved by the humility and earnestness

-of his appeal, he caught one of her hands gently

-and started to pull it from her face. But, to his

-surprise, she shrank back and stared straight and

-defiantly in his eyes.

-

-"That's the way *you* look at it!" she cried, indignantly.

-"You think I hopelessly compromised

-myself by what I did, and that I'll have to tie myself

-to you for life in consequence; but I won't.

-I'd rather die. I couldn't live with you. I hate

-you! I detest you! I hate and detest you because

-you've made me detest myself. To think that I

-have to stand here listening to a proposal in—in

-the humiliating way you make it."

-

-"Look here, Virginia, you are going too far!" he

-cried, white with the dawning realization of defeat

-and quivering in every limb. "You are no fool, if

-you *are* only a girl, and you know that a man in—well,

-in my position, will not take a thing like this

-calmly. I've been desperate, and I hardly knew

-what I was about, but this—I can't stand this, Virginia."

-

-"Well, I couldn't marry you," she answered.

-"If you were a king and I a poor beggar, I wouldn't

-agree to be your wife. I'd never marry a man I

-did not thoroughly respect, and I don't respect you

-a bit. In fact, knowing you has only shown me

-how fine and noble, by contrast, other men are.

-Since this thing happened, one man—" She suddenly

-paused. Her impulse had led her too far.

-He glared at her for an instant, and then suddenly

-grasped her hand and held it in such a tight, brutal

-clasp that she writhed in pain, but he held onto it,

-twisting it in his unconscious fury.

-

-"I know who you mean," he said. "I see it all

-now. You have seen Luke King, and he has been

-saying sweet things to you. Ann Boyd is his friend,

-too, and she hates me. But look here, if you think

-I will stand having a man of that stamp defeat me,

-you don't know me. You don't know the lengths

-a Chester will go to gain a point. I see it all.

-You've been different of late. You used to like

-him, and he has been talking to you since he got

-back. It will certainly be a dark day for him when

-he dares to step between me and my plans."

-

-"You are going entirely too fast," Virginia said,

-grown suddenly cautious. "There's nothing, absolutely

-nothing, between Luke King and myself, and,

-moreover, there never will be."

-

-"You may tell that to a bigger fool than I am,"

-Chester fumed. "I know there is something between

-you two, and, frankly, trouble is brewing for

-him. He may write his long-winded sermons about

-loving mankind, and bask in the praise of the sentimental

-idiots who dote on him, but I'll draw him

-back to practical things. I'll bring him down to

-the good, old-fashioned way of settling matters between

-men."

-

-"Well, it's cowardly of you to keep me here by

-brute force," Virginia said, finally wresting her

-hand from his clasp and beginning to walk onward.

-"I've said there is nothing between him and me,

-and I shall not repeat it. If you want to raise a

-fuss over it, you will only make yourself ridiculous."

-

-"Well, I'll look after *that* part of it," he cried,

-beside himself with rage. "No mountain razor-back

-stripe of man like he is can lord it over me,

-simply because the scum of creation is backing up

-his shallow ideas with money. *I'll* open his eyes."

-

-And Langdon Chester, too angry and disappointed

-to be ashamed of himself, stood still and allowed

-her to go on her way. A boy driving a drove of

-mules turned the bend of the road, and Chester

-stepped aside, but when they had passed he stood

-still and watched Virginia as she slowly pursued

-her way.

-

-"Great God, how am I to stand it?" he groaned.

-"I want her! I want her! I'd work for her. I'd

-slave for her. I'd do anything under high heaven

-to be able to call her my own—all my own! My

-God, isn't she beautiful? That mouth, that proud

-poise of head, that neck and breast and form!

-Were there ever such eyes set in a human head

-before—such a maddening lip, such a—oh, I

-can't stand it! I wasn't made for defeat like this.

-Marry her? I'd marry her if it impoverished every

-member of my family. I'd marry her if the honeymoon

-ended in my death. At any rate, I would

-have lived awhile. Does Luke King intend to marry

-her? Of course he does—he has *seen* her; but *shall*

-he? No, there is one thing certain, and that is that

-I could never live and know that she was receiving

-another man's embraces. I'd kill him if it damned

-me eternally. And yet I've played my last and biggest

-card. She won't marry me. She would *once*,

-but she won't *now*. Yes, I'm facing a big, serious

-thing, but I'll face it. If he tries to get her, the

-world will simply be too small for both of us to

-live in together."

-

-

-

-

-XXXIII

-======

-

-

-The following morning, after spending

-a restless, troublous night in reflecting

-over the protestations and threats

-of Langdon Chester, Virginia went frequently

-to the rear door of the house

-and looked out towards Ann Boyd's domicile in

-the hope of seeing her new friend. It was a cool,

-bleak day. The skies were veiled in thin, low-hanging,

-gray clouds which seemed burdened with

-snow, and sharp gusts of wind bore the smoke from

-the chimney down to the earth and around the

-house in lingering, bluish wisps. Finally her fitful

-watch met its reward, and she saw Ann emerge

-from her house and trudge down towards the cotton-field

-between the two farms. Hastily looking into

-the kitchen, and seeing that her mother was busily

-engaged mashing some boiled sweet-potatoes into

-a pulpy mixture of sugar, butter, and spices, with

-which to make some pies, Virginia slipped out of

-the house and into the cow-lot. Here she paused

-for a moment, her glance on the doorway through

-which she had passed, and then, seeing that her

-leaving had not attracted her mother's attention,

-she climbed over the rail-fence and entered the

-dense thicket near by. Through this tangle of

-vines, bushes, and briers she slowly made her way,

-until, suddenly, the long, regular rows of Ann's

-dead cotton-stalks, with their empty boles and

-withered leaves, stretched out before her. And

-there stood Ann, crumbling a sample of the gray

-soil in her big, red hand. She heard Virginia's approach

-over the dry twigs of the wood, and looked

-up.

-

-"Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know

-but what it was another catamount that had got

-out of its beat up in the mountains and strayed

-down into civilization."

-

-"I happened to see you leave your house and

-come this way," Virginia said, somewhat embarrassed,

-"and so I—"

-

-"Yes, I came down here to take one more look

-at this field and make up my mind whether to have

-it turned under for wheat or try its strength on

-cotton again. There was a lots of fertilizer put on

-this crop, child. I can always tell by the feel of

-the dirt. That's the ruination of farming interests

-in the South. It's the get-a-crop-quick plan that

-has no solid foundation. An industrious German

-or Irishman can make more off of an acre than we

-can off of ten, and be adding value to the property

-each year. But did you want to see me about—anything

-particular?"

-

-"It seems like I'm born to have trouble," Virginia

-answered, with heightening color and a studious

-avoidance of the old woman's keen glance.

-

-"I see; I reckon your mother—"

-

-"No, it's not about her," Virginia interrupted.

-"In fact, it's something that I could not confide in

-her."

-

-"Well, you go ahead and tell me about it," Ann

-said, consolingly, as she threw the sample of soil

-down and wiped her hand on her apron. "I think

-it's powerful odd the way things have turned

-around, anyway. Only a few days ago if anybody

-had told me I'd ever be half-way friendly with a

-daughter of Jane Hemingway, I'd have thought

-they was clean off their base. I'm trying to act

-the impartial friend to you, child, but I don't know

-that I can. The trouble is, my flesh is too weak.

-It's only fair to tell you that I come in the breadth

-of a hair the other day of betraying you outright

-to your mammy. She met me down the road and

-drove me too far. She caught me off my guard and

-came at me in her old, catlike way, spitting and

-snarling—a thing I'm not proof against. She was

-gloating over me. I'm ashamed to say it to a sweet,

-trusting face like yours, but she came charging on

-me at such a rate that she drove away my best intentions

-and made me plumb forget what I was

-trying to do for you."

-

-Ann hung her head for a moment, almost sheepishly

-kicking a cotton-stalk from its mellow hill

-with the toe of her shoe.

-

-"Don't bother about that," Virginia said, sweetly.

-"I know how she can exasperate any one."

-

-"Well, I'm satisfied I won't do to trust in the

-capacity of a friend, anyway," Ann said, frankly.

-"I reckon I would be safe with anybody but that

-woman. There is no use telling you what I said,

-but I come in an inch of giving you plumb away.

-I come that nigh injuring a pure, helpless little

-thing like you are to hit her one sousing lick. As

-it was, I think I cowed her considerable. She's

-superstitious, and she broods as much over an

-imaginary trouble as a real one. The Lord knows

-I've been busy enough in my life tackling the

-genuine thing."

-

-"I wanted to tell you," Virginia said, "that ever

-since Langdon Chester got back from Atlanta he

-has been trying to meet me, and—"

-

-"The dirty scamp!" Ann broke in, angrily. "I

-told him if he ever dared to—"

-

-"Wait a minute, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia put out

-her hand and touched the old woman's arm. "He

-seems awfully upset over what has happened. I

-never saw any one change so completely. He looked

-very thin, his eyes were bloodshot, and he shook

-all over like a man who has been on a long spree.

-Mrs. Boyd, he came—and I'm sure he was serious—to

-ask me to marry him."

-

-"Marry him? Why, child, you don't mean *that*—surely

-you don't mean—"

-

-"I only know what he said," Virginia declared.

-"He says he is absolutely miserable over it all and

-wants me to marry him. His cousin, Chester Sively,

-advised him to propose to me, and he did. He says

-he loves me, and that nothing else will satisfy him."

-

-"Well, well, well!" Ann exclaimed, as her great,

-astonished eyes bore down on Virginia's face. "I

-thought he was a chip off of the old block, but maybe

-he's got a little streak of good in him, and yet, let

-me study a minute. Let's walk on down to the

-spring. I want to see if it doesn't need a new gum—the

-old one is about rotted out. Well, well, well!"

-

-They strolled along the fence, side by side, neither

-speaking till the spring was reached. There was a

-rustic bench near by, and Ann sat down on it, putting

-out her hand and drawing the girl to a seat at

-her side.

-

-"Yes, there may be a streak of good," she went

-on. "And yet that may be just another phase of

-bad. You must be very careful, child. You have

-no idea how beautiful you are. He may mean what

-he says, all right enough, but maybe he isn't being

-led by the best motive. I know men, I reckon, about

-as well as any other woman of my age. Now, you

-see, it may be like this: Langdon Chester brought

-to his aid all the *foul* means he could command to

-carry his point and failed. Maybe, now, he's just

-reckless enough and his pride is cut deep enough to

-make him resort to fair means rather than be plumb

-beat to a finish. If that's so, marrying him would

-be a very risky thing, for as soon as his evil fires

-smouldered he'd leave you high and dry. He'd convince

-himself he'd married below his standard, and

-go to the dogs—or some other woman. Sometimes

-I think there isn't no real love, like we read about

-in story-books. I believe a man or a woman will

-love their own offspring in a solid, self-sacrificing

-way, but the sort of love that makes a continuous

-happy dream of marriage is powerful rare. It's

-generally one-sided and like a damp fire that takes

-a lot of fanning and fresh kindling-wood to keep

-going. But what did you tell him, I wonder?"

-

-"Why, I refused him," Virginia answered.

-

-"You did? You don't tell me! And how did his

-high and mighty lordship take that, I wonder?"

-

-"It made him awfully mad. He almost swore at

-me, and took hold of my hand roughly. Then, from

-something I happened to say, he imagined that I

-was in love with—with some one else, and he made

-awful threats of what he might do."

-

-"Ah, I see, I see, I see!" Ann muttered, as if to

-herself, her slow, thoughtful glance on her broad

-lands, which stretched out through the murky atmosphere.

-"It's wonderful how much your life is like

-mine used to be. The other night, lying in bed, I

-got to studying over it all, and it suddenly flashed

-on me that maybe it is the divine intention that I

-was to travel that rough road so I'd know how to

-lead you, that was to come on later, over the pits

-I stumbled in. And with that thought I felt a

-strange sort of peaceful contentment come over me.

-You see, I'm nearly always in a struggle against

-my inclination to treat Jane Hemingway's daughter

-half decent, and such thoughts as those kind o' ease

-my pride. If the Lord is making me pity you and

-like you, maybe it's the devil that is trying to pull

-me the other way. That's why I'm afraid I won't

-do to trust, wavering about like I am. In this fight

-I haven't the slightest idea which influence is going

-to win in the end. In a tight pinch I may be

-tempted to use our very friendship to get even with

-your mammy. When she faces me with that confident

-look in her eye and that hateful curl to her lip,

-I loose my grip on all that's worth a red cent in me."

-

-"You couldn't do a wrong thing to save your

-life," said Virginia, putting out her hand and taking

-that of her companion.

-

-"Don't you bet too high stakes on that," Ann

-replied, deeply touched. "I'm no saint. Right

-now I'm at daggers' points with nearly every neighbor

-I've got, and even my own child over the mountain.

-How I ever got this way with you is a mystery

-to me. You certainly were the last one I'd 'a' lifted

-a finger to help, but now—well, well—I reckon I'd

-worry a lots if you met with any further misfortune.

-But you are keeping back something, child. Did

-Langdon Chester seem to think that other '*somebody*'

-could possibly be Luke King?"

-

-Virginia flushed and nodded. "He seemed to

-think so, Mrs. Boyd."

-

-Ann sighed. She was still holding Virginia's hand,

-and she now began timidly to caress it as it lay on

-her knee.

-

-"I don't like the way it's turned out a bit," she

-said. "The Chester stock can't stand being balked

-in anything; they couldn't bear to be beat in love

-by a poor, self-made man like Luke, and great, big

-trouble may be brewing. Langdon might push a

-row on him. Luke is writing all sorts of things

-against the evil of war and fighting and the like, but

-under pressure he'd resent an insult. I'd hate to

-see him plumb mad. Then, again, Langdon might

-sink low enough to actually throw that imprudence

-of yours at him. If he did, that would be a match

-to powder. If Luke was a preacher and stood in

-the pulpit calling up mourners, he'd step down and

-act on that sort of an invitation. Virginia, if ever

-a man loved a woman, he loves you. His love is one

-of the exceptions to the rule I was talking about just

-now, and it seems to me that, no matter how you

-treat a man like that other scamp, you won't have

-a right to refuse Luke King. The truth is, I'm afraid

-he never could stand it. He's set his great, big, gentle

-soul on having you for his helpmeet, and I don't

-believe you will let any silly notion ruin it all.

-He's got brain enough to tackle the biggest human

-problems and settle them, but he'll never give his

-heart out but once."

-

-Virginia withdrew her hand and swept it across

-her face, as if to brush away the flush upon it.

-

-"I can never be his wife," she faltered. She

-paused, turned her face away, and said, in a low tone:

-"I am not good enough. I deliberately flirted with

-Langdon Chester. I used to love to have him say

-sweet things to me, and I led him on. I've no excuse

-to make. If I had been good enough to be the

-wife of a man like Luke King, I'd never have been

-caught in that trap, even to save my mother, for if

-I'd acted differently he'd never have done what he

-did. It's all my fault. If Langdon Chester is upset

-and bent on trouble, I'm the cause of it. If it results

-in unhappiness to the—to the noblest and

-best man I ever knew, it will all be my fault. You

-needn't try to comfort me, Mrs. Boyd. I tell you I'd

-rather die than have Luke King know all that has

-happened, and God knows I'd never be his wife

-otherwise. So that is the end of it."

-

-Ann was silent for several minutes, then she said:

-"I feel like you are wrong somehow, and yet I don't

-exactly know how to make you see it my way. We

-must both study over it. It's a problem, and no

-little one. There is one thing certain: I'll never

-advise you to start married life on deception of any

-kind. I tried that, with the best intentions, and

-it was the worst investment I ever made."

-

-

-

-

-XXXIV

-=====

-

-

-During this conversation Sam Hemingway

-had returned to the house

-from his field. He had an armful of

-white, silky, inside leaves of cornhusks

-closely packed together, and these he

-submerged in a washtub full of water, in the back-yard,

-placing stones on them to hold them down.

-

-"What are you about now?" his sister-in-law

-asked, as she appeared in the doorway of the

-kitchen.

-

-"Now, what could a body be about when he's

-wetting a passle of shucks?" he answered, dryly.

-"I'm going to make me some stout horse-collars

-for spring ploughing. There ain't but one other

-thing a body could make out of wet shucks, and

-that's foot-mats for town folks to wipe their feet

-on. Foot-mats are a dead waste of money, for if

-fewer mats was used, women would have to do more

-sweeping and not get time to stand around the post-office

-watching men as much as they do. I reckon

-it's the way old daddy Time has of shifting women's

-work onto men's shoulders. I'll bet my hat that

-new-fangled churn that fellow passed with yesterday

-was invented by a man out o' pure pity for

-his sex."

-

-"I was wondering where Virginia went to," Jane

-said, as if she had not heard his philosophical utterances.

-"I've been all round the house looking for

-her, even to the barn, but she's disappeared entirely."

-

-Sam shrugged his shoulders significantly. He

-placed the last stone on the submerged husks and

-drew himself up erect. "I was just studying," he

-drawled out, "whether it ud actually do to tell you

-where she is at this minute. I'd decided I'd better

-not, and go on and finish this work. From what I

-know about your odd disposition, I'd expect one of

-two solitary things: I'd expect to see you keel over

-in a dead faint or stand stock-still in your tracks

-and burn to a cinder from internal fires."

-

-"Sam, what do you mean?" The widow, in no

-little alarm, came towards him, her eyes fixed

-steadily on his.

-

-"Well, I reckon you might as well know and be

-done with it," he said, "though you'll be sure to let

-them pies burn afterwards. Jane, your only child

-is right now a-sitting on the bench at the gum spring,

-side by side with Ann Boyd. In fact, as well as I

-could see from the rise I was on in my potato-patch,

-I'd 'a' took my oath that they was holding hands

-like two sweethearts."

-

-"I don't believe a word of it," Jane gasped, turning

-pale. "It might have been Virginia with somebody

-else, but not *that* woman."

-

-"I wouldn't mistake Ann Boyd's solid shape and

-blue linsey frock ten miles off," was the cold comfort

-Sam dispensed in his next remark. "If you

-doubt what I say, and will agree not to jump on

-Ann and get yourself drawed up at court for assault

-and battery, with intent to *get killed*, you may go

-look for yourself. If you'll slip through the thicket,

-you can come up on 'em unbeknownst."

-

-With a very grave look on her emaciated face,

-Jane Hemingway, without wrap for her thin shoulders

-or covering for her gray head, strode across

-the yard and into the bushes. Almost holding her

-breath in dire suspense and with a superstitious

-fear of she knew not what, she sped through the

-wood, briers and thorn-bushes clutching at her

-skirt and wild grape-vines striking her abreast and

-detaining her. Presently she was near enough to

-the spring to hear voices, but was, as yet, unable to

-see who was speaking. Then she became fearful

-lest the dry twigs with which the ground was strewn,

-in breaking under her feet, would betray her presence,

-and she began, with the desperate caution of

-a convict escaping from prison, to select her way,

-carefully stepping from one patch of green moss to

-another. A few paces ahead of her there was a

-group of tall pines, and the earth beneath their

-skeleton boughs was a veritable bed of soft, brown

-needles. She soon gained this favorable point of

-progress, and sped onward as noiselessly as the gentle

-breeze overhead. Suddenly, through the bushes,

-she caught a gleam of color, and recognized the

-dark-blue skirt Ann Boyd wore so constantly, and—her

-heart stood still, for, massed against it, was

-the light gray of Virginia's dress. Ah, there could

-be no shadow of a doubt now. Sam was right, and

-with bowed head and crouching form Jane gave bewildered

-ear to words which caused her blood to

-stand still in her veins.

-

-"Yes, I've thought a lots about it, child," she

-heard Ann saying. "I can't make it out at all,

-but I really love you more than I do my own

-daughter. I reckon it was the divine intention for

-me and you to have this secret between us, and pity

-one another like we do. I can't help it, but when

-you tell me you love me and think I'm good and

-the best friend you've got on earth, why, it is the

-sweetest sound that ever fell on human ear."

-

-There was a pause. Jane Hemingway held her

-breath; her very soul hung on the silence. Then,

-as if from the dun skies above the shaft descended,

-as if dropped from the lips of the Avenging Angel.

-It was the child of her own breast uttering sounds

-as inexplicable, as damning to her hopes, as if the

-gentle, tractable girl had approached her bed in the

-dead hours of night and said: "Mother, I've come to

-kill you. There is no way out of it. I must take

-your life. I am stronger than you. You must submit.

-Ann Boyd has willed it so. Mother, I am

-Retribution!"

-

-"Yes, I do love you, with all my heart," were the

-words Jane heard. "I can't help it. You have been

-kinder to me, more considerate of my feelings, than

-my own mother. But I will make amends for all

-her cruelty towards you. I'll love you always. I'll

-go to my grave loving you. You are the best woman

-that ever lived. Suffering has raised you to the

-skies. I have never kissed you. Let me now—\ *do,

-do* let me!"

-

-As if in a horrible dream, Jane Hemingway

-turned back homeward. Without knowing why,

-she still moved with the same breathless caution.

-Hers was a dead soul dragging a body vitalized

-only by sheer animal instinct to escape torture. To

-escape it? No, it was there ahead—it was here,

-encompassing her like a net, yonder, behind, everywhere,

-and it would stretch out to the end of time.

-She told her benumbed consciousness that she saw

-it all now. It was not the cancer and its deadly

-effect that Ann had held over her that hot day at

-the wash-place. No wonder that Ann had not told

-her all, for that would have marred her comprehensive

-and relentless plans. Ann's subtle plot had

-been to rob her enemy of the respect and love of

-her only child. Jane had succeeded in tearing from

-Ann Boyd's arms her only offspring, and Ann, with

-the cunning of her great, indefatigable brain, had

-devised this subtle revenge and carried it through.

-She had won over to herself the love and respect,

-even reverence, of her enemy's child. It had been

-going on in secret for a long time, and even now the

-truth was out only by sheer accident. Jane Hemingway

-groaned aloud in agony and self-pity as,

-with her gray head down, she groped homeward.

-What was there to do now? Nothing! She was

-learning her final grim lesson in the realization that

-she was no possible match for her rival. How well

-she now recalled the fierce words Ann had hurled

-at her only a few days since: "Could I hit back at

-you now? Could I? Huh! I could tell you something,

-Jane Hemingway, that would humble you

-to the dust and make you crawl home with your

-nose to the earth like a whipped dog." Ah, it

-was true, only too true! Humbled? It was more

-than that. Pride, hope, even resentment, was gone.

-She now cowered before her enemy as she had so

-recently before death itself. For once she keenly

-felt her own supreme littleness and stood in absolute

-awe of the mighty personality she had been so

-long and audaciously combating.

-

-Reaching the fence which bounded her own property,

-Jane got over it with difficulty. She seemed

-to have lost all physical strength. She saw Sam

-behind the house, under the spreading, leafless

-boughs of an apple-tree, repairing a break in the

-ash-hopper. She could not have explained what

-impulse prompted it, but she paused in front of

-him, speaking in a tone he had never heard from

-her before. "Sam," she said, a stare like the glaze

-of death in her eyes, "don't you mention this to

-my child; do you hear me? Don't you tell Virginia

-what we've found out. If you do you'll get your

-foot into something you'll be sorry for. Do you

-hear me, man? This is my business—\ *mine*, and not

-a thing for you to treat lightly. If you know what's

-good for you, you'll take my hint and not meddle."

-

-"Well, I never!" Sam exclaimed. "Good Lord,

-woman, what have them two folks done to you

-down there. I never saw you look so plumb flabbergasted

-in my life."

-

-"Never you mind about that," Jane said. "You

-remember what I said and don't meddle with what

-doesn't concern you."

-

-"Well, she kin bet I won't," Sam mused, as he

-stood looking after her, as she disappeared through

-the doorway into the kitchen. "This is one of the

-times, I reckon, that I'll take her advice. Some'n'

-big has taken place, or is about to take place, if I'm

-any judge."

-

-Jane sank into a chair in the kitchen and softly

-groaned as she cast her slow eyes about her. Here

-all seemed sheer mockery. Every mute object in

-the room uttered a cry against her. The big, open

-fireplace, with its pots and kettles, the cupboard,

-the cleanly polished table, with the row of hot pies

-Sam had rescued from the coals and placed there to

-cool, the churn, the milk and butter-jars and pans,

-the pepper-pods hanging to the smoked rafters

-overhead—all these things, which had to do with

-mere subsistence, seemed suddenly out of place

-among the things which really counted. Suddenly

-Jane had a faint thrill of hope, as a thought, like a

-stray gleam of light penetrating a dark chamber,

-came to her. Perhaps, when Virginia was told that

-Ann Boyd had only used her as a tool in a gigantic

-and subtle scheme of revenge against her own flesh

-and blood, the girl would turn back to her own.

-Perhaps, but it was not likely. Ann Boyd had

-never failed in any deliberate undertaking. She

-would not now, and, for aught Jane knew to the

-contrary, Virginia might be as confirmed already

-in her enmity as the older woman, and had long

-been a dutiful and observant spy. It was horrible,

-but—yes, Jane was willing to admit that it was fair.

-The worm had turned, and its sting was equal to

-the concentrated pain of all Ann Boyd's years of

-isolated sufferings.

-

-

-

-

-XXXV

-====

-

-

-In about half an hour Virginia returned

-home. She passed Sam under the

-apple-tree, where he now had a big

-pot full of shelled corn and lye over

-an incipient fire preparing to make

-whole-grained hominy, and hastened into the kitchen,

-where Jane sat bowed before the fire.

-

-"Is there anything I can do, mother?" she inquired.

-

-There was a pause. Mrs. Hemingway did not

-look up. In some surprise, Virginia repeated her

-question, and then Jane said, calmly and deliberately:

-

-"Yes; there is something you can do. You can

-get out of my sight, and *keep* out of it. When I

-want anything from you, I'll call on you."

-

-Virginia paused, dumfounded, and then passed

-out into the yard and approached her uncle.

-

-"Can you tell me," she asked, "if anything has

-gone wrong with mother?"

-

-Sam gave her one swift glance from beneath his

-tattered, tent-shaped wool-hat, and then, with his

-paddle, he began to stir the corn and lye in the pot.

-

-"I reckon," he said, after a momentary struggle

-over a desire to tell the plain truth instead of prevaricating,

-"if you don't know that woman by this

-time, Virgie, it's your own fault. I'm sure I don't

-try to keep up with her tantrums and sudden notions.

-That woman's died forty-seven times in her life, and

-been laid out and buried ten. Maybe she's been

-tasting them pies she was cooking, and got crooked.

-You let a body's liver be at all sluggish and get a

-wad o' sweet-potato dough lodged inside of 'em,

-and they'll have a sort of jim-jams not brought on

-by liquor. I reckon she'll cough it down after

-a while. If I was you, though, I'd let her alone."

-

-Jane was, indeed, acting strangely. Refusing to

-sit down to the mid-day meal with them, as was

-her invariable custom, she put on her bonnet and

-shawl and, without a word of explanation, set off in

-the direction of Wilson's store. She was gone till

-dusk, and then came in with a slow step, passed

-through the sitting-room, where Sam had made a

-cheerful fire, and went on to her own room in the

-rear of the house. Virginia rose to follow her solicitously,

-but Sam put out a detaining hand, shifting

-his pipe into the corner of his mouth.

-

-"I'd let her alone if I was in your place," he said.

-"Let her go to bed and sleep. She'll get up all

-right in the morning."

-

-"I only wanted to see if there was anything I

-could do for her," Virginia said, in a troubled tone.

-"Do you suppose it is a relapse she is having?

-Perhaps she has discovered that the cancer is coming

-back. The fear of that would kill her, actually

-kill her."

-

-"I don't think that's it," said Sam, impulsively;

-"the truth is, Virginia, she—" He pulled himself up.

-"But maybe that *is* it. Anyway, I'd let her alone."

-

-Darkness came down. Virginia spread the cloth

-in the big kitchen and put the plates and dishes in

-their places, and then slipped to the door of her

-mother's room. It was dark and still.

-

-"Supper is on the table, mother," she said; "do

-you want anything?"

-

-There was a sudden creaking of the bed-slats, a

-pause, then, in a sullen, husky voice, Jane answered,

-"No, I *don't*; you leave me alone!"

-

-"All right, mother; I'm sorry to have disturbed

-you. Good-night."

-

-Sam and his niece ate alone in the big room by

-the wavering light of the fire. The wind had risen

-on the mountain-top, and roared across the fields.

-It sang dolefully in the pines near by, whistled

-shrilly under the eaves of the house, and scurried

-through the open passage outside. After the meal

-was over, Sam smoked a pipe and thumped off to

-bed, carrying his shoes in his hand. Virginia buried

-the remains of the big back-log in the hot ashes, and

-in the darkness crept into her own room, adjoining

-that of her mother, and went to bed.

-

-Jane Hemingway was not sleeping; she had no

-hope of a respite of that sort. She would have

-doubted that she ever could close her eyes in tranquillity

-till some settlement of the life-crushing

-matter was reached. What was to be done? Only

-one expedient had offered itself during her aimless

-walk to the store, where she purchased a spool of

-cotton thread she did not need, and during her slow

-return along the road and the further hours of

-solitude in her darkened chamber, and that expedient

-offered no balm for her gashed and torn pride.

-She could appeal to the law to protect her innocent

-daughter from the designing wiles of a woman of

-such a reputation as Ann Boyd bore, but, alas! even

-Ann might have foreseen that ruse and counted on

-its more deeply stirring Virginia's sympathies and

-adding to her faith. Why she had not at once

-denounced her child for her filial faithlessness she

-could not have explained, unless it was the superstitious

-dread of having Virginia's infidelity reconfirmed.

-Of course, she must fight. Yes, she'd have

-to do that to the end, although her shrewd enemy

-had already beaten her life-pulse dead in her veins

-and left her without a hope of adequate retaliation.

-Going to law meant also that it was her first public

-acknowledgment of her enemy's prowess, and it

-meant, too, the wide-spread and humiliating advertisement

-of the fact that Virginia had died to her

-and been born to the breast of her rival; but even

-that must be borne.

-

-These morose reflections were broken, near midnight,

-by a step in the passage outside. The door

-was opened softly, and Virginia, in her night-robe,

-came in quietly and approached the bed.

-

-"I know you are not asleep, mother," she said,

-tremulously. "I've heard you rolling and tossing

-ever since I went to bed."

-

-Jane stared from her hot pillow for an instant,

-and then slowly propped herself up on her gaunt,

-quivering elbow. "You are not asleep either, it

-seems," she said, hollowly.

-

-"No, I couldn't for thinking about you," Virginia

-replied, gently, as she sat down on the foot of the

-bed.

-

-"You couldn't, huh! I say!" Jane sneered.

-"Huh, *you*! It's a pity about you!"

-

-"I have reason to worry," Virginia said. "You

-know the doctors told you particularly not to get

-depressed and downhearted while you are recovering

-your strength."

-

-"Huh! what do they mean by prescribing things

-that can't be reached under the sun? They are

-idiots to think I could have peace of mind after

-finding out what I did this morning. I once had a

-cancer in the flesh; I've got one now in my heart,

-where no knife on earth can reach it."

-

-There was a pause. The eyes of the mother and

-daughter met in the half-darkness of the room.

-There was a lull in the whistling of the wind outside.

-Under the floor a hen with a brood of chickens was

-clucking uneasily and flapping her wings in the effort

-to keep her brood warm. Across the passage came

-the rasping sound of Sam's snoring, as unconscious

-of tragedy as he had been in his cradle, and yet its

-creeping shadow lay over his placid features, its

-bated breath filled the air he was breathing. Virginia

-leaned forward wonderingly, her lips parted

-and set in anxiety.

-

-"You are thinking about the debt on the farm?"

-she ventured. "If that's it, mother, remember—"

-

-"The debt on this paltry shack and few acres of

-rocky land? Huh! if that was all I had to complain

-about I'd bounce out of this bed and shout for joy.

-Oh, Lord, have mercy on me!"

-

-"Then, mother, what—" Virginia drew herself

-up with a start. Her mother, it now struck her,

-had said her trouble was due to a discovery she had

-made that morning. What else could it be than

-that her mother had accidentally seen her in company

-with Ann Boyd? Yes, that was it, and Virginia

-hastily told herself that some satisfying explanation

-must be made, some plausible and pacifying

-reason must be forthcoming that would allay

-her mother's anger, but it was hard to lie, in open

-words, as she had been doing in act. The gentle girl

-shuddered before the impending ordeal and clinched

-her hands in her lap. Yes, it was hard to lie, and

-yet the truth—the *whole* truth—was impossible.

-

-"Mother," she began, "you see—I suppose I'll

-have to confess to you that Mrs. Boyd and I—"

-

-"Don't blacken your soul with lies!" her mother

-hurled at her, furiously. "I slipped up in a few

-feet of you both at the spring and saw you kissing

-her, and heard you tell her you loved her more than

-anybody in the world, and that she'd treated you

-better than I ever did, and that she was the best

-woman that ever lived. Explain all that, if you

-can, but don't set there and lie to me who gave you

-what life you've got, and toiled and stinted and

-worked my hands to the bone to raise, you and let

-you hold your own with others. If there's a speck

-of truth in you, don't deny what I saw with my own

-eyes and heard with my two ears."

-

-"I'll not deny it, then," Virginia said. She rose

-and moved to the small-paned window and stood

-with her face turned away. "I have met Mrs. Boyd

-several times and talked to her. I don't think she

-has ever had justice done her by you and her neighbors;

-she is not rightly understood, and, feeling that

-you have been all along the chief influence against

-her, and have always kept her early trouble stirred

-up, I felt like being her friend as well as I could,

-and at the same time remain true to you."

-

-"Oh, you poor, poor little sniffling idiot!" Jane

-said, as she drew her thin legs out from the coverings

-and rested her feet on the floor and leaned forward.

-"All this time you've been thinking, in your grand

-way, that you were doing a kindness to her, when

-she was just using you as a tool, to devil me. Huh!

-didn't she throw it up to me once at the wash-place

-where she and I met? She told me to my teeth that

-something was coming that would bring my face to

-the earth in shame. I thought she knew about the

-cancer, and was gloating over it; but she wasn't

-speaking of that, for when I came back from Atlanta,

-sound and whole, she hurled her hints at me again.

-She said she knew nothing about the cancer at that

-time, but that she still knew something that would

-make me slink from the faces of men and women

-like a whipped hound. I discovered what she meant

-to-day. She meant that because my testimony had

-something to do with Joe Boyd's leaving with *her*

-child, she had won over *mine* to herself. That's been

-her mean and sneaking plot all this time, in which

-she has been decoying you from a respectable roof

-and making you her easy tool—the tool with which

-she expected to stab at my pride and humble me

-in the eyes of everybody."

-

-"Mother, stop!" Virginia turned and sat down

-again on the bed. "That woman shall not have another—not

-one other—\ *false* charge piled up around

-her. God knows I don't see how I can tell you *all*

-the truth, but it is due to her now. It will more

-than justify her, and that's my duty. Listen, and

-don't interrupt me. I want to go straight through

-this, and when I have finished you may turn from

-me and force me to go to her for a home. You

-have never dreamed that I could do what I am about

-to confess I did. I am not going to excuse myself,

-either. What I did, I did. The shame of it, now

-that I see clearly, is killing me. No, stop! Let

-me go on. I have been receiving the attentions of

-Langdon Chester in secret. After the first time

-you saw us together and objected so strongly, I

-told him not to come to the house again; but, like

-many another silly girl, I was hungry for admiration,

-and met him elsewhere. I loved to hear the nice

-things he said, although I didn't always believe

-them. He—he tried to induce me to do a number

-of imprudent things, which, somehow, I was able

-to refuse, as they concerned my own pleasure alone;

-but then you began to worry about the money to

-go to Atlanta on. Day by day you grew more

-and more despondent and desperate as every effort

-failed, and one day, when you were down at the

-lowest ebb of hope, he told me that he—do you

-understand, mother?—Langdon Chester told me

-that he thought he could get up the money, but

-that no one must know that he—"

-

-"Oh, my God, don't, don't, don't!" Jane groaned.

-"Don't tell me that you—"

-

-"Stop! let me go on," Virginia said, in a low,

-desperate tone. "I'm going to tell the whole horrible

-thing and be done with it forever. He said

-he had sent his best horse to Darley to sell it, and

-that the man would be back about ten o'clock at

-night with the money. He told me, mother, that

-he wanted me to slip away from home after you

-went to sleep and come there for the money. I

-didn't hesitate long. I wanted to save your life.

-I agreed. I might have failed to go after I parted

-with him if I'd had time to reflect, but when I came

-in to supper you were more desperate than ever.

-You went to your room praying and moaning, and

-kept it up till you dropped asleep only a few minutes

-before the appointed time. Well, I slipped

-away and—\ *went*."

-

-"Oh, God have mercy on me—mercy, mercy,

-mercy!" Jane groaned. "You went there to that

-man!"

-

-Virginia nodded mutely and then continued her

-recital. Jane Hemingway's knees bent under her

-as she stood holding to the bedpost, and she slowly

-sank to the floor a few feet away. With a low,

-moaning sound like a suffering dumb brute, she

-crawled on her hands and knees to her daughter

-and mutely clutched the girl's cold, bare ankles.

-"You say he locked you in his *bedroom*!" she said,

-in a rasping whisper. "*Locked* you—actually *locked*

-you in! Oh, Lord have mercy!"

-

-"Then, after a long wait," the girl went on, "in

-which I was praying only for the money, mother—the

-money to save your life and put you out of

-agony—I heard steps, first on the stairs and then

-at the door. Somebody touched the latch. The

-door held fast. Then the key was turned, and as

-I sat there with covered face, now with the dread

-of death upon me for the first time, somebody came

-in and stood over me."

-

-"The scoundrel! The beast!" Jane's hands slipped

-from their hold on the girl's ankles and fell; her

-head and shoulders sank till her brow touched the

-floor.

-

-"A hand was laid on my head," Virginia went on.

-"I heard a voice—"

-

-"The fiend from hell!" Jane raised her haggard

-face and glaring eyes. "Don't, don't tell me that

-he dared to—"

-

-"It was Mrs. Boyd, mother—Ann Boyd," said

-Virginia.

-

-"Ann Boyd!" Jane groaned. "I see it now; *she*

-was at the bottom of it; it was all *her* doing. *That*

-was her plot. Ah, God, I see it now!"

-

-"You are mistaken," the girl said. "She had

-accidentally overheard my agreement to go there,

-and came for no other reason than to save me,

-mother—to save me."

-

-"To save you?" Jane raised herself on her two

-hands like a four-footed animal looking up from

-its food. "Save your" she repeated, with the helpless

-glare of insanity in her blearing eyes.

-

-"Yes, to save me. She was acting on impulse,

-an impulse for good that she was even then fighting

-against. When she heard of that appointment she

-actually gloated over it, but, mother, she found herself

-unequal to it. As the time which had been set

-drew near, she plunged out into the night and got

-there only a few minutes before—"

-

-"In time—oh, my God, did you say *in time*?"

-Jane gasped, again clutching her daughter's ankles

-and holding desperately to them.

-

-"Yes, in time to save me from all but the life-long

-consciousness of my awful indiscretion. She brought

-me away, and after that how could I be other than

-a grateful friend to such a noble creature?"

-

-"In time—oh, my God, in *time*!" Jane exclaimed,

-as she sat erect on the floor and tossed her scant

-hair, which, like a wisp of tow, hung down her cheek.

-Then she got up stiffly and moved back to the bed

-as aimlessly as if she were wandering in her sleep.

-

-"There is no use in my saying more, mother."

-Virginia rose and turned to the door. "I'm going

-back to my room. You can think it all over and

-do as you please with me. I deserve punishment,

-and I'm willing to take it."

-

-Jane stared at her from her hollow eyes for a

-moment, then she said: "Yes, go! I never want to

-see you again; Ann Boyd saved you, but she is now

-gloating over *me*. She'll call it heaping coals of

-fire on my head; she'll brag to me and others of

-what she's done, and of what I owe her. Oh, I

-know that woman! You've escaped one thing, but

-have made me face another worse than death. Go

-on away—get clear out of my sight. If you don't

-I'll say something to you that you will remember

-all your life."

-

-"Very well, mother." Virginia moved to the

-door. Her hand was on the latch, when, with a

-startled gasp, her mother called out:

-

-"Stop!—stop! For God's sake don't you dare to

-tell me that I went to Atlanta and bought back my

-life with that young scoundrel's money; if you do,

-as God is my Judge, I'll strike you dead where you

-stand."

-

-"No, I refused to take it," Virginia said. "He

-came to me afterwards and begged me to accept

-it, but I refused."

-

-"Then how under the sun—" Jane began, but

-went no further.

-

-Virginia turned in the doorway and stood still;

-a look of resigned despair was on her. "You may

-as well know *all* the truth," she said. "I promised

-not to tell, but you really ought to know this, too.

-Mother, Ann Boyd, gave me the money. The woman

-you are still hounding and hating earned the

-money by the sweat of her brow that saved your

-life."

-

-"Ann Boyd! Oh, my God, and to think you can

-stand there and tell me that! Get out of my sight.

-You have acted the fool all along, and humiliated me

-in the dust by your conduct. You are no child of

-mine. It was all a plot—a dirty, low plot. She has

-used you. She has used me. She is laughing at us

-both right now. Oh, I know her! Get out of my

-sight or I'll forget myself and—go, I tell you!"

-

-

-

-

-XXXVI

-=====

-

-

-The next morning Jane did not come

-out to breakfast. Virginia had it ready

-on the table and went to her mother's

-room to call her. There was no response.

-Opening the door, she saw

-Jane, fully dressed, standing at the window looking

-out, but she refused to speak when gently informed

-that breakfast was ready. Then Virginia went back

-to the kitchen, and, arranging some delicacies, a cup

-of coffee, and other things on a tray, she took it in

-and left it on her mother's table and retired, closing

-the door after her.

-

-For a week Jane refused to leave her room or

-speak to her daughter. Three times a day Virginia

-took her mother's food to her, always finding the

-window-shade drawn and the chamber dark.

-

-One morning, about this time, Virginia happened

-to see Ann in her peanut-patch, a rich spot of ground

-below the old woman's barn-yard, and, seeing that

-she would be quite unobserved, she put on her bonnet

-and shawl and joined Ann, who, with a long,

-narrow hoe, was carefully digging the peanuts from

-the hills, and pulling them out by the brown, frost-bitten

-vines, and shaking the earth from their roots

-and leaving them to dry and season in the open air.

-

-"I never saw goobers to beat these," Ann said,

-proudly, as she held up a weighty bunch. "I reckon

-this patch will turn out a good hundred bushel. I

-hit it just right; they tell me in town that they are

-bringing a fine price. I've been wondering what

-was the matter with you, child. You've been keeping

-powerful close in-doors."

-

-Then, as Ann leaned on her smooth hoe-handle,

-Virginia told her frankly all that had taken place,

-leaving out nothing, and ending with her mother's

-self-incarceration and sullen mood.

-

-"Well," Ann exclaimed, her brow ruffled with

-pained perplexity, "I hardly know what to say in

-the matter. I don't blame you for letting out the

-whole business after you once got started. That

-was just natural. But don't worry about her.

-She'll pull through; she's tough as whitleather; her

-trouble's not of the body, but the mind. I know;

-I've been through enough of it. Mark my prophecy,

-she'll come out one of these days feeling better.

-She'll crawl out of her darkness like a butterfly from

-its dead and useless husk. She'll see clearer out in

-the open light when once she strikes it. Look here,

-child. I don't want to look like a sniffling fool after

-all the hard rubs I've had in this life to toughen me,

-but I'm a changed woman. Reading Luke's wonderful

-articles every week, and remembering the

-things the boy has said to me off and on, had something

-to do with it, I reckon, and then this experience

-of yours on top of it all helped. Yes, I'm

-altered; I'm altered and against my natural inclination.

-That very woman is *the* one particular human

-thorn in my flesh, and yet, yet, child, as the Lord

-is my Master, I mighty nigh feel sorry for her. I

-mighty nigh pity the poor, old, sin-slashed creature

-housed up there in solitary darkness with her bleeding

-pride and envy and hate. I pity her now, I

-reckon, because the way this has turned out hurts

-her more than any open fight she could have with

-me. I'd 'a' died long ago under all the slush and

-mire that was dabbed on me if I hadn't amused

-myself making money. I didn't have the social

-standing of some of these folks, but I had the hard

-cash, and the clink of my coin has been almost as

-loud as their taunts. But your ma—she's had very

-little substance all along, and that little has been

-dwindling day by day, till she finds herself without

-a dollar and owing her very life to a woman she

-hates. Yes, her lot is a hard one, and I'm sorry

-for her. I pity your mammy, child."

-

-

-

-

-XXXVII

-======

-

-

-For two weeks longer Jane Hemingway,

-to the inexplicable sorrow of her

-gentle and mystified daughter, kept

-the seclusion of her room. The curtains

-of the single window looking out

-on the yard in the rear were constantly drawn,

-and, though the girl sometimes listened attentively

-with her ear to the wall, she heard no sound to

-indicate that her mother ever moved from her bed

-or her chair at the fireplace, where she sat enveloped

-in blankets. She had allowed Virginia to push a

-plate containing her meals three times a day through

-the door, but the things were promptly received into

-the darkness and only sullen silence was the invariable

-response to the frequent inquiries the girl made.

-

-One morning Sam stopped his niece in the yard

-near the well, a droll, half-amused expression on his

-face. "Do you know," he said, "that I believe I'd

-'a' made a bang-up detective if I'd given time to it."

-

-"Do you think so?" Virginia said, absently.

-

-"Yes, I do," he replied. "Now, I'm going to

-give you an instance of what a body can discover

-by sticking two and two together and nosing around

-till you are plumb sure you know what a certain

-thing means. Now, you are a woman—not an old

-one, but a woman all the same—and they are supposed

-to see what's at the ends of their noses and a

-heap beyond, but when it comes to detective work

-they are not in it. I reckon it's because they won't

-look for what they don't want to see, and to make a

-good detective a body must pry into everything that

-is in sight. Well, to come down to the case in hand,

-you've been sticking grub through that crack in the

-door to your mammy, who put herself in limbo

-several weeks ago, but in all that time you haven't

-seen the color of her cheeks to know whether the

-fare is fattening her or thinning her down to the

-bone. In fact, you nor me, on the outside, hain't

-supposed to know a blasted thing about what's going

-on in there. But—and there's where detective

-work comes in—one morning—it was day before

-yesterday, to be accurate—I took notice that all the

-stray cats and ducks and chickens had quit basking

-on the sunny side of the house and was staying

-around your mammy's window. Now, thinks I,

-that's odd; that's not according to the general run;

-so I set in to watching, and what do you reckon?

-I found out that all them Noah's Ark passengers,

-of the two and four footed sort, had assembled there

-to get their meals. Your mammy was regularly

-throwing out the dainty grub you fixed for her. I

-laid in wait nigh the window this morning and saw

-her empty the plate. I went close and took a look.

-She had just nibbled a bit or two, like the pecking

-of a sparrow, out of the centre of the bread-slices,

-but she hadn't touched the eggs nor the streak-o'-lean-streak-o'-fat

-you thought she set such store by.

-Good Lord, Virgie, don't you think the thing's gone

-far enough—having a drove of cats fed on the

-fat o' the land, when me and you are living on

-scraps?"

-

-"Uncle"—Virginia's startled eyes bore down on

-him suddenly—"what does it mean?"

-

-"Mean? Why, that there'll be a passle of cats

-on this place too fat to walk, while me 'n' you'll be

-too lean to cast a shadow if we stood side by side in

-the sun."

-

-"Oh, uncle, do you suppose she is worse?" Virginia

-asked, in deep concern.

-

-"I don't know," Sam said, seriously, "my Pinkerton

-job ended with the discovery of them cat

-banquets, but I've about reached *one* opinion."

-

-"And what is that?" the girl asked, anxiously,

-as she bent towards her uncle.

-

-"Why, I think maybe she's so mad and set back

-by all that's happened that she's trying to starve

-herself to death to get even."

-

-"Oh, uncle, don't say that!" Virginia cried—"don't!

-don't!"

-

-"Well, then, you study it out," he said. "It's

-too much for me."

-

-That morning Virginia quietly slipped over to

-Ann Boyd's and confided the new phase of the situation

-to her sympathetic friend, but Ann could not

-account for Jane's strange conduct, and Virginia

-returned home no wiser than she had left. However,

-at the fence she met Sam. His face was aglow

-with excitement.

-

-"What you reckon?" he said. "The bird has

-flown."

-

-"Mother, you mean?"

-

-"Yes, she's skipped clean out. It was this way:

-Pete Denslow drove past about twenty minutes

-ago in his empty two-horse wagon, and I hollered

-out to him and asked him where-away. He pulled

-up at the gate and said he was going over the

-mountain to Gilmer after a load of ginseng to fetch

-back to Darley. Well, sir, no sooner had he said

-that than your mammy piped up from her dungeon,

-where she stood listening at a crack, and said, said

-she, sorter sheepish-like: 'Sam, ask him if he will

-let me go with him; I promised to go see Sally Maud

-Pincher over there the first time any wagon was

-passing, and I want to go.' Well, I told Pete, and

-he looked at the sun and wanted to know how long

-it would take her to get ready. She heard him, and

-yelled out from the door that she'd be out in five

-minutes, and, bless you, she was on the seat beside

-him in less time in her best clothes and carpet-bag

-in hand. She was as white in the face as a convict

-out taking a sunning, and her gingham looked like

-it was hanging from a hook on her neck, she was

-that thin. She never said a word to me as she

-went by. At first I thought she was plumb crazy,

-but she had the clearest eye in her head I ever saw,

-and she was chattering away to Pete about the

-weather as if he was an unmarried man and she was

-on the carpet."

-

-"Oh, uncle, what do you think it means?" Virginia

-sighed, deeply worried.

-

-"Why, I think it's a fine sign, myself," said Sam.

-"I'm not as good a judge of women as I am of mules—though

-a body ought to know as much of one as

-the other—but I think she's perhaps been wanting

-to get a breath of fresh air for some time and

-didn't like to acknowledge she was tired of cave-life.

-Over there at Pincher's, you see, she can slide

-back into her old ways without attracting attention

-by it."

-

-"And she didn't leave a word of directions to me?"

-the girl said, sadly.

-

-"Not a word," was the droll reply. "I didn't

-say good-bye to her myself. To tell the truth, I

-had noticed that she'd forgot to put up a snack for

-her and Pete to eat on the way, and I was afraid

-she might remember it at the last minute and take

-what little there was left for you and me."

-

-But Jane evidently had something to attend to

-before paying her promised visit to Sally Maud

-Pincher, for on their arrival at the village of Ellijay,

-the seat of the adjoining county, she asked her

-obliging conveyer to put her down at the hotel,

-where she intended to spend the night. It was

-then about five o'clock in the afternoon, and she

-went into the little office, which looked like a parlor

-in a farm-house, and registered her name and was

-given a room with a sky-blue door and ceiling and

-whitewashed walls, at the head of the stairs. She

-sat after that at the window, looking out upon the

-dreary street and the lonely, red-clay road leading

-up the mountain, till it grew dark. She went down

-to the dining-room when the great brass bell was

-rung by a negro boy who shook it vigorously as he

-walked through the hall and around the house,

-but she had no appetite—the long, jolting journey

-over the rough road had weakened rather than

-stimulated her faint physical needs, and so she took

-only a glass of milk, into which she had dropped a

-few morsels of bread, eating the mixture with a

-spoon like a child.

-

-"If I'm going to do this thing," she mused, as

-she sat on her bed in her night-dress and twisted her

-hair in a knot, "the quicker it's over the better.

-When I left home it seemed easy enough, but now

-it's awful—simply awful!"

-

-She slept soundly from sheer fatigue, and was up

-the next morning and dressed before the hotel cook,

-an old woman, had made a fire in the range. She

-walked down-stairs into the empty hall and out on

-the front veranda, but saw no one. The ground

-was white with frost and the mountain air was crisp

-and cutting, but it seemed to have put color into

-her cheeks. Going through the office, where she

-saw no one, she went into the dining-room just as

-the cook was coming in from the adjoining kitchen.

-

-"Good-morning," Jane said. "I've got about

-four miles to walk, and, as I've lately been down

-sick in bed, I want to sorter take it slow and get an

-early start. I paid my bill before I went to bed

-last night, including breakfast, and if you could

-give me a slice of bread-and-butter and a cup of

-coffee that will be all I want."

-

-"Well, I can get them ready in a minute," said

-the woman, "but I'd hate to do a four-mile walk

-on as little as that."

-

-"I've been sort of dieting myself," Jane said,

-perhaps recalling her past bounty to the cats and

-chickens at the window of her room, "and I don't

-need much."

-

-"Well, all right," said the cook, spreading a napkin

-at one end of a long table; "you set down here

-and I'll supply you in a few minutes. The landlord

-leaves me in charge here till he gets up. He's

-a late sleeper; he was out last night at the trial of

-the moonshiners. You say you paid for breakfast

-in your bill. I think it's a shame. If he wasn't so

-easy to make mad, I'd go shake him up and get some

-of your money back. I don't happen to tote the

-key to the cash-drawer. I reckon you paid seventy-five

-cents for supper, bed, and breakfast—'s., b., and

-b.,' we call it for short—and you are entitled to a

-full round—meat, eggs, fish (in season), batter-cakes

-or waffles, whichever it is. Our waffle-irons are split

-right half in two, and we just give batter-cakes

-now; but folks know the brand clean to Darley.

-You ought to see the judge tackle 'em during court

-week; him and the district-attorney had a race the

-other night to see which could eat the most. I had

-three pans running, and such a smoke of burning

-lard in the kitchen you couldn't have seen a white

-cat in an inch of your nose. The whole jury and

-a lots of witnesses under guard of the sheriff was

-allowed to look on. The judge beat. The lawyer

-got so full he couldn't talk, and that was the signal

-to call a halt. I was glad, for old Mrs. Macklin was

-waiting in the kitchen to try to hear if there was

-any chance to save her son, who was being tried

-for killing that feller in the brick-yard last summer.

-Ever' time I'd come in for fresh cakes she'd look

-up sorter pitiful-like to see if I'd heard anything.

-They'd already agreed to send 'im up for life, but

-I didn't know it. Yes, you ought to have a quarter

-of that money back, *anyway*. Unless a knife and

-fork is used, I make a habit, when it's left to me,

-not to charge a cent, and you don't look like you

-are overly flush."

-

-"No, but I'm satisfied as it is," Jane said, as she

-finished her bread and milk. "I didn't expect to

-get it for any less."

-

-

-

-

-XXXVIII

-=======

-

-

-A few minutes later, with her flabby

-carpet-bag on her sharp hip, Jane

-fared forth on the mountain road,

-which led farther eastward. She walked

-slowly and with increased effort,

-for the high altitude seemed to affect her respiration,

-and, light as it was, the carpet-bag became

-cumbersome and she had to pause frequently to

-rest.

-

-"Yes, if I'm going to do it, I'll have to plunge in

-and do it, and be done with the matter," she kept

-saying. "I reckon it isn't the first time such a

-thing has been heard of." She passed several humble

-mountain houses, built of logs, on the way, but

-stopped at none of them. The sun was near the

-zenith when she came to a double log-cabin standing

-back on a plot of newly cleared land a hundred yards

-from the rocky road. A tall, plain-looking girl, with

-a hard, unsympathetic face, stood in the doorway,

-and she stepped down to the ground and quieted a

-snarling dog which was chained to a stake driven

-into the earth.

-

-"I reckon you are Nettie Boyd, ain't you?" Jane

-said.

-

-"I used to be," the young woman answered. "I

-married a Lawson—Sam Lawson—awhile back."

-

-"Oh yes, I forgot that. I'd heard it, too, of

-course, but it slipped my memory. I'm a Hemingway,

-from over in Murray County—Jane Hemingway.

-I used to be acquainted with your pa.

-Is he handy?"

-

-"Yes, he was here just a minute ago," Ann Boyd's

-daughter answered. "He's around at his hay-stack

-pulling down some roughness for the cow. Go in

-and take a seat and I'll call him. Lay your bonnet

-on the bed and make yourself at home."

-

-Jane went into the cabin, the walls of which were

-unlined, being only the bare logs with the bark on

-them. The cracks where the logs failed to fit closely

-together were filled with the red clay from the hills

-around. There was not a picture in sight, not an

-ornament on the crude board shelf over the rugged

-mud-and-stone fireplace. From wooden pegs driven

-in auger-holes in the walls hung the young bride's

-meagre finery, in company with what was evidently

-her husband's best suit of clothes and hat. Beneath

-them, on the floor, stood a pair of new woman's shoes,

-dwarfed by contrast to a heavier and larger masculine

-pair. Jane sat down, rolling her bonnet in her

-stiff fingers. The chair she sat on was evidently of

-home make, for the rockers were unevenly sawed,

-and, on the unplaned boards of the floor, it had

-a joggling, noisy motion when in use. There were

-two beds in the room, made of rough, pine planks.

-The coverings of the beds were not in order and the

-pillows were soiled.

-

-"If she'd 'a' stayed on with Ann she would 'a'

-made a better house-keeper than that," Jane mused.

-"She's a sight, too, with her hair uncombed and

-dress so untidy so soon after the honeymoon. I

-can see now that her and Ann never would get on

-together. Anybody could take one look at that

-girl and see she's selfish. I wonder what that fellow

-ever saw in her?"

-

-There was a sound of voices outside. With a

-start, Jane drew herself erect. The carpet-bag on

-her knees threatened to fall, and she lowered it to

-the floor. Her ordeal was before her.

-

-"Why, howdy do?"

-

-Joe Boyd, in tattered shirt, trousers patched upon

-patches, and gaping shoes through which his bare

-toes showed, stood in the doorway. That the old

-beau and the once most popular young man of the

-country-side could stand looking like that before her,

-even after the lapse of all those trying years, and

-not feel abashed, was one of the inexplicable things

-that rushed through Jane Hemingway's benumbed

-brain. That she, herself, could be looking at the

-very husk of the ideal of manhood she had held all

-those years and not cry out in actual pain over the

-pitiful evidences of his collapse from his high estate

-was another thing she marvelled over. Joe Boyd!

-Could it actually be he? Could those gaunt, talon-nailed

-members, with their parchment-like skin, be

-the hands she used to think so shapely? Could

-those splaying feet be the feet that had tripped more

-lightly in the Virginia Reel than those of any other

-man for miles around? Could those furtive, harsh-glancing

-eyes be the deep, dreamy ones in which

-she had once seen the mirage of her every girlish

-hope? Could that rasping tone come from the voice

-whose never diminishing echo had rung in her ears

-through all those years of hiding her secret from

-the man she had married out of "spite," through

-all her long tooth-in-flesh fight with the rival who

-had temporarily won and held him?

-

-She rose and gave him her hand, and the two

-stood facing each other, she speechless, he thoroughly

-at his indolent ease.

-

-"Well, I reckon, Jane, old girl," he laughed, as he

-wiped a trickling stream of tobacco-juice from the

-corner of his sagging mouth, "that you are the very

-last human being I ever expected to lay eyes on

-again. I swear I wouldn't 'a' known you from

-Adam's cat if Nettie hadn't told me who it was.

-My, how thin you look, and all bent over!"

-

-"Yes, I'm changed, and you are too, Joe," she

-said, as, with a stiff hand beneath her, she sought

-the chair again.

-

-"Yes"—he went to the doorway and spat voluminously

-out into the yard, and came back swinging a

-chair as lightly in his hand as if it had been a baseball

-bat with which he was playing—"yes, I reckon

-I am altered considerable; a body's more apt to

-see changes in others than in himself. I was just

-thinking the other day about them old times. La

-me! how much fun we all did have, but it didn't

-last—it didn't last."

-

-He sat down, leaning forward and clasping his

-dry-palmed hands with a sound like the rubbing

-together of two pieces of paper. There was an

-awkward silence. Nettie Lawson came to the door

-and glanced in inquiringly, and then went away.

-They heard her calling her chickens some distance

-from the cabin.

-

-"No, I wouldn't have recognized you if I'd met

-you alone in the big road," he said, "nor you

-wouldn't me, I reckon."

-

-"Joe"—she was looking about the room—"somehow

-I had an idea that you were in—in a little

-better circumstances than—than you seem to be in

-now."

-

-"Well, that wouldn't be hard to imagine, anyway,"

-he said, with an intonation like a sigh, if it

-wasn't one. "If a body couldn't imagine a better

-fix for a man to be in than I am in, they'd better

-quit. Lord, Lord, I reckon I ought to be dead

-ashamed to meet you in this condition when you

-knew me away back in them palmy days, but, Jane,

-I really believe I've sunk below that sort of a feeling.

-You know I used to cut a wide swath when I had

-plenty of money and friends, but what's the use of

-crying over spilt milk? This is all there is left of

-me. I managed to marry Nettie off to a feller good

-enough in his way. I thought he was a fine catch,

-but I don't know. I was under the impression that

-his folks had some money to give him to sorter start

-the two out, but it seems they didn't have, and was

-looking for a stake themselves. Since they married

-he just stays round here, contented and about as

-shiftless as anybody could be. I thought, for instance,

-that he never got in debt, but a store-keeper

-in town told me the other day that he owed him for

-the very duds he was married in."

-

-"That's bad, that's powerful bad," Jane said,

-sympathetically. Then a fixed look took possession

-of her eyes, and her fingers tightened on her bonnet

-in her lap, as she plunged towards the thing with

-which she was burdened. "Joe," she continued,

-"I've come all the way over the mountain in my

-delicate health to see you about a particular matter.

-God knows it's the hardest thing I ever contemplated,

-but there is no other way out of it."

-

-"Well, I think I know what you are going to say,"

-he answered, avoiding her eyes.

-

-"You do, Joe?" she exclaimed. "Oh no, surely,

-you can't know that."

-

-"Well, I think I can make a good guess," he said,

-awkwardly twirling his fingers round and round.

-"You see, I always make a habit, when I happen to

-meet anybody from over your way, of asking about

-old acquaintances, and I heard some time back that

-you was in deep trouble. They said you had some

-high-priced doctoring to do in Atlanta, and that you

-was going from old friend to old friend for what little

-help they could give. I'm going to see what I can

-do towards it myself, since you've taken such a long

-trip, though, Jane, to tell you the truth, I haven't

-actually seen a ten-cent piece in a month. I've gone

-without tobacco when I thought the desire for it

-would run me distracted. So—"

-

-"I didn't come for help—Lord, Lord, I only wish

-it was that, Joe. I've already had the operation,

-and I'm recovering. I've come over here, Joe, to

-make an awful confession."

-

-"A—a—what?" he said.

-

-There was a pause. Jane Hemingway unrolled

-her bonnet and put it on, pulling the hood down over

-her line of vision.

-

-"Joe, I've come to tell you that I've been a bad

-woman; I've been a bad, sinning woman since away

-back there when you married Ann. Things you

-used to say to me, I reckon, turned my silly head.

-You remember when you took me to camp-meeting

-that night, and we sat through meeting out in the

-buggy under the trees. I reckon, if it was all to

-do over you wouldn't have said so much. I reckon

-you wouldn't if you'd known you were planting a

-seed that was going to fructify and bear the fruit

-of hate and enmity that would never rot; but, for all

-I know, you may have been saying the same things

-to other girls who knew better how to take them

-than I did."

-

-"Oh, Jane, I was a fool them days," Joe Boyd

-broke in, with an actual flush of shame in his tanned

-face.

-

-"Well, never mind about that," Jane went on,

-with a fresher determination under his own admission.

-"I reckon I let it take too strong a hold on

-me. I never could give up easy, and when you got

-to going with Ann, and she was so much prettier

-and more sprightly than me, it worked against my

-nature. It hardened me, I reckon. I married soon

-after you did, but I won't tell about that; he's dead

-and gone. I had my child—that was all, except—except

-my hate for Ann. I couldn't stand to see

-you and her so happy together, and you both were

-making money and I was losing what I had. Then,

-Joe, we all heard about—we all learned Ann's secret."

-

-"Don't—for the love of mercy—don't fetch that

-up!" Boyd groaned.

-

-"But I *have* to, Joe," Jane persisted, softly. "At

-first I was the happiest woman that the devil ever

-delighted by flashing a lying promise with his fire

-on a wall. I thought you were going to scorn her,

-but I saw that day I met you at the meeting-house

-that you were inclined to condone the past, and

-that drove me wild; so I—" Jane choked up and

-paused.

-

-"I remember that day," Joe Boyd said, with a

-deep breath. "I'll never forget it as long as I live,

-for what you said dropped me back into the bottomless

-pit of despair. I'd been trying to think she'd

-been straight with me *since* we married, but when

-you—"

-

-"What I told you that morning, Joe, was a cold,

-deliberate lie!"

-

-"A—a—" he stammered. "No, no, you don't

-mean that—you can't mean—"

-

-"Every—single—thing—I—told—you—that—day—was—a—lie!"

-Jane said, with an emphatic

-pause between each word.

-

-"I can't understand. I don't see—really, Jane,

-you can't mean that what you said about Chester's

-going there day after day when my back was turned,

-and that you saw them together in the woods below

-your house that day when I was—"

-

-"Everything I told you was a lie from the devil,

-out of the very fumes of hell," Jane said, pulling

-off her bonnet and looking him squarely in the face.

-"A lie—a lie, Joe."

-

-"Oh, my God!" Boyd cried. "And I, all these

-years I have—"

-

-"You've been believing what I said. But I'm

-not through yet. I've been in a dark room fasting

-and praying for a month to overcome my evil

-inclination not to speak the truth, and I finally

-conquered, so I'm going to tell the whole thing.

-Joe, Ann Boyd is the best woman God ever let live.

-She was as true as steel to you from the day she

-married till now. I have been after her day and

-night, never giving her a moment's rest from my

-persecutions, and how do you reckon she retaliated?

-She paid me back by actually saving my worthless

-life and trying to keep me from knowing who did it.

-She did something else. She did me the greatest

-favor one woman could possibly do another. I

-don't intend to say what that particular thing was,

-but she must have the credit. Now I'm through.

-I'm going back home."

-

-Boyd drew his ill-clad feet towards him. He

-spread out his two arms wide and held them so,

-steadily. "Look at me—just look at me," he said.

-"Woman, before you go back, take one good look

-at me. You come to me—a mere frazil of what I

-once was—when there is no hope of ever regaining

-my youth and self-respect—and tell me—oh, my

-God!—tell me that I believed *you* instead of *her*!

-She said, with tears in her eyes, on her knees before

-me, that that first mistake was all, and I told her

-she lied *in her throat*, and left her, dragging from

-her clinging arms the child of her breast, bringing it

-up and raising it to what you see she is. And now

-you come literally peeping into my open coffin and

-telling *this* to my dead face. Great God, woman,

-before Heaven I feel like striking you where you set,

-soaked in repentance though you are. All these

-misspent years I've been your cowardly tool, and

-her—her—"

-

-"I deserve it—talk on!" Jane Hemingway said,

-as she rose and clutched her carpet-bag and held it

-tremblingly.

-

-But Joe Boyd's innate gentleness had been one

-of the qualities many women loved, and even before

-the cowering creature who had wrecked his life he

-melted in manly pity.

-

-"No," he said, stretching out his hand with something

-like one of his old gestures—"no, I'm going

-too far, Jane. We are all obedient to natural laws,

-as Ann used to say. Your laws have made you do

-just as you have, and so have mine. Away back

-there in the joy-time of youth my laws made me

-say too much to you. As you say, I planted the

-seed. I did; I planted the seed that bore all the

-fruit; I planted it when I kissed you, Jane, and said

-them things to you that night which I forgot the

-next day. Ann could have made something out of

-me better than this. As long as I had her to manage

-me, I did well. You see what I am now."

-

-"Yes, I see; and I'm as sorry as I know how to

-be." Jane sighed as she passed out into the open

-sunlight. "I'm going home, Joe. I may never lay

-eyes on you again in this life. If you can say anything

-to make me feel better, I'd be thankful."

-

-"There isn't anything, except what I said just

-now about our natural laws, Jane," he said, as he

-stood shading his eyes from the glare of the sun.

-"Sometimes I think that nobody hain't to blame

-for nothing they do, and that all of this temporary

-muddle is just the different ways human beings have

-of struggling on to a better world beyond this."

-

-"I thought maybe you might, in so many words,

-say plain out that you'd forgive me, Joe." She had

-turned her face towards the road she was to travel,

-and her once harsh lip was quivering like that of a

-weeping child.

-

-"The natural law would come in there, too,"

-Boyd sighed. "Forgiveness, of the right sort, don't

-spring to the heart in such a case as this like a flash

-of powder in the pan. If I'm to forgive, I will in

-due time, I reckon; but right now, Jane, I feel too

-weak and tired, even for that—too weak and heartsick

-and undone."

-

-"Well, I'm going to pray for it, Joe," she said, as

-she started away. "Good-bye. May the Lord

-above bless you."

-

-"Good-bye, Jane; do the best you can," he said,

-"and I'll try to do the same."

-

-

-

-

-XXXIX

-=====

-

-

-The following Sunday afternoon Mrs.

-Waycroft hastened over to Ann Boyd's.

-She walked very rapidly across the

-fields and through the woods rather

-than by the longer main road. She

-found Ann in her best dress seated in her dining-room

-reading Luke King's paper, which had come

-the day before. She looked up and smiled and

-nodded to the visitor.

-

-"I just wish you'd listen to this," she said, enthusiastically.

-"And when you've heard it, if you

-don't think that boy is a genius you'll miss it by a

-big jump. On my word, such editorials as this will

-do more good than all the preaching in Christendom.

-I've read it four times. Sit down and listen."

-

-"No, you've got to listen to me," said the visitor.

-"That can wait; it's down in black and white, while

-mine is fairly busting me wide open. Ann, do you

-know what took place at meeting this morning?"

-

-"Why, no, how could I? You know I said I'd

-never darken that door again, after that low-lived

-coward—"

-

-"Stop, Ann, and listen!" Mrs. Waycroft panted,

-as she sank into a chair and leaned forward. "You

-know I go seldom myself, but by some chance I went

-this morning. I always feel like doing the best I

-can towards the end of a year. Well, I had hardly

-got my seat and Brother Bazemore had just got up

-to make some announcements, when who should

-come in but Jane Hemingway. Instead of stopping

-at her usual place, nigh the stove, she walked

-clean up to the altar-railing and stood as stiff as a

-post, gazing at the preacher. He was busy with

-his notes and didn't see her at first, though every

-eye in the house was fixed on her in wonder, for she

-was as white as a sheet, and so thin and weak that

-it looked like the lightest wind would blow her

-away. 'Brother Bazemore,' she said, loud enough

-to be heard, in her shrill voice, clean out to the

-horse-rack, 'I want to say something, and I want

-to say it out before all of you.'"

-

-"Huh!" Ann grunted—"huh!"

-

-"Well, he looked good surprised," Mrs. Waycroft

-went on, "but you know he's kind o' resentful if

-folks don't show consideration for his convenience,

-so he looked down at her over his specks and said:

-

-"'Well, sister, I reckon the best time for that

-will be after preaching, and then them that want

-to stay can do so and feel that they got what they

-waited for.'

-

-"'But I can't wait,' said she. 'What I've got to

-say must be said now, while I'm plumb in the notion.

-If I waited I might back out, and I don't want to

-do it.'

-

-"Well, he give in; and, Ann, she turned around

-facing us all and took off her bonnet and swung it

-about like a flag. She was as nigh dead in looks as

-any corpse I ever saw. And since you was born,

-Ann, you never heard the like. Folks was so interested

-that they stared as if their eyes was popping

-out of their sockets. She said she'd come to confess

-to crime—that's the way she put it—\ *crime!*

-She said she'd been passing for half a lifetime in

-this community as a Christian woman, when in actuality

-she had been linked body and soul to the

-devil. Right there she gulped and stood with her

-old head down; then she looked at us like a crazy

-person and went on. She said away back when she

-was a girl she'd been jealous of a certain girl, and

-that she'd hounded that girl through a long life.

-She had made it her particular business to stir up

-strife against that woman by toting lies from one

-person to another. She turned sort o' sideways to

-the preacher and said: 'Brother Bazemore, what I

-told you Ann Boyd said about you that time was

-all made up—a lie out of whole cloth. I told you

-that to make you denounce her in public, and you

-did. I kept telling her neighbors things to make 'em

-hate her, and they did. I told her husband a whole

-string of deliberate lies that made him leave her

-and take her child away. I spent half my life at

-this thing, to have it end like this: Men and women,

-the woman that I was doing all that against was the

-one who came up with the money that saved my

-worthless life and tried to hide it from me and the

-rest of the world. She not only done that, but she

-done me even a greater favor. I won't say what

-that was, but nobody but an angel from heaven,

-robed in the flesh of earth, could have done that,

-for it was the very thing she had every right to want

-to see visited on me. That act would have paid me

-back in my own coin, and she wanted to count out

-the money, but she was too much of heaven to go

-through it. Instead of striking at me, she saved

-me suffering that would have dragged me to the

-dust in shame. I've come here to say all this because

-I want to do her justice, if I can, while the

-breath of life is in me. I've just got back from

-Gilmer, where I went and met the man whose life

-I wrecked—her husband. I told him the truth,

-hoping that I could do him some good in atonement,

-but the poor, worn-out man seemed too utterly

-crushed to forgive me.'"

-

-"Joe—she went to Joe!" Ann gasped, finding her

-voice. "Now, I reckon, he believes me. And to

-think that Jane Hemingway would say all that—do

-all that! It don't seem reasonable. But you

-say she actually—"

-

-"Of course she did," broke in the narrator. "And

-when she was through she marched straight down

-the middle aisle and stalked outside. Half the folks

-got up and went to the windows and watched her

-tottering along the road; and then Brother Bazemore

-called 'em back and made 'em sit down. He

-said, in his cold-blooded way, hemming and hawing,

-that the whole community had been too severe, and

-that the best way to get the thing settled and

-smooth-running again was to agree on some sort

-of public testimonial. Ann, I reckon fully ten men

-yelled out that they would second the motion. I

-never in all my life saw such excitement. Folks

-was actually crying, and this one and that one was

-telling kind things you had done to them. Then

-they all got around me, Ann, and they made a lots

-over me, saying I was the only one who had acted

-right, and that I must ask you to forgive them.

-That was the motion Bazemore put and carried by

-a vote of rising. Half of them was so anxious to

-have their votes counted that they climbed up on

-the benches and waved their hats and bonnets and

-shawls, and yelled out, 'Here! here!' Bazemore

-dismissed without preaching; it looked like he

-thought nothing he could say, in any regular line,

-would count in such a tumult. And after meeting

-dozens of 'em slid up to me and snatched my hands

-and told me to speak a good word for them; they

-kept it up even after I'd got outside, some of 'em

-walking part of the way with me and sending messages.

-Wait till I catch my breath, and I'll tell you

-who spoke and what each one said, as well as I

-can."

-

-"Never mind," said Ann, an absent look in her

-strong face. "I believe I'd rather not hear any

-more of it; it don't make one bit of difference one

-way or another."

-

-"Why, Ann, surely you won't entertain hard feelings,

-now that they all feel so bad. If you could

-only 'a' been there, you would—"

-

-"Oh, it isn't that," Ann sighed, and with her

-closed hand she pounded her heavy knee restlessly.

-"You see, Mary—oh, I don't know—but, well, I can't

-possibly be any way but the way the Lord made me,

-and to save my life I can't feel grateful. They all

-just seem to me like a lot of spoilt children that

-laugh or cry over whatever comes up. Somehow a

-testimonial from a congregation like that, after a

-lifetime of beating me and covering me with slime,

-seems more like an insult than a compliment. They

-think they can besmirch the best part of my life,

-and then rub it off in a minute with good intentions

-and a few words. Why, it was the same sort of

-whim that made them all follow Jane Hemingway

-like sheep after a leader. I don't hate 'em, you

-understand, but what they do or say simply don't

-alter my feelings a speck. I have known all along

-that I had the right kind of—character, and to

-listen to their sniffling testimony on the subject

-would seem to me like—well, like insulting my own

-womanhood."

-

-"You are a powerful strange creature, Ann," Mrs.

-Waycroft said, reflectively, "but, I reckon, if you

-hadn't been that way you wouldn't be such a

-wonderful woman in so many ways. I was holding

-something back for the last, but I reckon you'll sniff

-at that more than what I've already told you.

-Ann, when I got home, and had just set down to

-eat a snack before running over to you, who should

-come to my back gate and call me out except Jane

-herself. She stood leaning against the fence like

-the walk had nearly done her up, and she refused

-to come in and set down. She said she wanted me

-to do her a favor. She said she knew I was at meeting

-and heard what she said, but that she wanted

-me to come to you for her. As God is my final

-Judge, I never felt such pity for a poor rotten shred

-of humanity in all my life. She looked like she was

-trying to cry, but was too dry inside to do anything

-but wheeze; her very eyes seemed to be literally

-on fire; she looked like a crazy person talking

-rationally. She said she wanted me to tell you

-how sorry and broke up she was, that she'd pay

-back that hundred dollars if she had to deed away

-her dead body to some medical college. She said

-she could do anything on earth to make amends

-*except* go to you face to face and apologize—she'd

-walk from door to door all over the country, she

-said, and tell her tale of shame, but she couldn't

-say it to you. She said she had tried for weeks to

-do it, but she knew she'd never have the moral

-strength."

-

-"She talked that way?" Ann said, looking steadily

-out into the sunshine through the open doorway.

-

-"Yes; and I reckon you have as little patience

-with her message as you have with the balance,"

-said the visitor.

-

-"No, she's different, Mary," Ann declared. "Jane

-Hemingway is another proposition altogether. She's

-fought a long, fierce fight, and God Almighty's

-forces have whipped her clean out. She was a

-worthy foe, and I respect her more now than I ever

-did. She was different from the rest. *She* had a

-cause. *She* had something to fight about. She

-loved Joe Boyd with all the heart she ever had, and

-when I married him she couldn't—simply couldn't—let

-it rest. She held on like a bull-dog with his

-teeth clamped to bone. She's beat; I won't wait

-for her to come to me; I may take a notion and

-go to her."

-

-

-

-

-XL

-==

-

-

-It was a crisp, clear day in December.

-Langdon Chester had gone to Darley

-to attend to the banking of a considerable

-amount of money which his

-father had received for cotton on the

-market. It happened to be the one day in the year

-in which the town was visited by a mammoth circus,

-and the streets were overflowing with mountain

-people eager to witness the grand street-parade,

-the balloon ascension, the side-shows, and, lastly,

-the chief performance under the big tent. From

-the quaint old Johnston House, along Main Street

-to the grain warehouses and the throbbing and

-wheezing cotton compress, half a mile distant, the

-street was filled with people afoot, in carts, wagons,

-and buggies, or on horseback. All this joy and

-activity made little impression on Langdon Chester.

-His face was thin and sallow, and he was extremely

-nervous. His last conversation with Virginia and

-her positive refusal to consider his proposal of marriage

-had left him without a hope and more desperate

-than his best friend could have imagined possible

-to a man of his supposedly callous temperament.

-And a strange fatality seemed to be dogging his

-footsteps and linking him to the matter which he

-had valiantly attempted to lay aside, for everywhere

-he went he heard laudatory remarks about Luke

-King and his marvellous success and strength of

-character. In the group of lawyers seated in the

-warm sunshine in front of Trabue's little one-storied

-brick office on the street leading to the court-house,

-it was a topic of more interest than any gossip about

-the circus. It was Squire Tomlinson's opinion, and

-he had been to the legislature in Atlanta, and associated

-intimately with politicians from all sections

-of the state, that King was a man who, if he wished

-it, could become the governor of Georgia as easy as

-falling off a log, or even a senator of the United

-States. The common people wanted him, the squire

-declared; they had worshipped him ever since his

-first editorial war-whoop against the oppression of

-the political ring, the all-devouring trusts, and the

-corrupt Northern money-power. The squire, blunt

-man that he was, caught sight of Langdon among

-his listeners and playfully made an illustration out

-of him. "There's a chap, gentlemen, the son of a

-good old friend of mine. Now, what did money,

-aristocratic parentage, family brains, and military

-honors do for him? He was sent to the best college

-in the state, with plenty of spending-money at his

-command, and is still hanging onto the strap of his

-daddy's pocket-book—satisfied like we all were in the

-good old days when each of us had a little nigger

-to come and put on our shoes for us and bring hot

-coffee and waffles to the bed after we'd tripped the

-merry toe on somebody's farm all night. Oh, you

-needn't frown, Langdon; you know it's the truth.

-He's still a chip off the old block, gentlemen, while

-his barefoot neighbor, a scion of po' white stock,

-cooked his brain before a cabin pine-knot fire in

-studying, like Abe Lincoln did, and finally went

-forth to conquer the world, and *is* conquering it as

-fast as a dog can trot. It's enough, gentlemen, to

-make us all take our boys from school, give 'em a

-good paddling, and put 'em at hard toil in the

-field."

-

-"Thank you for the implied compliment, Squire,"

-Langdon said, angrily. "You are frank enough

-about it, anyway."

-

-"Now, there, you see," the squire exclaimed, regretfully.

-"I've gone and rubbed him the wrong

-way, and I meant nothing in the world by it."

-

-Langdon bowed and smiled his acceptance of the

-apology, though a scowl was on his face as he

-turned to walk down the street. From the conversation

-he had learned that King was expected

-up that day to visit his family, and a sickening

-shock came to him with the thought that it really

-was to see Virginia that he was coming. Yes, he

-was now sure that it had been King's attentions to

-the girl which had turned her against him—that

-and the powerful influence of Ann Boyd.

-

-These thoughts were too much for him. He went

-into Asque's bar, at the hotel, called for whiskey,

-and remained there for hours.

-

-Langdon was in the spacious office of the Johnston

-House when the evening train from Atlanta came

-into the old-fashioned brick car-shed at the door,

-and King alighted. His hand-bag was at once

-snatched by an admiring negro porter, and the by-standers

-crowded around him to shake hands.

-Langdon stood in the office a moment later, his

-brain benumbed with drink and jealous fury, and

-saw his rival literally received into the open arms

-of another eager group. Smothering an oath, the

-young planter leaned against the cigar-case quite

-near the register, over which the clerk stood triumphantly

-calling to King to honor the house by

-writing the name of the state's future governor.

-King had the pen in his hand, when, glancing up,

-he recognized Langdon, whom he had not seen since

-his return from the West.

-

-"Why, how are you, Chester?" he said, cordially.

-

-Langdon stared. His brain seemed pressed downward

-by some weight. The by-standers saw a

-strange, half-insane glare in his unsteady eyes, but

-he said nothing.

-

-"Why, surely you remember me," Luke exclaimed,

-in honest surprise. "King's my name—Luke King.

-It's true I have not met you for several years,

-but—"

-

-"Oh, it's King, is it?" Langdon said, calmly and

-with the edge of a sneer on his white, determined

-lip. "I didn't know if you were sure *what* it was.

-So many of your sort spring up like flies in hot

-weather that one can't tell much about your parentage,

-except on the maternal side."

-

-There was momentous silence. The crowded

-room held its breath in sheer astonishment. King

-stared at his antagonist for an instant, hoping

-against hope that he had misunderstood. Then he

-took a deep breath. "That's a queer thing for one

-man to say to another," he said, fixing Chester with

-a steady stare. "Are you aware that a remark like

-that might reflect on the honor of my mother?"

-

-"I don't care who it reflects on," retorted Chester.

-"You can take it any way you wish, if you have got

-enough backbone."

-

-As quick as a flash King's right arm went out

-and his massive fist landed squarely between Chester's

-eyes. The blow was so strong that the young

-planter reeled back into the crowd, instinctively

-pressing his hands to his face. King was ready to

-strike again, but some of his friends stopped him

-and pushed him back against the counter. Others

-in the crowd forcibly drew his maddened antagonist

-away, and further trouble was averted.

-

-With a hand that was strangely steady, King

-registered his name with the pen the clerk was

-extending to him.

-

-"Let it drop, King," the clerk said. "He's so

-drunk he hardly knows what he's doing. He seems

-to have it in for you, for some reason or other. It

-looks like jealousy to me. They were devilling him

-over at Trabue's office awhile ago about his failure

-and your big success. Let it pass this time. He'll

-be ashamed of himself as soon as his liquor dies

-out."

-

-"Thank you, Jim," King replied. "I'll let it rest,

-if he is satisfied with what he's already had."

-

-"Going out home to-night?" the clerk asked.

-

-"If I can get a turnout at the stable," King

-answered.

-

-"You will have to take a room here, then," the

-clerk smiled, "for everything is out at the livery.

-I know, because two travelling men who had a date

-with George Wilson over there are tied up here."

-

-"Then I'll stay and go out in the morning," said

-King. "I'm tired, anyway, and that is a hard ride

-at night."

-

-"Well, take the advice of a friend and steer clear

-of Chester right now," said the clerk. "He's a devil

-when he's worked up and drinking. Really, he's

-dangerous."

-

-"I know that, but I'll not run from him," said

-King. "I thought my fighting day was over, but

-there are some things I can't take."

-

-

-

-

-XLI

-===

-

-

-It was dusk the following evening.

-Virginia was at the cow-lot when her

-uncle came lazily up the road from

-the store and joined her. "Well," he

-drawled out, as he thrust his hands into

-his pocket for his pipe, "I reckon I'm onto a piece

-o' news that you and your mother, nor nobody else

-this side o' Wilson's shebang, knows about. Mrs.

-Snodgrass has just arrived by hack from Darley,

-where she attended the circus and tried to get a

-job to beat that talking-machine they had in the

-side-show. It seems that this neighborhood has

-furnished the material for more excitement over

-there than the whole exhibition, animals and all."

-

-"How is that, uncle?" Virginia asked, absent-mindedly.

-

-"Why, it seems that a row has been on tap between

-Langdon Chester and Luke King for, lo, these

-many months, anyway, and yesterday, when the

-population of Darley turned out in as full force to

-meet Luke King as they did the circus parade, why

-it was too much for Chester's blood. He kept drinking

-and drinking till he hardly knew which end of

-him was up, and then he met Luke at the Johnston

-House face to face. Mrs. Snod says Langdon evidently

-laid his plans so there would have to be a

-fight in any case, so he up and slandered that good

-old mammy of King's."

-

-"Oh, uncle, and they fought?" Virginia, pale and

-trembling, gasped as she leaned for support on the

-fence.

-

-"You bet they did. Mrs. Snod says the vile

-slander had no sooner left Chester's lips than King

-let drive at him right between the eyes. That

-knocked Langdon out of the ring for a while, and

-his friends took him to a room to wash him off, for

-he was bleeding like a stuck pig. King was to come

-out here last night, but Mrs. Snod says he was

-afraid Chester would think he was running from

-the field, and so he stayed on at the hotel. Then,

-this morning early, the two of them come together

-on the street in front of the bank building. Mrs.

-Snod says Chester drawed first and got Luke covered

-before he could say Jack Robinson, and then fired.

-Several shots were exchanged, but the third brought

-King to his knees. They say he's done for, Virginia.

-He wasn't dead to-day at twelve, but the doctors

-said he couldn't live an hour. They say he was

-bleeding so terrible inside that they was afraid to

-move him. I'm here to tell you, Virgie, that I used

-to like that chap; and when he got to coming to

-see you, and I could see that he meant business, I

-was in hopes you and him would make a deal, but

-then you up and bluffed him off so positive that I

-never could see what it meant. Why, he was about

-the most promising young man I ever—But look

-here, child, what's ailing you?"

-

-"Nothing, uncle," Virginia said; and, with her

-head down, she turned away. Looking after her for

-a moment in slow wonder, Sam went on into the

-farm-house, bent on telling the startling news to his

-sister-in-law. As for Virginia, she walked on through

-the gathering dusk towards Ann Boyd's house.

-"Dead, dying!" she said, with a low moan. "It

-has come at last."

-

-Farther across the meadow she trudged, unconscious

-of the existence of her physical self. At a

-little stream which she had to cross on stepping-stones

-she paused and moaned again. Dead—actually

-dead! Luke King, the young man whom the

-whole of his state was praising, had been shot down

-like a dog. No matter what might be the current

-report as to the cause of the meeting, young as she

-was she knew it to be the outcome of Langdon Chester's

-passion—the fruition of his mad threat to her.

-Yes, he had made good his word.

-

-Approaching Ann's house, she entered the gate

-just as Mrs. Boyd came to the door and stood smiling

-knowingly at her.

-

-"Virginia," she called out, cheerily, "what you

-reckon I've got here? You could make a million

-guesses and then be wide of the mark."

-

-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia groaned, as she tottered

-to the step and raised her eyes to the old woman's

-face, "you haven't heard the news. Luke is dead!"

-

-"Dead?" Ann laughed out impulsively. "Oh no,

-I reckon not. Come in and take a chair by the

-fire; you've got your feet wet with the dew."

-

-"He's dead, he's dead, I tell you!" Virginia

-stood still, her white and rigid face upturned.

-"Langdon Chester, the contemptible coward, shot

-him at Darley this morning."

-

-"Oh, *that's* it, is it?" A knowing look came into

-Ann Boyd's face. She stroked an impulsive smile

-from her facile lips, but Virginia still saw its light in

-the twinkling eyes above the broad, red hand. "You

-say he's dead? Well, well, that accounts for something

-I was wondering about just now. You know

-I am not much of a hand to believe in spiritual

-manifestations like table-raising folks do, but I'll

-give you my word, Virginia, that for the last hour

-and a half I'd 'a' sworn Luke King *himself* was right

-here in the house. Just now I heard something like

-him walking across the floor. It seemed to me he

-went out to the shelf and took a drink of water.

-I'll bet it's Luke's spirit hanging about trying to

-tell me good-bye—that is, if he really *was* shot, as

-you say." Ann smiled again and turned her face

-towards the inside of the room, and called out:

-"Say, Ghost of Luke King, if you are in my house

-right now you'd better lie low and listen. This silly

-girl is talking so wild the first thing you know she

-will be saying she don't love Langdon Chester."

-

-"Love him? what's the matter with you?" Virginia

-panted. "I hate him. You know I detest

-him. I'll kill him. Do you hear me? I'll kill him

-as sure as I ever meet him face to face."

-

-Ann stared at the girl for a moment, her face oddly

-beaming, then she looked back into the room again.

-"Do you hear that, Mr. Ghost? She now says she'll

-kill Langdon Chester on sight. She says that after

-sending *you* about your business for no reason in the

-world. You listen good. Maybe she'll be saying

-after a while that she loved you."

-

-"I *did* love him. God knows I loved him!" Virginia

-cried. "I loved him with every bit of my soul

-and body. I've loved him, worshipped him, adored

-him ever since I was a child and he was so good to

-me. He was the noblest man that ever lived, and

-now a dirty, sneaking coward has slipped up on him

-and shot him down in cold blood. If I ever meet

-that man, as God is my Judge, I'll—" With a sob

-that was almost a shriek Virginia sank to the door-step

-and lay there, quivering convulsively.

-

-A vast change swept over Ann Boyd. Her big

-face filled with the still blood of deep emotion. She

-heaved a sigh, and, turning towards the interior of

-the room, she said, huskily:

-

-"Come on, Luke; don't tease the poor little thing.

-I wouldn't have carried it so far if I could have got

-it out of her any other way. She's yours, dear boy—heart,

-soul, and body."

-

-Hearing these words, Virginia raised her head in

-wonder, just as Luke King emerged from the house.

-He bent over her, and tenderly raised her up. He

-was drawing her closer to him, his fine face aflame

-with tender passion, when Virginia held him firmly

-from her.

-

-"Don't! don't!" she said. "If you knew—"

-

-"I've told him everything, Virginia," Ann broke

-in. "I had to. I couldn't see my dear boy suffering

-like he was, when—"

-

-"You know—" Virginia began, aghast, "you

-know—"

-

-"About you and Chester?" King said, with a light

-laugh. "Yes, I know all about it, and it made me

-think you the grandest, most self-sacrificing little

-girl in all the world. So you thought I was dead?

-That was all gossip. It was only a quarrel that

-amounted to nothing. I understand, now that he

-is sober, that Chester is heartily ashamed of himself."

-

-Half an hour afterwards Ann stood at the gate

-and saw them walking together towards Virginia's

-home. She watched them till they were lost from

-her sight in the dusk, then she went back into the

-house. She stood over the low fire for a moment,

-then said: "I won't get any supper ready. I

-couldn't eat a bite. Meat and bread couldn't shove

-this lump out of my throat. It's pretty, pretty,

-pretty to see those two together that way. I believe

-they have got the sort of thing the Almighty

-really meant love to be. I know *I* never got that

-kind, though, as a girl, I dreamt of nothing else—nothing

-from morning till night but that one thing,

-and yet here I am this way—\ *this way*!"

-

-

-

-

-XLII

-====

-

-

-The next morning the weather was as

-balmy as spring. Ann had taken all

-the coverings from her beds and hung

-them along the fence to catch the

-purifying rays of the sun. Her rag-carpet

-was stretched out on the ground ready to be

-beaten. She was occupied in sweeping the bare

-floor of her sitting-room when a shadow fell across

-the threshold. Looking up, she saw a tall, lean

-man, very ill-clad, his tattered hat in hand, his

-shoes broken at the toes and showing the wearer's

-bare feet.

-

-"It's me, Ann," Boyd said. "I couldn't stay

-away any longer. I hope you won't drive me off,

-anyway, before I've got out what I come to say."

-

-She turned pale as she leaned her broom against

-the wall and began to roll her sleeves down her fat

-arms towards her wrists. "Well, I wasn't looking

-for you," she managed to say.

-

-"I reckon not, Ann," he returned, a certain wistful

-expression in his voice and strangely softened face;

-"but I had to come. As I say—I had to come and

-speak to you, anyway."

-

-"Well, take a chair," she said, awkwardly. "I've

-got the windows up to let the dust drive out, and

-I'll close them. It's powerful draughty. I don't

-feel it, working like I am, but you might, coming in

-from the outside."

-

-He advanced to one of the straight-backed chairs

-which he remembered so well, and laid an unsteady

-hand on it, but he did not draw it towards him nor

-sit down. Instead, his great, hungry eyes followed

-her movements, as she bustled from one window to

-another, like those of a patient, offending dog.

-

-"Well, why don't you sit down?" She had turned

-back to him, and stood eying his poor aspect with

-strange misgivings and pity. In her comfort and

-luxury, he, with his evidences of poverty and despair,

-struck a strangely discordant note.

-

-He drew the chair nearer, and with quivering

-knees she saw him sink into it, with firmness at the

-beginning and then with the sudden collapse of an

-invalid. She went to a window and looked out.

-Not seeing his horse hitched near by, she came back

-to him.

-

-"Where did you hitch?" she asked, her voice losing

-firmness.

-

-"I didn't have no horse," he said; "I walked,

-Ann. Lawson was hauling wood with the horse.

-He wouldn't have let me take it, anyway. He's got

-awfully contrary here lately. Me 'n' him don't get

-along at all."

-

-"Do you mean to tell me—do you mean to tell

-me you walked all that way, in them shoes without

-bottoms, and—and you looking like you've just got

-up from a long sick spell?"

-

-"I made it all right, Ann, stopping to rest on the

-way." A touch of color seemed to have risen into

-his wan cheeks. "I had to come to-day—as I did

-awhile back—to do my duty, as I saw it. In fact,

-this seems even more my duty. Ann, Jane Hemingway

-came over to Gilmer awhile back. She

-come straight to my house, and, my God, Ann, she

-come and told me she'd been at the bottom of all

-our trouble. She set right in and acknowledged

-that she lied; she said she'd been lying all along

-for spite, because she hated you."

-

-"And loved you," Ann interposed, quickly. "Yes,

-she came back here, so I've been told, and stood up

-in meeting and said she'd been to see you, and she

-confessed it all in public. I can't find it in my heart

-to be hard with her, Joe. She was only obeying her

-laws of nature, as you have obeyed yours and I

-have mine, and—and as our offspring is now obeying

-hers. Tell me the straight truth, Joe. I reckon

-Nettie still feels strange towards me."

-

-Joe Boyd's mild eyes wavered and sought the fire

-beyond the toes of his ragged shoes.

-

-"Tell me the truth, Joe," Ann demanded. "I'm

-entitled to that, anyway."

-

-"She's always been a queer creature," Boyd faltered,

-evasively, without looking up, and she saw

-him nervously laving his bony hands in the sheer,

-unsuggestive emptiness about him. "But you

-mustn't think it's just *you* she's against, Ann.

-She's plumb gone back on me, too. The money you

-furnished cleared the place of debt and bought her

-wedding outfit, and she got her man; but not long

-back she found out where the means come from,

-and—"

-

-Ann's lips tightened in the pause that ensued.

-Her face was set like a grotesque mask of stone.

-She leaned over the fire and pushed a fallen ember

-back under the steaming logs with a poker.

-

-"She couldn't stomach that, I reckon?" Ann said,

-in assumed calmness.

-

-"Well, it made her mad at me. I won't tell you

-all she done or said, Ann. It wouldn't do no good.

-I'm responsible for what she is, I reckon. She might

-have growed up different if she'd had the watchful

-care of—of a mother. What she is, is what any

-female will become under the care of a shiftless man

-like I am."

-

-"No, you are wrong, Joe," Ann said. "Why it

-is so I don't intend to explain, but Nettie would

-have been like she is under all circumstances.

-Money and plenty of everything might have glazed

-her character over, but down at bottom she'd have

-been what she is. Adversity generally brings out

-all the good that's in a person; the reason it hasn't

-fetched it out in her is because it isn't there, nor

-never has been. You say you and her don't get

-on well?"

-

-"Not now," he said. "She just as good as driv

-me from home yesterday. She told me point-blank

-that there wasn't room for me, and that when the

-baby comes they would be more crowded and

-pinched than ever. She actually sent Lawson to

-the Ordinary at Springtown to see if there was a

-place on the poor-farm vacant. When I dropped

-onto that, Ann, I come off. For all I know, they

-may have some paper for vagrancy ready to serve

-on me. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm

-not going back to them two, never while there is a

-lingering breath left in my body."

-

-"The poor-farm!" Ann said, half to herself. "To

-think that she would consent to that, and you her

-father."

-

-"I think his folks is behind it, Ann. They've got

-a reason for wanting to get rid of me."

-

-"A reason, you say?" Ann was staring at him

-steadily.

-

-Joe Boyd's embarrassment of a moment before

-returned. He twisted his hands together again.

-"Yes; it's like this, Ann," he went on, awkwardly:

-"a short time back Lawson's mother and father got

-onto the fact that you were in good circumstances,

-and it made the biggest change in them you ever

-heard of. They talked it all over the settlement.

-They are hard up, and they couldn't talk of anything

-but how much you was worth, and what you

-had your money invested in, and the like. After

-they got onto that, they never—never paid no attention

-to what had been—been circulated—your

-money covered all that as completely as a ten-foot

-snow. Instead of turning up their noses, as Nettie

-was afraid they would do, it only made them brag

-about how well their boy had done, and what a

-fool I was. They tried all sorts of ways to get

-Nettie interested in some scheme to attract your

-attention, but Nettie would just cry and take on

-and refuse to come over here or to write to you."

-

-"I understand"—Ann stroked her compressed

-lips with an unsteady hand—"I understand. I've

-never been a natural mother to her; she couldn't

-come to me like that. But you say they turned

-against you."

-

-"Yes. You see, the Lawsons got an idea—the

-old woman did, in particular, from something she'd

-picked up—that it was *me* that stood between you

-and Nettie. They thought you and me had had such

-a serious falling-out that a proud woman like you

-never would have anything to do with Nettie as long

-as I was about, and that the best thing was to shove

-me off so the reconciliation would work faster. The

-truth is, they said that would please you."

-

-"I see, I see," Ann said. "And they set about

-putting you at the poor-farm."

-

-"Yes; they seemed to think that was as good a

-place as any. And they could get all the proof

-necessary to put me there, for I hadn't a cent to my

-name nor a whole rag to my back; and, Ann, for

-the last three months I haven't been able to do a

-lick o' work. I've had a strange sort of hurting all

-down my left side, and my right ankle seems affected

-in the same way."

-

-Ann Boyd suddenly turned away. Through the

-window she had seen the wind blowing one of her

-sheets from the fence, and she went out and put

-it in place. He limped out into the sunlight and

-stood at the little, sagging gate a few yards from her.

-Something of his old dignity and gallantry of manner

-was on him: he still held his hat in his hand, his thin,

-iron-gray hair exposed to the warm rays of the sun.

-

-"Well, I'd better be going, Ann," he said. "There

-is no telling when somebody might come along and

-see me here, and start the talk you hate so much.

-I come all the way here to tell you how low and

-mean I feel for taking Jane Hemingway's word instead

-of yours, and how plumb sorry I am. You

-and me may never meet again this side of the Seat

-of Judgment, and I'll say this if I never speak again.

-Ann, the only days of perfect happiness I ever had

-was here with you, and, if all of it was to do over

-again, I'd suffer torture by fire rather than believe

-you anything but an angel from heaven. Oh, Ann,

-it was just my poor, weak inferiority to you that

-made me misjudge you. If I'd ever been a *real* man—a

-man worthy of a woman like you—I'd have

-snapped my fingers at all that was said, but I was

-obeying my laws, as you say. I simply wasn't deep

-enough nor high enough to do you justice."

-

-He drew the little gate ajar and dragged his tired

-feet through the opening. The fence was now between

-them. She looked down the road. A woman

-under a sun-bonnet and little shawl was coming

-towards them. By a strange fatality it was Jane

-Hemingway, but she was not to pass directly by

-them, as her path homeward turned sharply to the

-left a hundred yards below. They both recognized

-her.

-

-"I don't know fully what you mean, Joe," Ann

-said, softly, "but if you mean by what you just said

-that you'd be willing now to—to come back—if

-*that's* what you mean, I'd have something to say

-that maybe, in justice to myself, I ought to say."

-

-"*Would* I come back? Would I? Oh, Ann, how

-could you doubt that, when you see how miserable

-and sorry I feel. God knows I'd never feel worthy

-of you; but if you would—if you only could—let

-me stay, I—"

-

-"I couldn't consent to *that*, Joe—that's the point,"

-Ann answered, firmly. "Anything else on earth

-but *that*. I expect to provide for Nettie in a

-substantial way, and I expect to have a lawyer make

-it one of the main conditions that her income depends

-on her good treatment of you as long as you

-and she live. I expect to do that, but the other

-matter is different. A woman of my stamp has her

-pride and her rights, Joe. I've been through a lot,

-but I can endure just so much and no more. If—if

-you *did* come back, and we was married over

-again, it would go out to the world that you had

-taken *me* back, and I couldn't stand that. My very

-womanhood rises up and cries out against that in a

-voice that rings clear to the end of truth and

-justice and woman's eternal rights. Joe, I'm too

-big and pure in *myself* to let the world say a man

-who was—was—I'm going to say it—was little

-enough to doubt my word for the best part of my

-days had at last taken *me* back—taken me back

-when my lonely life's sun was on the decline. No,

-no, never; for the sake of unborn girl infants who

-may have to meet what I fell under when I was too

-young to know the difference between the smile of

-hell and the smile of heaven, I say No! We'd better

-live out our days in loneliness apart—you frail and

-uncared for, and me on here without a friend or

-companion—than to sanction such a baleful thing

-as that."

-

-"Then I'll tell you what you let *me* do," Boyd

-said, with a flare of his old youthful adoration in

-his face. "Let me get down on my knees, Ann,

-and crawl with my nose in the dust to everybody

-that we ever knew and tell them that I'd begged

-and begged for mercy, and at last Ann had taken

-*me* back, weak and broken as I am—weak, ashamed,

-and unworthy, but back with her in the place I lost

-through my own narrowness and cowardice. Let

-me do that, Ann—oh, let me do that! I can't go

-away. I'd die without you. I've loved you all,

-all these years and had you in my mind night and

-day."

-

-Ann was looking at the ground. The blood had

-mounted red and warm into her face. Suddenly

-she glanced down the road. Jane Hemingway was

-just turning into the path leading to her home; her

-eyes were fastened on them. She paused and stood

-staring.

-

-"Poor thing!" Ann said, her moist, glad eyes fixed

-upon Jane. "She is as sorry and repentant as she

-can be. Her only hope right now, Joe, is that we'll

-make it up. She used to love you, too, Joe. You

-are the only man she ever did love. Let's wave our

-hands to her so she will understand that—we have

-come to an understanding."

-

-"Oh, Ann, do you mean—" But Ann, with a

-flushed, happy face, was waving her hand at her

-old enemy. As for Boyd, he lowered his head to

-the fence and sobbed.

-

-

-.. class:: center

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-THE END

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diff --git a/37551-rst/images/cover.jpg b/37551-rst/images/cover.jpg
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@@ -1,10840 +0,0 @@
-                                Ann Boyd
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
-no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-Title: Ann Boyd
-
-Author: Will N. Harben
-
-Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37551]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: US-ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN BOYD ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
-
-                                A Novel
-                                   By
-                             Will N. Harben
-
-                               Author of
-                      "Abner Daniel" "Pole Baker"
-                          "The Georgians" etc.
-
-                          New York and London
-                      Harper & Brothers Publishers
-                                  1906
-
-                Copyright, 1906, by _Harper & Brothers_.
-
-                         _All rights reserved._
-
-                       Published September, 1906.
-
-                                  ----
-
-                                   To
-                          William Dean Howells
-
-                                  ----
-
-[Illustration: _'I RECKON IT WAS THE DIVINE INTENTION FOR ME AND YOU TO
-HAVE THIS SECRET BETWEEN US'_]
-
-                                  ----
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-    I
-    II
-    III
-    IV
-    V
-    VI
-    VII
-    VIII
-    IX
-    X
-    XI
-    XII
-    XIII
-    XIV
-    XV
-    XVI
-    XVII
-    XVIII
-    XIX
-    XX
-    XXI
-    XXII
-    XXIII
-    XXIV
-    XXV
-    XXVI
-    XXVII
-    XXVIII
-    XXIX
-    XXX
-    XXXI
-    XXXII
-    XXXIII
-    XXXIV
-    XXXV
-    XXXVI
-    XXXVII
-    XXXVIII
-    XXXIX
-    XL
-    XLI
-    XLII
-
-                                  ----
-
-                                Ann Boyd
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-
-Ann Boyd Stood at the open door of her corn-house, a square, one-storied
-hut made of the trunks of young pine-trees, the bark of which, being
-worm-eaten, was crumbling from the smooth hard-wood. She had a tin pail
-on her arm, and was selecting "nubbins" for her cow from the great heap
-of husked corn which, like a mound of golden nuggets, lay within. The
-strong-jawed animal could crunch the dwarfed ears, grain and corn
-together, when they were stirred into a mush made of wheat-bran and
-dish-water.
-
-Mrs. Boyd, although past fifty, showed certain signs of having been a
-good-looking woman. Her features were regular, but her once slight and
-erect figure was now heavy, and bent as if from toil. Her hair, which in
-her youth had been a luxuriant golden brown, was now thinner and
-liberally streaked with gray. From her eyes deep wrinkles diverged, and
-the corners of her firm mouth were drawn downward. Her face, even in
-repose, wore an almost constant frown, and this habit had deeply gashed
-her forehead with lines that deepened when she was angry.
-
-With her pail on her arm, she was turning back towards her cottage,
-which stood about a hundred yards to the right, beneath the shade of two
-giant oaks, when she heard her name called from the main-travelled road,
-which led past her farm, on to Darley, ten miles away.
-
-"Oh, it's you, Mrs. Waycroft!" she exclaimed, without change of
-countenance, as the head and shoulders of a neighbor appeared above the
-rail-fence. "I couldn't imagine who it was calling me."
-
-"Yes, it was me," the woman said, as Mrs. Boyd reached the fence and
-rested her pail on the top rail. "I hain't seed you since I seed you at
-church, Sunday. I tried to get over yesterday, but was too busy with one
-thing and another."
-
-"I reckon you have had your hands full planting cotton," said Mrs. Boyd.
-"I didn't expect you; besides, I've had all I could do in my own field."
-
-"Yes, my boys have been hard at it," said Mrs. Waycroft. "I don't go to
-the field myself, like you do. I reckon I ain't hardy enough, but
-keeping things for them to eat and the house in order takes all my
-time."
-
-"I reckon," said Mrs. Boyd, studying the woman's face closely under the
-faded black poke-bonnet--"I reckon you've got something to tell me. You
-generally have. I wish I could not care a snap of the finger what folks
-say, but I'm only a natural woman. I want to hear things sometimes when
-I know they will make me so mad that I won't eat a bite for days."
-
-Mrs. Waycroft looked down at the ground. "Well," she began, "I reckon
-you know thar would be considerable talk after what happened at meeting
-Sunday. You know a thing like that naturally _would_ stir up a quiet
-community like this."
-
-"Yes, when I think of it I can see there would be enough said, but I'm
-used to being the chief subject of idle talk. I've had twenty odd years
-of it, Mary Waycroft, though this public row was rather unexpected. I
-didn't look for abuse from the very pulpit in God's house, if it _is_
-His. I didn't know you were there. I didn't know a friendly soul was
-nigh."
-
-"Yes, I was there clean through from the opening hymn. A bolt from
-heaven on a sunny day couldn't have astonished me more than I was when
-you come in and walked straight up the middle aisle, and sat down just
-as if you'd been coming there regular for all them years. I reckon you
-had your own private reasons for making the break."
-
-"Yes, I did." The wrinkled mouth of the speaker twitched nervously. "I'd
-been thinking it out, Mrs. Waycroft, for a long time and trying to pray
-over it, and at last I come to the conclusion that if I didn't go to
-church like the rest, it was an open admission that I acknowledged
-myself worse than others, and so I determined to go--I determined to go
-if it killed me."
-
-"And to think you was rewarded that way!" answered Mrs. Waycroft; "it's
-a shame! Ann Boyd, it's a dirty shame!"
-
-"It will be a long time before I darken a church door again," said Mrs.
-Boyd. "If I'm ever seen there it will be after I'm dead and they take me
-there feet foremost to preach over my body. I didn't look around, but I
-knew they were all whispering about me."
-
-"You never saw the like in your life, Ann," the visitor said. "Heads
-were bumping together to the damagement of new spring hats, and
-everybody was asking what it meant. Some said that, after meeting, you
-was going up and give your hand to Brother Bazemore and ask him to take
-you back, as a member, but he evidently didn't think you had a purpose
-like that, or he wouldn't have opened up on you as he did. Of course,
-everybody thar knowed he was hitting at you."
-
-"Oh yes, they all knew, and he had no reason for thinking I wanted to
-ask any favor, for he knows too well what I think of him. He hates the
-ground I walk on. He has been openly against me ever since he come to my
-house and asked me to let the Sunday-school picnic at my spring and in
-my grove. I reckon I gave it to him pretty heavy that day, for all I'd
-been hearing about what he had had to say of me had made me mad. I let
-him get out his proposal as politely as such a sneaking man could, and
-then I showed him where I stood. Here, Mrs. Waycroft, I've been treated
-like a dog and an outcast by every member of his church for the last
-twenty years, called the vilest names a woman ever bore by his so-called
-Christian gang, and then, when they want something I've got--something
-that nobody else can furnish quite as suitable for their purpose--why he
-saunters over to my house holding the skirts of his long coat as if
-afraid of contamination, and calmly demands the use of my
-property--property that I've slaved in the hot sun and sleet and rain to
-pay for with hard work. Oh, I was mad! You see, that was too much, and I
-reckon he never in all his life got such a tongue-lashing. When I came
-in last Sunday and sat down, I saw his eyes flash, and knew if he got
-half an excuse he would let out on me. I was sorry I'd come then, but
-there was no backing out after I'd got there."
-
-"When he took his text I knew he meant it for you," said the other
-woman. "I have never seen a madder man in the pulpit, never in my life.
-While he was talking, he never once looked at you, though he knew
-everybody else was doing nothing else. Then I seed you rise to your
-feet. He stopped to take a drink from his goblet, and you could 'a'
-heard a pin fall, it was so still. I reckon the rest thought like I did,
-that you was going right up to him and pull his hair or slap his jaws.
-You looked like you hardly knowed what you was doing, and, for one, I
-tuck a free breath when you walked straight out of the house. What you
-did was exactly right, as most fair-minded folks will admit, though I'm
-here to tell you, my friend, that you won't find fair-minded folks very
-plentiful hereabouts. The fair-minded ones are over there in that
-graveyard."
-
-Mrs. Boyd stroked her quivering lips with her hard, brown hand, and
-said, softly: "I wasn't going to sit there and listen to any more of it.
-I'd thrown aside pride and principle and gone to do my duty to my
-religion, as I saw it, and thought maybe some of them--one or two, at
-least--would meet me part of the way, but I couldn't listen to a two
-hours' tirade about me and my--my misfortune. If I'd stayed any longer,
-I'd have spoken back to him, and that would have been exactly what he
-and some of the rest would have wanted, for then they could have made a
-case against me in court for disturbing public worship, and imposed a
-heavy fine. They can't bear to think that, in spite of all their
-persecution, I've gone ahead and paid my debts and prospered in a way
-that they never could do with all their sanctimony."
-
-There was silence for a moment. A gentle breeze stirred the leaves of
-the trees and the blades of long grass beside the road. There was a
-far-away tinkling of cow and sheep bells in the lush-green pastures
-which stretched out towards the frowning mountain against which the
-setting sun was levelling its rays.
-
-"You say you haven't seen anybody since Sunday," remarked the loitering
-woman, in restrained, tentative tones.
-
-"No, I've been right here. Why did you ask me that?"
-
-"Well, you see, Ann," was the slow answer, "talking at the rate Bazemore
-was to your face, don't you think it would be natural for him to--to
-sort o' rub it on even heavier behind your back, after you got up that
-way and went out so sudden."
-
-"I never thought of it, but I can see now that it would be just like
-him." Mrs. Boyd took a deep breath and lowered her pail to the ground.
-"Yes," she went on, reflectively, as she drew herself up again and
-leaned on the fence, "I reckon he got good and mad when I got up and
-left."
-
-"Huh!" The other woman smiled. "He was so mad he could hardly speak. He
-fairly gulped, his eyes flashed, and he was as white as a bunch of
-cotton. He poured out another goblet of water that he had no idea of
-drinking, and his hand shook so much that the glass tinkled like a bell
-against the mouth of the pitcher. You must have got as far as the
-hitching-rack before his fury busted out. I reckon what he said was the
-most unbecoming thing that a stout, able-bodied man ever hurled at a
-defenceless woman's back."
-
-There was another pause. Mrs. Boyd's expectant face was as hard as
-stone; her dark-gray eyes were two burning fires in their shadowy
-orbits.
-
-"What did he say?" she asked. "You might as well tell me."
-
-Mrs. Waycroft avoided her companion's fierce stare. "He looked down at
-the place where you sat, Ann, right steady for a minute, then he said:
-'I'm glad that woman had the common decency to sit on a seat by herself
-while she was here; but I hope when meeting is over that some of you
-brethren will take the bench out in the woods and burn it. I'll pay for
-a new one out of my own pocket.'"
-
-"Oh!" The exclamation seemed wrung from her when off her guard, and Mrs.
-Boyd clutched the rail of the fence so tightly that her strong nails
-sunk into the soft wood. "He said _that_! He said that _about me_!"
-
-"Yes, and he ought to have been ashamed of himself," said Mrs. Waycroft;
-"and if he had been anything else than a preacher, surely some of the
-men there--men you have befriended--would not have set still and let it
-pass."
-
-"But they _did_ let it pass," said Mrs. Boyd, bitterly; "they did let it
-pass, one and all."
-
-"Oh yes, nobody would dare, in this section, to criticise a preacher,"
-said the other. "What any little, spindle-legged parson says goes the
-same as the word of God out here in the backwoods. I'd have left the
-church myself, but I knowed you'd want to hear what was said; besides,
-they all know I'm your friend."
-
-"Yes, they all know you are the only white woman that ever comes near
-me. But what else did he say?"
-
-"Oh, he had lots to say. He said he hadn't mentioned no names, but it
-was always the hit dog that yelped, and that you had made yourself a
-target by leaving as you did. He went on to say that, in his opinion,
-all that was proved at court against you away back there was just. He
-said some folks misunderstood Scripture when it come to deal with your
-sort and stripe. He said some argued that a church door ought always to
-be wide open to any sinner whatsoever, but that in your daily conduct of
-holding every coin so tight that the eagle on it squeals, and in giving
-nothing to send the Bible to the heathens, and being eternally at strife
-with your neighbors, you had showed, he said, that no good influence
-could be brought to bear on you, and that people who was really trying
-to live upright lives ought to shun you like they would a catching
-disease. He 'lowed you'd had the same Christian chance in your
-bringing-up, and a better education than most gals, and had deliberately
-throwed it all up and gone your headstrong way. In his opinion, it would
-be wrong to condone your past, and tell folks you stood an equal chance
-with the rising generation fetched up under the rod and Biblical
-injunction by parents who knowed what lasting scars the fires of sin
-could burn in a living soul. He said the community had treated you
-right, in sloughing away from you, ever since you was found out, because
-you had never showed a minute's open repentance. You'd helt your head,
-he thought, if possible, higher than ever, and in not receiving the
-social sanction of your neighbors, it looked like you was determined to
-become the richest woman in the state for no other reason than to prove
-that wrong prospered."
-
-The speaker paused in her recital. The listener, her face set and dark
-with fury, glanced towards the cottage. "Come in," she said, huskily;
-"people might pass along and know what we are talking about, and,
-somehow, I don't want to give them that satisfaction."
-
-"That's a fact," said Mrs. Waycroft; "they say I fetch you every bit of
-gossip, anyway. A few have quit speaking to me. Bazemore would himself,
-if he didn't look to me once a month for my contribution. I hope what
-I've told you won't upset you, Ann, but you always say you want to know
-what's going on. It struck me that the whole congregation was about the
-most heartless body of human beings I ever saw packed together in one
-bunch."
-
-"I want you to tell me one other thing," said Mrs. Boyd, tensely, as
-they were entering the front doorway of the cottage--"was Jane Hemingway
-there?"
-
-"Oh yes, by a large majority. I forgot to tell you about her. I had my
-eyes on her, too, for I knowed it would tickle her nigh to death, and it
-did. When you left she actually giggled out loud and turned back an'
-whispered to the Mayfield girls. Her old, yellow face fairly shone, she
-was that glad, and when Bazemore went on talking about you and burning
-that bench, she fairly doubled up, with her handkerchief clapped over
-her mouth."
-
-Mrs. Boyd drew a stiff-backed chair from beneath the dining-table and
-pushed it towards her guest. "There is not in hell itself, Mary
-Waycroft, a hatred stronger than I feel right now for that woman. She is
-a fiend in human shape. That miserable creature has hounded me every
-minute since we were girls together. As God is my judge, I believe I
-could kill her and not suffer remorse. There was a time when my
-disposition was as sweet and gentle as any girl's, but she changed it.
-She has made me what I am. She is responsible for it all. I might have
-gone on--after my--my misfortune, and lived in some sort of harmony with
-my kind if it hadn't been for her."
-
-"I know that," said the other woman, as she sat down and folded her
-cloth bonnet in her thin hands. "I really believe you'd have been a
-different woman, as you say, after--after your trouble if she had let
-you alone."
-
-Mrs. Boyd seated herself in another chair near the open door, and looked
-out at a flock of chickens and ducks which had gathered at the step and
-were noisily clamoring for food.
-
-"I saw two things that made my blood boil as I was leaving the church,"
-said she. "I saw Abe Longley, who has been using my pasture for his
-cattle free of charge for the last ten years. I caught sight of his
-face, and it made me mad to think he'd sit there and never say a word in
-defence of the woman he'd been using all that time; and then I saw
-George Wilson, just as indifferent, near the door, when I've been
-favoring him and his shabby store with all my trade when I could have
-done better by going on to Darley. I reckon neither of those two men
-said the slightest thing when Bazemore advised the--the burning of the
-bench I'd sat on."
-
-"Oh no, of course not!" said Mrs. Waycroft, "nobody said a word. They
-wouldn't have dared, Ann."
-
-"Well, they will both hear from me," said Mrs. Boyd, "and in a way that
-they won't forget soon. I tell you, Mary Waycroft, this thing has
-reached a climax. That burning bench is going to be my war-torch. They
-say I've been at strife with my neighbors all along; well, they'll see
-now. I struggled and struggled with pride to get up to the point of
-going to church again, and that's the reception I got."
-
-"It's a pity to entertain hard feelings, but I don't blame you a single
-bit," said Mrs. Waycroft, sympathetically. "As I look at it, you have
-done all you can to live in harmony, and they simply won't have it. They
-might be different if it wasn't for that meddlesome old Jane Hemingway.
-She keeps them stirred up. She and her daughter is half starving to
-death, while you--" Mrs. Waycroft glanced round the room at the warm rag
-carpet of many colors, at the neat fire-screen made of newspaper
-pictures pasted on a crude frame of wood, and, higher, to the
-mantel-piece, whose sole ornament was a Seth Thomas clock, with the
-Tower of London in glaring colors on the glass door--"while you don't
-ask anybody any odds. Instead of starving, gold dollars seem to roll up
-to your door of their own accord and fall in a heap. They tell me even
-that cotton factory which you invested in, and which Mrs. Hemingway said
-had busted and gone up the spout, is really doing well."
-
-"The stock has doubled in value," said Mrs. Boyd, simply. "I don't know
-how to account for my making money. I reckon it's simply good judgment
-and a habit of throwing nothing away. The factory got to a pretty low
-ebb, and the people lost faith in it, and were offering their stock at
-half-price. My judgment told me it would pull through as soon as times
-improved, and I bought an interest in it at a low figure. I was right;
-it proved to be a fine investment."
-
-"I was sorter sorry for Virginia Hemingway, Sunday," said Mrs. Waycroft.
-"When her mother was making such an exhibition of herself in gloating
-over the way you was treated, the poor girl looked like she was ashamed,
-and pulled Jane's apron like she was trying to keep her quiet. I reckon
-you hain't got nothing against the girl, Ann?"
-
-"Nothing except that she is that devilish woman's offspring," said Mrs.
-Boyd. "It's hard to dislike her; she's pretty--by all odds the prettiest
-and sweetest-looking young woman in this county. Her mother in her prime
-never saw the day she was anything like her. They say Virginia isn't
-much of a hand to gossip and abuse folks. I reckon her mother's ways
-have disgusted her."
-
-"I reckon that's it," said the other woman, as she rose to go. "I know I
-love to look at her; she does my old eyes good. At meeting I sometimes
-gaze steady at her for several minutes on a stretch. Sitting beside that
-hard, crabbed old thing, the girl certainly does look out of place. She
-deserves a better fate than to be tied to such a woman. I reckon she'll
-be picked up pretty soon by some of these young men--that is, if Jane
-will give her any sort of showing. Jane is so suspicious of folks that
-she hardly lets Virginia out of her sight. Well, I must be going. Since
-my husband's death I've had my hands full on the farm; he did a lots to
-help out, even about the kitchen. Good-bye. I can see what I've said has
-made a change in you, Ann. I never saw you look quite so different."
-
-"Yes, the whole thing has kind o' jerked me round," replied Mrs. Boyd.
-"I've taken entirely too much off of these people--let them run over me
-dry-shod; but I'll show them a thing or two. They won't let me live in
-peace, and now they can try the other thing." And Ann Boyd stood in the
-doorway and watched the visitor trudge slowly away.
-
-"Yes," she mused, as she looked out into the falling dusk, "they are
-trying to drive me to the wall with their sneers and lashing tongues.
-But I'll show them that a worm can turn."
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-
-The next morning, after a frugal breakfast of milk and cornmeal pancake,
-prepared over an open fireplace on live coals, which reddened her cheeks
-and bare arms, Mrs. Boyd pinned up her skirts till their edges hung on a
-level with the tops of her coarse, calf-skin shoes. She then climbed
-over the brier-grown rail-fence with the agility of a hunter and waded
-through the high, dew-soaked weeds and grass in the direction of the
-rising sun. The meadow was like a rolling green sea settling down to
-calmness after a storm. Here and there a tuft of dewy broom-sedge held
-up to her vision a sheaf of green hung with sparkling diamonds,
-emeralds, and rubies, and far ahead ran a crystal creek in and out among
-gracefully drooping willows and erect young reeds.
-
-"That's his brindle heifer now," the trudging woman said, harshly. "And
-over beyond the hay-stack and cotton-shed is his muley cow and calf.
-Huh, I reckon I'll make them strike a lively trot! It will be some time
-before they get grass as rich as mine inside of them to furnish milk and
-butter for Abe Longley and his sanctimonious lay-out."
-
-Slowly walking around the animals, she finally got them together and
-drove them from her pasture to the small road which ran along the foot
-of the mountain towards their owner's farm-house, the gray roof of which
-rose above the leafy trees in the distance. To drive the animals out,
-she had found it necessary to lower a panel of her fence, and she was
-replacing the rails laboriously, one by one, when she heard a voice from
-the woodland on the mountain-side, a tract of unproductive land owned by
-the man whose cows she was ejecting. It was Abe Longley himself, and in
-some surprise he hurried down the rugged steep, a woodman's axe on his
-shoulder. He was a gaunt, slender man, gray and grizzled, past sixty
-years of age, with a tuft of stiff beard on his chin, which gave his
-otherwise smooth-shaven face a forbidding expression.
-
-"Hold on thar, Sister Boyd!" he called out, cheerily, though he seemed
-evidently to be trying to keep from betraying the impatience he
-evidently felt. "You must be getting nigh-sighted in yore old age. As
-shore as you are a foot high them's my cattle, an' not yourn. Why, I
-knowed my brindle from clean up at my wood-pile, a full quarter from
-here. I seed yore mistake an' hollered then, but I reckon you are
-gettin' deef as well as blind. I driv' 'em in not twenty minutes ago, as
-I come on to do my cuttin'."
-
-"I know you did, Abe Longley," and Mrs. Boyd stooped to grasp and raise
-the last rail and carefully put it in place; "I know they are yours. My
-eyesight's good enough. I know good and well they are yours, and that is
-the very reason I made them hump themselves to get off of my property."
-
-"But--but," and the farmer, thoroughly puzzled, lowered his glittering
-axe and stared wonderingly--"but you know, Sister Boyd, that you told me
-with your own mouth that, being as I'd traded off my own pasture-land to
-Dixon for my strip o' wheat in the bottom, that I was at liberty to use
-yourn how and when I liked, and, now--why, I'll be dad-blamed if I
-understand you one bit."
-
-"Well, I understand what I'm about, Abe Longley, if you don't!" retorted
-the owner of the land. "I _did_ say you could pasture on it, but I
-didn't say you could for all time and eternity; and I now give you due
-notice if I ever see any four-footed animal of yours inside of my fences
-I'll run them out with an ounce of buckshot in their hides."
-
-"Well, well, well!" Longley cried, at the end of his resources, as he
-leaned on his smooth axe-handle with one hand and clutched his beard
-with the other. "I don't know what to make of yore conduct. I can't do
-without the use of your land. There hain't a bit that I could rent or
-buy for love or money on either side of me for miles around. When folks
-find a man's in need of land, they stick the price up clean out of
-sight. I was tellin' Sue the other day that we was in luck havin' sech a
-neighbor--one that would do so much to help a body in a plight."
-
-"Yes, I'm very good and kind," sneered Mrs. Boyd, her sharp eyes ablaze
-with indignation, "and last Sunday in meeting you and a lot of other
-able-bodied men sat still and let that foul-mouthed Bazemore say that
-even the wooden bench I sat on ought to be taken out and burned for the
-public good. You sat there and listened to _that_, and when he was
-through you got up and sung the doxology and bowed your head while that
-makeshift of a preacher called down God's benediction on you. If you
-think I'm going to keep a pasture for such a man as you to fatten your
-stock on, you need a guardian to look after you."
-
-"Oh, I see," Longley exclaimed, a crestfallen look on him. "You are
-goin' to blame us all for what he said, and you are mad at everybody
-that heard it. But you are dead wrong, Ann Boyd--dead wrong. You can't
-make over public opinion, and you'd 'a' been better off years ago if you
-hadn't been so busy trying to do it, whether or no. Folks would let you
-alone if you'd 'a' showed a more repentant sperit, and not held your
-head so high and been so spiteful. I reckon the most o' your
-trouble--that is, the reason it's lasted so long, is due to the
-women-folks more than the men of the community, anyhow. You see, it
-sorter rubs women's wool the wrong way to see about the only prosperity
-a body can see in the entire county falling at the feet of the
-one--well, the one least expected to have sech things--the one, I mought
-say, who hadn't lived exactly up to the _best_ precepts."
-
-"I don't go to men like you for my precepts," the woman hurled at him,
-"and I haven't got any time for palavering. All I want to do is to give
-you due notice not to trespass on my land, and I've done that plain
-enough, I reckon."
-
-Abe Longley's thin face showed anger that was even stronger than his
-avarice; he stepped nearer to her, his eyes flashing, his wide upper-lip
-twitching nervously. "Do you know," he said, "that's its purty foolhardy
-of you to take up a fight like that agin a whole community. You know you
-hain't agoin' to make a softer bed to lie on. You know, if you find
-fault with me fer not denouncin' Bazemore, you may as well find fault
-with every living soul that was under reach o' his voice, fer nobody
-budged or said a word in yore defence."
-
-"I'm taking up a fight with no one," the woman said, firmly. "They can
-listen to what they want to listen to. The only thing I'm going to do in
-future is to see that no person uses me for profit and then willingly
-sees me spat upon. That's all I've got to say to you." And, turning, she
-walked away, leaving him standing as if rooted among his trees on the
-brown mountain-side.
-
-"He'll go home and tell his wife, and she'll gad about an' fire the
-whole community against me," Mrs. Boyd mused; "but I don't care. I'll
-have my rights if I die for it."
-
-An hour later, in another dress and a freshly washed and ironed gingham
-bonnet, she fed her chickens from a pan of wet cornmeal dough, locked up
-her house carefully, fastening down the window-sashes on the inside by
-placing sticks above the movable ones, and trudged down the road to
-George Wilson's country-store at the crossing of the roads which led
-respectively to Springtown, hard-by on one side, and Darley, farther
-away on the other.
-
-The store was a long, frame building which had once been whitewashed,
-but was now only a fuzzy, weather-beaten gray. As was usual in such
-structures, the front walls of planks rose higher than the pointed roof,
-and held large and elaborate lettering which might be read quite a
-distance away. Thereon the young store-keeper made the questionable
-statement that a better price for produce was given at his establishment
-than at Darley, where high rent, taxes, and clerk-hire had to be paid,
-and, moreover, that his goods were sold cheaper because, unlike the town
-dealers, he lived on the products from his own farm and employed no
-help. In front of the store, convenient alike to both roads, stood a
-rustic hitching-rack made of unbarked oaken poles into which railway
-spikes had been driven, and on which horseshoes had been nailed to hold
-the reins of any customer's mount. On the ample porch of the store stood
-a new machine for the hulling of pease, several ploughs, and a
-red-painted device for the dropping and covering of seed-corn. On the
-walls within hung various pieces of tin-ware and harnesses and saddles,
-and the two rows of shelving held a good assortment of general
-merchandise.
-
-As Mrs. Boyd entered the store, Wilson, a blond young man with an ample
-mustache, stood behind the counter talking to an Atlanta drummer who had
-driven out from Darley to sell the store-keeper some dry-goods and
-notions, and he did not come to her at once, but delayed to see the
-drummer make an entry in his order-book; then he advanced to her.
-
-"Excuse me, Mrs. Boyd," he smiled. "I am ordering some new prints for
-you ladies, and I wanted to see that he got the number of bolts down
-right. This is early for you to be out, isn't it? It's been many a day
-since I've seen you pass this way before dinner. I took a sort of
-liberty with you yesterday, knowing how good-natured you are. Dave
-Prixon was going your way with his empty wagon, and, as I was about to
-run low on your favorite brand of flour, I sent you a barrel and put it
-on your account at the old price. I thought you'd keep it. You may have
-some yet on hand, but this will come handy when you get out."
-
-"But I don't intend to keep it," replied the woman, under her bonnet,
-and her voice sounded harsh and crisp. "I haven't touched it. It's out
-in the yard where Prixon dumped it. If it was to rain on it I reckon it
-would mildew. It wouldn't be my loss. I didn't order it put there."
-
-"Why, Mrs. Boyd!" and Wilson's tone and surprised glance at the drummer
-caused that dapper young man to prick up his ears and move nearer; "why,
-it's the best brand I handle, and you said the last gave you particular
-satisfaction, so I naturally--"
-
-"Well, I don't want it; I didn't order it, and I don't intend to have
-you nor no one else unloading stuff in my front yard whenever you take a
-notion and want to make money by the transaction. Deduct that from my
-bill, and tell me what I owe you. I want to settle in full."
-
-"But--but--" Wilson had never seemed to the commercial traveller to be
-so much disturbed; he was actually pale, and his long hands, which
-rested on the smooth surface of the counter, were trembling--"but I
-don't understand," he floundered. "It's only the middle of the month,
-Mrs. Boyd, and I never run up accounts till the end. You are not going
-_off_, are you?"
-
-"Oh no," and the woman pushed back her bonnet and eyed him almost
-fiercely, "you needn't any of you think that. I'm going to stay right on
-here; but I'll tell you what I am going to do, George Wilson--I'm going
-to buy my supplies in the future at Darley. You see, since this talk of
-burning the very bench I sit on in the house of God, which you and your
-ilk set and listen to, why--"
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd," he broke in, "now don't go and blame me for what
-Brother Bazemore said when he was--"
-
-"_Brother_ Bazemore!" The woman flared up and brought her clinched hand
-down on the counter. "I'll never as long as I live let a dollar of my
-money pass into the hands of a man who calls that man brother. You sat
-still and raised no protest against what he said, and that ends business
-between us for all time. There is no use talking about it. Make out my
-account, and don't keep me standing here to be stared at like I was a
-curiosity in a side-show."
-
-"All right, Mrs. Boyd; I'm sorry," faltered Wilson, with a glance at the
-drummer, who, feeling that he had been alluded to, moved discreetly
-across the room and leaned against the opposite counter. "I'll go back
-to the desk and make it out."
-
-She stood motionless where he had left her till he came back with her
-account in his hand, then from a leather bag she counted out the money
-and paid it to him. The further faint, half-fearful apologies which
-Wilson ventured on making seemed to fall on closed ears, and, with the
-receipted bill in her bag, she strode from the house. He followed her to
-the door and stood looking after her as she angrily trudged back towards
-her farm.
-
-"Well, well," he sighed, as the drummer came to his elbow and stared at
-him wonderingly, "there goes the best and most profitable customer I've
-had since I began selling goods. It's made me sick at heart, Masters. I
-don't see how I can do without her, and yet I don't blame her one
-bit--not a bit, so help me God."
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-
-Wilson turned, and with a frown went moodily back to his desk and sat
-down on the high stool, gloomily eying the page in a ledger which he had
-just consulted.
-
-"By George, that woman's a corker," said the drummer, sociably, as he
-came back and stood near the long wood-stove. "Of course, I don't know
-what it's all about, but she's her own boss, I'll stake good money on
-that."
-
-"She's about the sharpest and in many ways the strongest woman in the
-state," said the store-keeper, with a sigh. "Good Lord, Masters, she's
-been my main-stay ever since I opened this shack, and now to think
-because that loud-mouthed Bazemore, who expects me to pay a good part of
-his salary, takes a notion to rip her up the back in meeting, why--"
-
-"Oh, I see!" cried the drummer--"I understand it now. I heard about that
-at Darley. So _she's_ the woman! Well, I'm glad _I_ got a good look at
-her. I see a lot of queer things in going about over the country, but I
-don't think I ever ran across just her sort."
-
-"She's had a devil of a life, Masters, from the time she was a blooming,
-pretty young girl till now that she is at war with everybody within
-miles of her. She's always been a study to me. She's treated me more
-like a son than anything else--doing everything in her power to help me
-along, buying, by George, things sometimes that I knew she didn't need
-because it would help me out, and now, because I didn't get up in
-meeting last Sunday and call that man down she holds me accountable. I
-don't know but what she's right. Why should I take her hard-earned money
-and sit still and allow her to be abused? She's simply got pride, and
-lots of it, and it's bad hurt."
-
-"But what was it all about?" the drummer inquired.
-
-"The start of it was away back when she was a girl, as I said," began
-the store-keeper. "You've heard of Colonel Preston Chester, our biggest
-planter, who lives a mile from here--old-time chap, fighter of duels,
-officer in the army, and all that?"
-
-"Oh yes, I've seen him; in fact, I was at college at the State
-University with his son Langdon. He was a terrible fellow--very wild and
-reckless, full half the time, and playing poker every night. He was
-never known to pay a debt, even to his best friends."
-
-"Langdon is a chip off of the old block," said Wilson. "His father was
-just like him when he was a young man. Between you and me, the Colonel
-never had a conscience; old as he now is, he will sit and laugh about
-his pranks right in the presence of his son. It's no wonder the boy
-turned out like he did. Well, away back when this Mrs. Boyd was a young
-and pretty girl, the daughter of honest, hard-working people, who owned
-a little farm back of his place, he took an idle fancy to her. I'm
-telling you now what has gradually leaked out in one way and another
-since. He evidently won her entire confidence, made her believe he was
-going to marry her, and, as he was a dashing young fellow, she must have
-fallen in love with him. Nobody knows how that was, but one thing is
-sure, and that is that he was seen about with her almost constantly for
-a whole year, and then he stopped off suddenly. The report went out that
-he'd made up his mind to get married to a young woman in Alabama who had
-a lot of money, and he did go off and bring home the present Mrs.
-Chester, Langdon's mother. Well, old-timers say young Ann Boyd took it
-hard, stayed close in at home and wasn't seen out for a couple of years.
-Then she come out again, and they say she was better-looking than ever
-and a great deal more serious and sensible. Joe Boyd was a young farmer
-those days, and a sort of dandy, and he fell dead in love with her and
-hung about her day and night, never seeming willing to let her out of
-his sight. Several other fellows, they say, was after her, but she
-seemed to like Joe the best, but nothing he'd do or say would make her
-accept him. I can see through it now, looking back on what has since
-leaked out, but nobody understood it then, for she had evidently got
-over her attachment for Colonel Chester, and Joe was a promising fellow,
-strong, good-looking, and a great beau and flirt among women, half a
-dozen being in love with him, but Ann simply wouldn't take him, and it
-was the talk of the whole county. He was simply desperate folks say,
-going about boring everybody he met with his love affair. Finally her
-mother and father and all her friends got after her to marry Joe, and
-she gave in. And then folks wondered more than ever why she'd delayed,
-for she was more in love with her husband than anybody had any reason to
-expect. They were happy, too. A child was born, a little girl, and that
-seemed to make them happier. Then Mrs. Boyd's mother and father died,
-and she came into the farm, and the Boyds were comfortable in every way.
-Then what do you think happened?"
-
-"I've been wondering all along," the drummer laughed. "I can see you're
-holding something up your sleeve."
-
-"Well, this happened. Colonel Chester's wife was, even then, a homely
-woman, about as old as he was, and not at all attractive aside from her
-money, and marrying hadn't made him any the less devilish. They say he
-saw Mrs. Boyd at meeting one day and hardly took his eyes off of her
-during preaching. She had developed into about the most stunning-looking
-woman anywhere about, and knew how to dress, which was something Mrs.
-Chester, with all her chances, had never seemed to get onto. Well, that
-was the start of it, and from that day on Chester seemed to have nothing
-on his mind but the good looks of his old sweetheart. Folks saw him on
-his horse riding about where he could get to meet her, and then it got
-reported that he was actually forcing himself on her to such an extent
-that Joe Boyd was worked up over it, aided by the eternal gab of all the
-women in the section."
-
-"Did Colonel Chester's wife get onto it?" the drummer wanted to know.
-
-"It don't seem like she did," answered Wilson. "She was away visiting
-her folks in the South most of the time, with Langdon, who was a baby
-then, and it may be that she didn't care. Some folks thought she was
-weak-minded; she never seemed to have any will of her own, but left the
-Colonel to manage her affairs without a word."
-
-"Well, go on with your story," urged the drummer.
-
-"There isn't much more to tell about the poor woman," continued Wilson.
-"As I said, Chester got to forcing himself on her, and I reckon she
-didn't want to tell her husband what she was trying to forget for fear
-of a shooting scrape, in which Joe would get the worst of it; but this
-happened: Joe was off at court in Darley and sent word home to his wife
-that he was to be held all night on a jury. The man that took the
-message rode home alongside of Chester and told him about it. Well, I
-reckon, all hell broke out in Chester that night. He was a drinking man,
-and he tanked up, and, as his wife was away, he had plenty of liberty.
-Well, he simply went over to Joe Boyd's house and went in. It was about
-ten o'clock. My honest conviction is, no matter what others think, that
-she tried her level best to make him leave without rousing the
-neighborhood, but he wouldn't go, but sat there in the dark with his
-coat off, telling her he loved her more than her husband did, and that
-he never had loved his wife, and that he was crazy for her, and the
-like. How long this went on, with her imploring and praying to him to
-go, I don't know; but, at any rate, they both heard the gate-latch click
-and Joe Boyd come right up the gravel-walk. I reckon the poor woman was
-scared clean out of her senses, for she made no outcry, and Chester went
-to a window, his coat on his arm, and was climbing out when Joe, who
-couldn't get in at the front door and was making for the one in the
-rear, met him face to face."
-
-"Great goodness!" ejaculated the commercial traveller.
-
-"Well, you bet, the devil was to pay," went on the store-keeper, grimly.
-"Chester was mad and reckless, and, being hot with liquor, and regarding
-Boyd as far beneath him socially, instead of making satisfactory
-explanations, they say he simply swore at Boyd and stalked away.
-Dumfounded, Boyd went inside to his miserable wife and demanded an
-explanation. She has since learned how to use her wits with the best in
-the land, but she was young then, and so, by her silence, she made
-matters worse for herself. He forced her to explain, and, seeing no
-other way out of the affair, she decided to throw herself on his mercy
-and make a clean breast of things her and her family had kept back all
-that time. Well, sir, she confessed to what had happened away back
-before Chester had deserted her, no doubt telling a straight story of
-her absolute purity and faithfulness to Boyd after marriage. Poor old
-Joe! He wasn't a fighting man, and, instead of following Chester and
-demanding satisfaction, he stayed at home that night, no doubt suffering
-the agony of the damned and trying to make up his mind to believe in his
-wife and to stand by her. As it looks now, he evidently decided to make
-the best of it, and might have succeeded, but somehow it got out about
-Chester being caught there, and that started gossip so hot that her life
-and his became almost unbearable. It might have died a natural death in
-time, but Mrs. Boyd had an enemy, Mrs. Jane Hemingway, who had been one
-of the girls who was in love with Joe Boyd. It seems that she never had
-got over Joe's marrying another woman, and when she heard this scandal
-she nagged and teased Joe about his babyishness in being willing to
-believe his wife, and told him so many lies that Boyd finally quit
-staying at home, sulking about in the mountains, and making trips away
-till he finally applied for a divorce. Ignorant and inexperienced as she
-was, and proud, Mrs. Boyd made no defence, and the whole thing went his
-way with very little publicity. But the hardest part for her to bear was
-when, having the court's decree to take charge of his child, Boyd came
-and took it away."
-
-"Good gracious! that was tough, wasn't it?" exclaimed the drummer.
-
-"That's what it was, and they say it fairly upset her mind. They
-expected her to fight like a tiger for her young, but at the time they
-came for it she only seemed stupefied. The little girl was only three
-years old, but they say Ann came in the room and said she was going to
-ask the child if it was willing to leave her, and they say she calmly
-put the question, and the baby, not knowing what she meant, said, 'Yes.'
-Then they say Ann talked to it as if it were a grown person, and told
-her to go, that she'd never give her a thought in the future, and never
-wanted to lay eyes on her again."
-
-"That was pitiful, wasn't it?" said Masters. "By George, we don't dream
-of what is going on in the hearts of men and women we meet face to face
-every day. And that's what started her in the life she's since led."
-
-"Yes, she lived in her house like a hermit, never going out unless she
-absolutely had to. She had an old-fashioned loom in a shed-room
-adjoining her house, and night and day people passing along the road
-could hear her thumping away on it. She kept a lot of fine sheep,
-feeding and shearing them herself, and out of the wool she wove a
-certain kind of jean cloth which she sold at a fancy figure. I've seen
-wagon-loads of it pass along the road billed to a big house in Atlanta.
-This went on for several years, and then it was noticed that she was
-accumulating money. She was buying all the land she could around her
-house, as if to force folks as far from her as possible, and she turned
-the soil to a good purpose, for she knew how to work it. She hired
-negroes for cash, when others were paying in old clothes and scraps,
-and, as she went to the field with them and worked in the sun and rain
-like a man, she got more out of her planting than the average farmer."
-
-"So she's really well off?" said the drummer.
-
-"Got more than almost anybody else in the county," said Wilson. "She's
-got stocks in all sorts of things, and owns houses on the main street in
-Darley, which she keeps well rented. It seems like, not having anything
-else to amuse her, she turned her big brain to economy and money-making,
-and I've always thought she did it to hit back at the community. You
-see, the more she makes, the more her less fortunate neighbors dislike
-her, and she loves to get even as far as possible."
-
-"And has she had no associates at all?" Masters wanted to know.
-
-"Well, yes, there is one woman, a Mrs. Waycroft, who has always been
-intimate with her. She is the only--I started to say she was the only
-one, but there was a poor mountain fellow, Luke King, a barefoot boy who
-had a fine character, a big brain on him, and no education. His parents
-were poor, and did little for him. They say Mrs. Boyd sort of took pity
-on him and used to buy books and papers for him, and that she really
-taught him to read and write. She sent him off to school, and got him on
-his feet till he was able to find work in a newspaper office over at
-Canton, where he became a boss typesetter. I've always thought that her
-misfortune had never quite killed her natural impulses, for she
-certainly got fond of that fellow. I had an exhibition of both his
-regard and hers right here at the store. He'd come in to buy something
-or other, and was waiting about the stove one cold winter day, when a
-big mountain chap made a light remark about Mrs. Boyd. He was a head
-taller than Luke King was, but the boy sprang at him like a panther and
-knocked the fellow down. They had the bloodiest fight I ever saw, and it
-was several minutes before they could be separated. Luke had damaged the
-chap pretty badly, but he was able to stand, while the boy keeled over
-in a dead faint on the floor, bruised inside some way. The big fellow,
-fearing arrest, mounted his horse and went away, and several of us were
-doing what we could with cold water and whiskey to bring the boy around
-when who should come in but Ann herself. She was passing the store, and
-some one told her about it. People who think she has no heart and is as
-cold as stone ought to have seen her that day. In all my life I never
-saw such a terrible face on a human being. I was actually afraid of her.
-She was all fury and all tenderness combined. She looked down at him in
-all his blood and bruises and white face, and got down on her knees by
-him. I saw a great big sob rise up in her, although her back was to me,
-and shake her from head to foot, and then she was still, simply stroking
-back his damp, tangled hair. 'My poor boy,' I heard her say, 'you can't
-fight my battles. God Himself has failed to do that, but I won't forget
-this--never--never!'"
-
-"Lord, that was strong!" said Masters. "She must be wonderful!"
-
-"She is more wonderful than her narrow-minded enemies dream of,"
-returned the store-keeper. "You see, it's her pride that keeps her from
-showing her fine feelings, and it's her secluded life that makes them
-misunderstand her. Well, she brought her wagon and took the boy away.
-That was another queer thing," Wilson added. "She evidently had started
-to take him to her house, for she drove as far as the gate and then
-stopped there to study a moment, and finally turned round and drove him
-to the poor cabin his folks lived in. You see, she was afraid that even
-that would cause talk, and it would. Old Jane Hemingway would have fed
-on that morsel for months, as unreasonable as it would have been. Ann
-sent a doctor, though, and every delicacy the market afforded, and the
-boy was soon out. It wasn't long afterwards that Luke King went to
-college at Knoxville, and now he's away in the West somewhere. His
-mother, after his father's death, married a trifling fellow, Mark Bruce,
-and that brought on some dispute between her and her son, who had tried
-to keep her from marrying such a man. They say Luke told her if she did
-marry Bruce he'd go away and never even write home, and so far, they
-say, he has kept his word. Nobody knows where he is or what he's doing
-unless it is Mrs. Boyd, and she never talks. I can't keep from thinking
-he's done well, though, for he had a big head on him and a lot of
-determination."
-
-"And this Mrs. Hemingway, her enemy," said the drummer, tentatively,
-"you say she was evidently the woman's rival at one time. But it seems
-she married some one else."
-
-"Oh yes, she suddenly accepted Tom Hemingway, an old bachelor, who had
-been trying to marry her for a long time. Most people thought she did it
-to hide her feelings when Joe Boyd got married. She treated Tom like a
-dog, making him do everything she wanted, and he was daft about her till
-he died, just a couple of weeks after his child was born, who,
-by-the-way, has grown up to be the prettiest girl in all the country,
-and that's another feature in the story," the store-keeper smiled. "You
-see, Mrs. Boyd looks upon old Jane as the prime cause of her losing her
-_own_ child, and I understand she hates the girl as much as she does her
-mother."
-
-A man had come into the store and stood leaning against a show-case on
-the side devoted to groceries.
-
-"There's a customer," said the drummer; "don't let me keep you, old man;
-you know you've got to look at my samples some time to-day."
-
-"Well, I'll go see what he wants," said Wilson, "and then I'll look
-through your line, though I don't feel a bit like it, after losing the
-best regular customer I have."
-
-The drummer had opened his sample-case on the desk when Wilson came
-back.
-
-"You say the woman's husband took the child away," remarked the drummer;
-"did he go far?"
-
-"They first settled away out in Texas," replied Wilson, "but Joe Boyd,
-not having his wife's wonderful head to guide him, failed at farming
-there, and only about three years ago he came back to this country and
-bought a little piece of land over in Gilmer--the county that joins this
-one."
-
-"Oh, so near as that! Then perhaps she has seen her daughter and--"
-
-"Oh no, they've never met," said Wilson, as he took a sample pair of
-men's suspenders from the case and tested the elastic by stretching it
-between his hands. "I know that for certain. She was in here one morning
-waiting for one of her teams to pass to take her to Darley, when a
-peddler opened his pack of tin-ware and tried to sell her some pieces I
-was out of. He heard me call her by name, and, to be agreeable, he asked
-her if she was any kin to Joe Boyd and his daughter, over in Gilmer. I
-could have choked the fool for his stupidity. I tried to catch his eye
-to warn him, but he was intent on selling her a bill, and took no notice
-of anything else. I saw her stare at him steady for a second or two,
-then she seemed to swallow something, and said, 'No, they are no kin of
-mine.' And then what did the skunk do but try to make capital out of
-that. 'Well, you may be glad,' he said, 'that they are no kin, for they
-are as near the ragged edge as any folks I ever ran across.' He went on
-to say he stayed overnight at Boyd's cabin and that they had hardly
-anything but streak-o'-lean-streak-o'-fat meat and corn-bread to offer
-him, and that the girl had the worst temper he'd ever seen. Mrs. Boyd, I
-reckon, to hide her face, was looking at some of the fellow's pans, and
-he seemed to think he was on the right line, and so he kept talking. Old
-Joe, he said, had struck him as a good-natured, lazy sort of
-come-easy-go-easy mountaineer, but the girl looked stuck up, like she
-thought she was some better than appearances would indicate. He said she
-was a tall, gawky sort of girl, with no good looks to brag of, and he
-couldn't for the life of him see what she had to make her so proud.
-
-"I wondered what Mrs. Boyd was going to do, but she was equal to that
-emergency, as she always has been in everything. She held one of his
-pans up in the light and tilted her bonnet back on her head, I thought,
-to let me see she wasn't hiding anything, and said, as unconcerned as if
-he'd never mentioned a delicate subject. 'Look here,' she said, thumping
-the bottom of the pan with her finger, 'if you expect to do any business
-with _me_ you'll have to bring copper-bottom ware to me. I don't buy
-shoddy stuff from any one. These pans will rust through in two months.
-I'll take half a dozen, but I'm only doing it to pay you for the time
-spent on me. It is a bad investment for any one to buy cheap, stamped
-ware.'"
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-
-Mrs. Jane Hemingway, Ann Boyd's long and persistent enemy, sat in the
-passage which connected the two parts of her house, a big, earthernware
-churn between her sharp knees, firmly raising and lowering the
-bespattered dasher with her bony hands. She was a woman past fifty; her
-neck was long and slender, and the cords under the parchment-like skin
-had a way of tightening, like ropes in the seams of a tent, when she
-swallowed or spoke. Her dark, smoothly brushed hair was done up in the
-tightest of balls behind her head, and her brown eyes were easily
-kindled to suspicion, fear, or anger.
-
-Her brother-in-law, Sam Hemingway, called "Hem" by his intimates,
-slouched in from the broad glare of the mid-day sun and threw his coat
-on a chair. Then he went to the shelf behind the widow, and, pouring
-some water into a tin pan from a pail, he noisily bathed his perspiring
-face and big, red hands. As he was drying himself on the towel which
-hung on a wooden roller on the weather-boarding of the wall, Virginia
-Hemingway, his niece, came in from the field bringing a pail of freshly
-gathered dewberries. In appearance she was all that George Wilson had
-claimed for her. Slightly past eighteen, she had a wonderful complexion,
-a fine, graceful figure, big, dreamy, hazel eyes, and golden-brown hair,
-and, which was rare in one of her station, she was tastily dressed. She
-smiled as she showed her uncle the berries and playfully "tickled" him
-under the chin.
-
-"See there!" she chuckled.
-
-"Pies?" he said, with an unctuous grin, as he peered down into her pail.
-
-"I thought of you while I was gathering them," she nodded. "I'm going to
-try to make them just as you like them, with red, candied bars
-criss-crossing."
-
-"Nothing in the pie-line can hold a candle to the dewberry unless it's
-the cherry," he chuckled. "The stones of the cherries sorter hold a
-fellow back, but I manage to make out. I et a pie once over at Darley
-without a stone in it, and you bet your life it was a daisy."
-
-He went into his room for his tobacco, and Virginia sat down to stem her
-berries. He returned in a moment, leaning in the doorway, drawing lazily
-at his pipe. The widow glanced up at him, and rested her dasher on the
-bottom of the churn.
-
-"I reckon folks are still talking about Ann Boyd and her flouncing out
-of meeting like she did," the widow remarked. "Well, that _was_ funny,
-but what was the old thing to do? It would take a more brazen-faced
-woman than she is, if such a thing exists, to sit still and hear all he
-said."
-
-"Yes, they are still hammering at the poor creature's back," said Sam,
-"and that's one thing I can't understand, nuther. She's got dead loads
-of money--in fact, she's independent of the whole capoodle of you women.
-Now, why don't she kick the dust o' this spot off of her heels an' go
-away whar she can be respected, an', by gosh! be let alone _one_ minute
-'fore she dies. They say she's the smartest woman in the state, but that
-don't show it--living on here whar you women kin throw a rock at her
-every time she raises her head above low ground."
-
-"I've wondered why she don't go off, too," the widow said, as she peered
-down at the floating lumps of yellow butter in the snowy depths of her
-vessel, and deftly twirled her dasher in her fingers to make them
-"gather"; "but, Sam, haven't you heard that persons always want to be on
-the spot where they went wrong? I think she's that way. And when the
-facts leaked out on her, and her husband repudiated her and took the
-child away, she determined to stay here and live it down. But instead of
-calling humility and submission to her aid, she turned in to stinting
-and starving to make money, and now she flaunts her prosperity in our
-faces, as if _that_ is going to make folks believe any more in her.
-Money's too easily made in evil ways for Christian people to bow before
-it, and possessions ain't going to keep such men as Brother Bazemore
-from calling her down whenever she puts on her gaudy finery and struts
-out to meeting. It was a bold thing for her to do, anyway, after
-berating him as she did when he went to her to get the use of her grove
-for the picnic."
-
-"They say she didn't know Bazemore was to preach that day," said Sam.
-"She'd heard that the presiding elder was due here, and I'm of the
-opinion that she took that opportunity to show you all she wasn't afraid
-to appear in public."
-
-Virginia Hemingway threw a handful of berry-stems out into the sunshine
-in the yard. "She's a queer woman," she said, innocently, "like a
-character in a novel, and, somehow, I don't believe she is as bad as
-people make her out. I never told either of you, but I met her yesterday
-down on the road."
-
-"_You_ met her!" cried Mrs. Hemingway, aghast.
-
-"Yes, she was going home from her sugar-mill with her apron full of
-fresh eggs that she'd found down at her hay-stacks, and just as she got
-close to me her dress got caught on a snag and she couldn't get it
-loose. I stopped and unfastened it, and she actually thanked me, though,
-since I was born, I've never seen such a queer expression on a human
-face. She was white and red and dark as a thunder-cloud all at once. It
-looked like she hated me, but was trying to be polite for what I'd
-done."
-
-"You had no business touching her dirty skirt," the widow flared up.
-"The next thing you know it will go out that you and her are thick. It
-would literally ruin a young girl to be associated with a woman of that
-stamp. What on earth could have possessed you to--"
-
-"Oh, come off!" Sam laughed. "Why, you know you've always taught Virgie
-to be considerate of old folks, and she was just doing what she ought to
-have done for any old nigger mammy."
-
-"I looked at it that way," said the girl, "and I'm not sorry, for I
-don't want her to think I hate her, for I don't. I think she has had a
-hard life, and I wish it were in my power to help her out of her
-trouble."
-
-"Virginia, what are you talking about?" cried Mrs. Hemingway. "The idea
-of your standing up for that woman, when--"
-
-"Well, Luke King used to defend her," Virginia broke in, impulsively,
-"and before he went away you used to admit he was the finest young man
-in the county. I've seen him almost shed tears when he'd tell about what
-she'd done for him, and how tender-hearted and kind she was."
-
-"Tender-hearted nothing!" snapped Mrs. Hemingway, under a deep frown.
-"Luke King was the only person that went about her, and she tried to
-work on his sympathies for some purpose or other. Besides, nobody knows
-what ever become of him; he may have gone to the dogs by this time; it
-looks like somebody would have heard of him if he had come to any good
-in the five years he's been away."
-
-"Somehow, I think she knows where he is," Virginia said, thoughtfully,
-as she rose to put her berries away.
-
-When she had gone, Sam laughed softly. "It's a wonder to me that Virgie
-don't know whar Luke is, _herself_," he said. "I 'lowed once that the
-fellow liked her powerful; but I reckon he thought she was too young, or
-didn't want to take the matter further when he was as poor as Job's
-turkey and had no sort of outlook ahead."
-
-"I sort o' thought that, too," the widow admitted, "but I didn't want
-Virginia to encourage him when he was accepting so much from that
-woman."
-
-Sam laughed again as he knocked the ashes from his pipe and cleaned the
-bowl with the tip of his finger. "Well, '_that woman_,' as you call her,
-is a power in the land that hates her," he said. "She knows how to hit
-back from her fortress in that old farm-house. George Wilson knows what
-it means not to stand by her in public, so does Abe Longley, that has to
-drive his cattle to grass two miles over the mountains. Jim Johnston,
-who was dead sure of renting her northeast field again next year, has
-been served with a notice to vacate, and now, if the latest news can be
-depended on, she's hit a broad lick at half the farmers in the valley,
-and, while I'm a sufferer with the balance, I don't blame her one bit.
-I'd 'a' done the same pine-blank thing years ago if I'd stood in her
-shoes."
-
-"What's she done _now_?" asked the woman at the churn, leaning forward
-eagerly.
-
-"Done? Why, she says she's tired o' footing almost the entire
-wheat-threshing bill for twenty measly little farmers. You know she's
-been standing her part of the expenses to get the Empire Company to send
-their steam thresher here, and her contribution amounted to more than
-half. She's decided, by hunky, to plant corn and cotton exclusively next
-year, and so notified the Empire Company. They can't afford to come
-unless she sows wheat, and they sent a man clean from Atlanta to argue
-the matter with her, but she says she's her own boss, an' us farmers who
-has land fittin' for nothing but wheat is going to get badly left in the
-lurch. Oh, Bazemore opened the battle agin her, and you-uns echoed the
-war-cry, an' the battle is good on. I'll go without flour biscuits and
-pie-crust, but the fight will be interesting. The Confed' soldiers made
-a purty good out along about '61, an' they done it barefooted an' on
-hard-tack an' water. If you folks are bent on devilling the hide off of
-the most influential woman in our midst, just because her foot got
-caught in the hem of her skirt an' tripped her up when she was a
-thoughtless young girl, I reckon us men will have to look on an' say
-nothing."
-
-"She _did_ slip up, as you say," remarked the widow, "and she's been a
-raging devil ever since."
-
-"Ay! an' who made her one? Tell me that." Sam laughed. "You may not want
-to hear it, Jane, but some folks hint that you was at the bottom of
-it--some think lazy Joe Boyd would have stayed on in that comfortable
-boat, with a firm hand like hern at the rudder, if you hadn't
-ding-donged at him and told tales to him till he had to pull out."
-
-"Huh! They say that, do they?" The widow frowned as she turned and
-looked straight at him. "Well, let 'em. What do I care? I didn't want to
-see as good-hearted a man as he was hoodwinked."
-
-"I reckon not," Sam said, significantly, and he walked out of the
-passage down towards the barn. "Huh!" he mused, as he strode along
-crumbling leaf-tobacco of his own growing and filling his pipe. "I come
-as nigh as pease tellin' the old woman some'n' else folks say, an' that
-is that she was purty nigh daft about Joe Boyd, once upon a time, and
-that dashing Ann cut her out as clean as a whistle. I'll bet that 'ud
-make my sister-in-law so dern hot she'd blister from head to foot."
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-
-That afternoon Jane Hemingway went out to the barn-yard. For years she
-had cultivated a habit of going thither, obviously to look after certain
-hens that nested there, but in reality, though she would not have
-admitted it even to herself, she went because from that coign of vantage
-she could look across her enemy's fertile acres right into the lone
-woman's doorway and sometimes catch a glimpse of Ann at work. There was
-one unpleasant contingency that she sometimes allowed her mind to dwell
-upon, and that was that Joe Boyd and his now grown daughter might,
-inasmuch as Ann's wealth and power were increasing in direct ratio to
-the diminution of their own, eventually sue for pardon and return. That
-had become Jane's nightmare, riding her night and day, and she was not
-going to let any living soul know the malicious things she had done and
-said to thwart it. Vaguely she regarded the possible coming-back of the
-father and daughter as her own undoing. She knew the pulse of the
-community well enough to understand that nothing could happen which
-would so soon end the war against Ann Boyd as such a reconciliation.
-Yes, it would amount to her own undoing, for people were like sheep, and
-the moment one ran to Ann Boyd's side in approval, all would flock
-around her, and it would only be natural for them to turn against the
-one woman who had been the primal cause of the separation.
-
-Jane was at the bars looking out on a little, seldom-used road which ran
-between her land and Ann's, when her attention was caught by a man with
-a leather hand-bag strapped on his shoulders trudging towards her. He
-was a stranger, and his dusty boots and trousers showed that he had
-walked a long distance. As he drew near he took off his straw hat and
-bowed very humbly, allowing his burden to swing round in front of him
-till he had eased it down on the turf at his feet.
-
-"Good-evening, madam," he said. "I'd like to show you something if
-you've got the time to spare. I've made so many mountain folks happy,
-and at such a small outlay, that I tell you they are glad to have me
-come around again. This is a new beat to me, but I felt it my duty to
-widen out some in the cause of human suffering."
-
-"What is it you've got?" Jane asked, smiling at his manner of speaking,
-as he deftly unlocked his valise and opened it out before her.
-
-"It's a godsend, and that's no joke," said the peddler. "I've got a
-household liniment here at a quarter for a four-ounce flask that no
-family can afford to be without. You may think I'm just talking because
-it's my business, but, madam, do you know that the regular druggists all
-about over this country are in a combine not to sell stuff that will
-keep people in good trim? And why? you may ask me. Why? Because, I say,
-that it would kill the'r business. Go to one, I dare you, or to a doctor
-in regular practice, and they will mix up chalk and sweetened water and
-tell you you've got a serious internal complaint, and to keep coming day
-after day till your pile is exhausted, and then they may tell you the
-truth and ask you to let 'em alone. I couldn't begin, madam--I don't
-know your name--I say I couldn't begin to tell you the wonderful cures
-this liniment has worked all over this part of the state."
-
-"What is it good for?" Jane Hemingway's face had grown suddenly serious.
-The conversation had caused her thoughts to revert to a certain secret
-fear she had entertained for several months.
-
-"Huh--good for?--excuse me, but you make me laugh," the peddler said, as
-he held a bottle of the dark fluid up before her; "it's good for so many
-things that I could hardly get through telling you between now and
-sundown. It's good for anything that harms the blood, skin, or muscles.
-It's even good for the stomach, although I don't advise it taken
-internally, for when it's rubbed on the outside of folks they have
-perfect digestions; but what it is best for is sprains, lameness, or any
-skin or blood eruption. Do you know, madam, that you'd never hear of so
-many cancers and tumors, that are dragging weary folks to early graves
-hereabouts, if this medicine had been used in time?"
-
-"Cancer?" The widow's voice had fallen, and she looked towards Ann
-Boyd's house, and then more furtively over her shoulder towards her own,
-as if to be sure of not being observed. "That's what I've always
-wondered at, how is anybody to know whether a--a thing is a cancer or
-not without going to a doctor, and, as you say, even _then_ they may not
-tell you the truth? Mrs. Twiggs, over the mountain, was never let know
-she had her cancer till a few months before it carried her off. The
-family and the doctor never told her the truth. The doctor said it
-couldn't be cured, and to know would only make the poor thing brood over
-it and be miserable."
-
-"That's it, now," said the medicine-vender; "but if it had been taken at
-the start and rubbed vigorously night and morning, it would have melted
-away under this fluid like dirt under lye-soap and warm water. Madam, a
-cancer is nothing more nor less than bad circulation at a certain point
-where blood stands till it becomes foul and putrefies. I can--excuse me
-if I seem bold, but long experience in handling men and women has learnt
-me to understand human nature. Most people who are afraid they've got
-cancers generally show it on their faces, an' I'll bet my hat and walk
-bareheaded to the nighest store to get another that you are troubled on
-that line--a little bit, anyway."
-
-Jane made no denial, though her thin face worked as she strove
-adequately to meet his blunt assertion. "As I said just now"--she
-swallowed, and avoided his covetous glance--"how is a person really to
-_know_?"
-
-"It's a mighty easy matter for _me_ to tell," said the peddler, and he
-spoke most reassuringly. "Just you let me take a look at the spot, if
-it's no trouble to you, and I may save you a good many sleepless nights.
-You are a nervous, broody sort of a woman yourself, and I can see by
-your face that you've let this matter bother you a lots."
-
-"You think you could tell if you--you looked at it?" Jane asked,
-tremulously.
-
-"Well, if I didn't it would be the first case I ever diagnosed
-improperly. Couldn't we go in the house?"
-
-Jane hesitated. "I think I'd rather my folks didn't know--that is, of
-course, if it _is_ one. My brother-in-law is a great hand to talk, and
-I'd rather it wasn't noised about. If there's one thing in the world I
-don't like it's the pity and the curiosity of other folks as to just
-about how long I'm going to hold out."
-
-"I've seed a lots o' folks like you." The peddler smiled. "But, if you
-don't mind tellin', where's the thing located?"
-
-"It's on my breast," Jane gulped, undecidedly, and then, the first
-bridge having been crossed, she unbuttoned her dress at the neck with
-fumbling fingers and pulled it down. "Maybe you can see as well here as
-anywhere."
-
-"Oh yes, never was a better light for the business," said the vender,
-and he leaned forward, his eyes fixed sharply on the spot exposed
-between the widow's bony fingers. For a moment he said nothing. The
-woman's yellow breast lay flat and motionless. She scarcely breathed;
-her features were fixed by grim, fearful expectancy. He looked away from
-her, and then stooped to his pack to get a larger bottle. "I'm glad I
-happened to strike you just when I did, madam," he said. "Thar ain't no
-mistaking the charactericstics of a cancer when it's in its first
-stages. That's certainly what you've got, but I'm telling you God's holy
-truth when I say that by regular application and rubbing this stuff in
-for a month, night and morning, that thing will melt away like mist
-before a hot sun."
-
-"So it really _is_ one!" Jane breathed, despondently.
-
-"Yes, it's a little baby one, madam, but this will nip it in the bud and
-save your life. It will take the dollar size, but you know it's worth
-it."
-
-"Oh yes, I'll take it," Jane panted. "Put it there in the fence-corner
-among the weeds, and I'll come out to-night and get it."
-
-"All right," and the flask tinkled against a stone as it slid into its
-snug hiding-place among the Jamestown weeds nestling close to the
-rotting rails.
-
-"Here's your money. I reckon we'd better not stand here." And Jane gave
-it to him with quivering fingers. He folded the bill carefully, thrust
-it into a greasy wallet, and stooped to close his bag and throw the
-strap over his shoulder.
-
-"Now I'm going on to the next house," he said. "They tell me a curious
-sort of human specimen lives over thar--old Ann Boyd. Do you know,
-madam, I heard of that woman's tantrums at Springtown night before last,
-and at Barley yesterday. Looks like you folks hain't got much else to do
-but poke at her like a turtle on its back. Well, she must be a
-character! I made up my mind I'd take a peep at 'er. You know a
-travelling physician like I am can get at folks that sort o' hide from
-the general run."
-
-Jane Hemingway's heart sank. Why had it not occurred to her that he
-might go on to Ann Boyd's and actually reveal her affliction? Such men
-had no honor or professional reputation to defend. Suddenly she was
-chilled from head to foot by the thought that the peddler might even
-boast of her patronage to secure that of her neighbor--that was quite
-the method of all such persons. It was on her tongue actually to ask him
-not to go to Ann Boyd's house at all, but her better judgment told her
-that such a request would unduly rouse the man's curiosity, so she
-offered a feeble compromise.
-
-"Look here," she said, "I want it understood between us that--that you
-are to tell nobody about me--about my trouble. That woman over there is
-at outs with all her neighbors, and--and she'd only be glad to--"
-
-Jane saw her error too late. It appeared to her now in the bland twinkle
-of amused curiosity in the stranger's face.
-
-"I understand--I understand; you needn't be afraid of me," the man said,
-entirely too lightly, Jane thought, for such a grave matter, and he
-pushed back the brim of his hat and turned. "Remember the directions,
-madam, a good brisk rubbing with a flannel rag--red if you've got
-it--soaked in the medicine, twice a day. Good-evening; I'll be off. I've
-got to strike some house whar they will let me stay all night. I know
-that old hag won't keep me, from all I hear."
-
-The widow leaned despondently against the fence and watched him as he
-ploughed his way through the tall grass and weeds of the intervening
-marsh towards Ann Boyd's house. The assurance that the spot on her
-breast was an incipient cancer was bad enough without the added fear
-that her old enemy would possibly gloat over her misfortune. She
-remained there till she saw the vender approach Ann's door. For a moment
-she entertained the mild hope that he would be repulsed, but he was not.
-
-She saw Ann's portly form framed in the doorway for an instant, and then
-the peddler opened the gate and went into the house. Heavy of heart, the
-grim watcher remained at the fence for half an hour, and then the
-medicine-vender came out and wended his way along the dusty road towards
-Wilson's store.
-
-Jane went into the house and sat down wearily. Virginia was sewing at a
-western window, and glanced at her in surprise.
-
-"What's the matter, mother?" she inquired, solicitously.
-
-"I don't know as there is anything wrong," answered Jane, "but I am sort
-o' weak. My knees shake and I feel kind o' chilly. Sometimes, Virginia,
-I think maybe I won't last long."
-
-"That's perfectly absurd," said the girl. "Don't you remember what Dr.
-Evans said last winter when he was talking about the constitutions of
-people? He said you belonged to the thin, wiry, raw-boned kind that
-never die, but simply stay on and dry up till they are finally blown
-away."
-
-"He's not a graduated doctor," said Jane, gloomily. "He doesn't know
-everything."
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-
-A week from that day, one sultry afternoon near sunset, a tall
-mountaineer, very poorly clad, and his wife came past Wilson's store.
-They paused to purchase a five-cent plug of tobacco, and then walked
-slowly along the road in a dust that rose as lightly as down at the
-slightest foot-fall, till they reached Ann Boyd's house.
-
-"I'll stay out here at the gate," the man said. "You'll have to do all
-the talking. As Willard said, she will do more for Luke King's mother
-than she would for anybody else, and you remember how she backed the boy
-up in his objections to me as a step-daddy."
-
-"Well, I'll do what I can," the woman said, plaintively. "You stay here
-behind the bushes. I don't blame you for not wanting to ask a favor of
-her, after all she said when we were married. She may spit in my
-face--they say she's so cantankerous."
-
-Seating himself on a flat stone, the man cut the corner off of his
-tobacco-plug and began to chew it, while his wife, a woman about
-sixty-five years of age, and somewhat enfeebled, opened the gate and
-went in. Mrs. Boyd answered the gentle rap and appeared at the door.
-
-"Howdy do, Mrs. Boyd," the caller began. "I reckon old age hasn't
-changed me so you won't know me, although it's been ten years since me
-'n' you met. I'm Mrs. Mark Bruce, that used to be Mrs. King. I'm Luke's
-mother, Mrs. Boyd."
-
-"I knew you when you and Mark Bruce turned the bend in the road a
-quarter of a mile away," said Ann, sharply, "but, the Lord knows, I
-didn't think you'd have the cheek to open my front gate and stalk right
-into my yard after all you've said and done against me."
-
-The eyes of the visitor fell to her worn shoe, through which her bare
-toes were protruding. "I had no idea I'd ever do such a thing myself
-until about two hours ago," she said, firmly; "but folks will do a lots,
-in a pinch, that they won't ordinarily. You may think I've come to beg
-you to tell me if you know where Luke is, but I hain't. Of course, I'd
-like to know--any mother would--but he said he'd never darken a door
-that his step-father went through, and I told 'im, I did, that he could
-go, and I'd never ask about 'im. Some say you get letters from him. I
-don't know--that, I reckon, is your business."
-
-"You didn't come to inquire about your boy, then?" Ann said, curiously,
-"and yet here you are."
-
-"It's about your law-suit with Gus Willard that I've come, Ann. He told
-you, it seems, that he was going to fight it to the bitter end, and he
-_did_ call in a lawyer, but the lawyer told him thar was no two ways
-about it. If his mill-pond backed water on your land to the extent of
-covering five acres, why, you could make him shet the mill up, even if
-he lost all his custom. Gus sees different now, like most of us when our
-substance is about to take wings and fly off. He sees now that you've
-been powerful indulgent all them years in letting him back water on your
-property to its heavy damagement, and he says, moreover, that, to save
-his neck from the halter, he cayn't blame you fer the action. He says he
-_did_ uphold Brother Bazemore in what he said about burning the bench
-that was consecrated till you besmirched it, and he admits he talked it
-here an' yan considerably. He said, an' Gus was mighty nigh shedding
-tears, in the sad plight he's in, that you had the whip in hand now, and
-that his back was bare, an' ef you chose to lay on the lash, why, he was
-powerless, for, said he, he struck the fust lick at you, but he was
-doin' it, he thought, for the benefit of the community."
-
-"But," and the eyes of Ann Boyd flashed ominously, "what have _you_ come
-for? Not, surely, to stand in my door and preach to me."
-
-"Oh no, Ann, that hain't it," said the caller, calmly. "You see, Gus is
-at the end of his tether; he's in an awful fix with his wife and gals in
-tears, and he's plumb desperate. He says you hain't the kind of woman to
-be bent one way or another by begging--that is, when you are a-dealing
-with folks that have been out open agin you; but now, as it stands, this
-thing is agoing to damage me and Mark awfully, fer Mark gets five
-dollars a month for helping about the mill on grinding days, and when
-the mill shets down he'll be plumb out of a job."
-
-"Oh, I see!" and Ann Boyd smiled impulsively.
-
-"Yes, that's the way of it," went on Mrs. Bruce, "and so Gus, about two
-hours ago, come over to our cabin with what he called his only hope, and
-that was for me to come and tell you about Mark's job, and how helpless
-we'll be when it's gone, and that--well, Ann, to put it in Gus's own
-words, he said you wouldn't see Luke King's mother suffer as I will have
-to suffer, for, Ann, we are having the hardest time to get along in the
-world. I was at meeting that day, and I thought what Bazemore said was
-purty hard on any woman, but I was mad at you, and so I set and
-listened. I'm no coward. If you do this thing you'll do it of your own
-accord. I cayn't get down on my knees to you, and I won't."
-
-"I see." Ann's face was serious. She looked past the woman down the
-dust-clouded road along which a man was driving a herd of sheep. "I
-don't want you on your knees to me, Cynthia Bruce. I want simple
-justice. I was doing the best I could when Bazemore and the community
-began to drive me to the wall, then I determined to have my
-rights--that's all; I'll have my legal rights for a while and see what
-impression it will make on you all. You can tell Gus Willard that I will
-give him till the first of July to drain the water from my land, and if
-he doesn't do it he will regret it."
-
-"That's all you'll say, then?" said the woman at the step.
-
-"That's all I'll say."
-
-"Well, I reckon you are right, Ann Boyd. I sorter begin to see what
-you've been put to all on account of that one false step away back when,
-I reckon, like all gals, you was jest l'arnin' what life was. Well, as
-that's over and done with, I wonder if you would mind telling me if you
-know anything about Luke. Me 'n' him split purty wide before he left,
-and I try to be unconcerned about him, but I cayn't. I lie awake at
-night thinking about him. You see, all the rest of my children are
-around me."
-
-"I'll say this much," said Ann, in a softened tone, "and that is that he
-is well and doing well, but I don't feel at liberty to say more."
-
-"Well, it's a comfort to know _that_ much," said Mrs. Bruce, softly.
-"And it's nothing but just to you for me to say that it's due to you.
-The education you paid fer is what gave him his start in life, and I'll
-always be grateful to you fer it. It was something I never could have
-given him, and something none of the rest of my children got."
-
-Mrs. Boyd stood motionless in the door, her eyes on the backs of the
-pathetic pair as they trudged slowly homeward, the red sunset like a
-world in conflagration beyond them.
-
-"Yes, she's the boy's mother," she mused, "and the day will come when
-Luke will be glad I helped her, as he would if he could see the poor
-thing now. Gus Willard is no mean judge of human nature. I'll let him
-stew awhile, but the mill may run on. I can't fight _everybody_. Gus
-Willard is my enemy, but he's open and above-board."
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-
-One morning about the first of May, Virginia Hemingway went to Wilson's
-store to purchase some sewing-thread she needed. The long, narrow room
-was crowded with farmers and mountaineers, and Wilson had called in
-several neighbors to help him show and sell his wares. Langdon Chester
-was there, a fine double-barrelled shot-gun and fishing-rod under his
-arm, wearing a slouch hat and hunter's suit, his handsome face well
-tanned by exposure to the sun in the field and on the banks of the
-mountain streams. He was buying a reel and a metallic fly that worked
-with a spring and was set like a trap. Fred Masters was there, lounging
-about behind the counters, and now and then "making a sale" of some
-small article from the shelves or show-cases. He had opened his big
-sample trunks at the hotel in Springtown, half a mile distant, and a
-buggy and pair of horses were at the door, with which he intended to
-transport the store-keeper to his sample-room as soon as business became
-quieter. Seeing the store so crowded, Virginia only looked in at the
-door and walked across the street and sat down in Mrs. Wilson's
-sitting-room to rest and wait for a better opportunity to get what she
-had come for.
-
-Langdon Chester had recognized an old school-mate in the drummer, but he
-seemed not to care to show marked cordiality. However, the travelling
-man was no stickler for formality. He came from behind the counter and
-cordially slapped Langdon on the shoulder. "How are you, old chap?" he
-asked; "still rusticating on the old man's bounty, eh? When you left
-college you were going into the law, and soar like an eagle with the
-worm of Liberty in its beak skyward through the balmy air of politics,
-by the aid of all the 'pulls' of influential kin and money, but here you
-are as easy-going as of old."
-
-"It was the only thing open to me," Chester said, with a flush of
-vexation. "You see, my father's getting old, Masters, and the management
-of our big place here was rather too much for him, and so--"
-
-"Oh, I see!" And the drummer gave his old friend a playful thumb-thrust
-in the ribs. "And so you are helping him out with that gun and rod?
-Well, that's _one_ way of doing business, but it is far from my
-method--the method that is forced on me, my boy. When you get to a town
-on the four-o'clock afternoon train and have to get five sample trunks
-from the train to a hotel, scrap like the devil over who gets to use the
-best sample-room, finally buy your way in through porters as rascally as
-you are, then unpack, see the best man in town, sell him, or lose your
-job, pack again, trunks to excess-baggage scales--more cash and tips,
-and lies as to weight--and you roll away at midnight and try to nap
-sitting bolt-upright in the smoker--well, I say, you won't find that
-sort of thing in the gun-and-fishing-pole line. It's the sort of work,
-Chester, that will make you wish you were dead. Good Lord, I don't blame
-you one bit. In England they would call you one of the gentry, and,
-being an only son, you could tie up with an heiress and so on to a green
-old age of high respectability; but as for me, well, I had to dig, and I
-went in for it."
-
-"I had no idea you would ever become a drummer," Langdon said, as he
-admired his friend's attire. Such tasty ties, shirts, and bits of
-jewelry that Masters wore, and such well brushed and pressed clothes
-were rarely seen in the country, and Langdon still had the good ideas of
-dress he had brought from college, and this was one extravagance his
-father cheerfully allowed him.
-
-"It seemed the best thing for me," smiled the drummer. "I have a cousin
-who is a big stockholder in my house, and he got the job for me. I've
-been told several times by other members of the firm that I'd have been
-fired long ago but for that family pull. I've made several mistakes,
-sold men who were rotten to the core, and caused the house to lose money
-in several instances, and, well--poker, old man. Do you still play?"
-
-"Not often, out here," said Langdon; "this is about the narrowest,
-church-going community you ever struck. I suppose you have a good deal
-of fun travelling about."
-
-"Oh yes, fun enough, of its kind." Masters laughed. "Like a sailor in
-every port, a drummer tries to have a sweetheart in every town. It makes
-life endurable; sometimes the dear little things meet you at the train
-with sweet-smelling flowers and embroidered neckties so long that you
-have to cut off the ends or double them. Have a cigar--they don't cost
-me a red cent; expense account stretches like elastic, you know. My
-house kicked once against my drinking and cigar entries, and I said, all
-right, I'd sign the pledge and they could tie a blue ribbon on me, if
-they said the word, but that half my trade, I'd discovered, never could
-see prices right except through smoke and over a bottle. Then, what do
-you think? Old man Creighton, head of the firm, deacon in a swell
-joss-house in Atlanta, winked, drew a long face, and said: 'You'll have
-to give the boy _some_ freedom, I reckon. We are in this thing to pull
-it through, boys, and sometimes we may have to fight fire with fire or
-be left stranded.'"
-
-"He's an up-to-date old fellow," Chester laughed. "I've seen him. He
-owns some fine horses. When a man does that he's apt to be progressive,
-no matter how many times he says his prayers a day."
-
-"Yes, for an old duck, Creighton keeps at the head of the procession. I
-can generally get him to help me out when I get in a tight. He thinks
-I'm a good salesman. Once, by the skin of my teeth, I sold the champion
-bill in the history of the house. A new firm was setting up in business
-in Augusta, and I stocked three floors for them. It tickled old man
-Creighton nearly to death, for they say he walked the floor all night
-when the thing was hanging fire. There was a pile of profit in it, and
-it meant more, even, than the mere sale, for Nashville, Memphis, New
-Orleans, and Louisville men were as thick as flies on the spot. When I
-wired the news in the firm did a clog-dance in the office, and they were
-all at the train to meet me, with plug-hats on, and raised sand
-generally. Old Creighton drew me off to one side and wanted to know how
-I did it. I told him it was just a trick of mine, and tried to let it go
-at that, but he pushed me close, and I finally told him the truth. It
-came about over a game of poker I was playing with the head of the new
-firm. If I lost I was to pay him a hundred dollars. If he lost I was to
-get the order. He lost. I think I learned that 'palming' trick from
-you."
-
-Langdon laughed impulsively as he lighted the drummer's cigar. "And what
-did the old man say to that?" he inquired.
-
-"It almost floored him." Masters smiled. "He laid his hand on my
-shoulder. His face was as serious as I've seen it when he was praying in
-the amen corner at church, but the old duck's eyes were blazing. 'Fred,'
-he said, 'I want you to promise me to let that one thing alone--but,
-good gracious, if Memphis had sold that bill it would have hurt us
-awfully!'"
-
-"You were always fond of the girls," Chester remarked as he smoked.
-"Well, out here in the country is no place for them."
-
-"No place for them! Huh, that's _your_ idea, is it? Well, let me tell
-you, Chester, I saw on the road as I came on just now simply the
-prettiest, daintiest, and most graceful creature I ever laid my eyes on.
-I've seen them all, too, and, by George, she simply took the rag off the
-bush. Slender, beautifully formed, willowy, small feet and hands, high
-instep, big, dreamy eyes, and light-brown hair touched with gold. She
-came out of a farm-house, walking like a young queen, about half a mile
-back. I made Ike drive slowly and tried to get her to look at me, but
-she only raised her eyes once."
-
-"Virginia Hemingway," Chester said, coldly. "Yes, she's pretty. There's
-no doubt about that."
-
-"You know her, then?" said the drummer, eagerly. "Say, old man,
-introduce a fellow."
-
-Chester's face hardened. The light of cordiality died out of his eyes.
-There was a significant twitching of his lips round his cigar. "I really
-don't see how I could," he said, after an awkward pause, during which
-his eyes were averted. "You see, Masters, she's quite young, and it
-happens that her mother--a lonely old widow--is rather suspicious of men
-in general, and I seem to have displeased her in some way. You see, all
-these folks, as a rule, go regularly to meeting, and as I don't go
-often, why--"
-
-"Oh, I see," the drummer said. "But let me tell you, old chap,
-suspicious mother or what not, I'd see something of that little beauty
-if I lived here. Gee whiz! she'd make a Fifth Avenue dress and Easter
-hat ashamed of themselves anywhere but on her. Look here, Chester, I've
-always had a sneaking idea that sooner or later I'd be hit deep at first
-sight by some woman, and I'll be hanged if I know but what that's the
-matter with me right now. I've seen so many women, first and last, here
-and there, always in the giddy set, that I reckon if I ever marry I'd
-rather risk some pure-minded little country girl. Do you know, town
-girls simply know too much to be interesting. By George, I simply feel
-like I'd be perfectly happy with a little wife like the girl I saw this
-morning. I wish you could fix it so I could meet her this trip, or my
-next."
-
-"I--I simply can't do it, Masters." There was a rising flush of vexation
-in the young planter's face as he knocked the ashes from his cigar into
-a nail-keg on the floor. "I don't know her well enough, in the first
-place, and then, in the next, as I said, her mother is awfully narrow
-and particular. She scarcely allows the girl out of sight; if you once
-saw old Jane Hemingway you'd not fancy making love before her eyes."
-
-"Well, I reckon Wilson knows the girl, doesn't he?" the drummer said.
-
-Chester hesitated, a cold, steady gleam of the displeasure he was trying
-to hide flashed in his eyes.
-
-"I don't know that he knows her well enough for _that_," he replied.
-"The people round here think I'm tough enough, but you drummers--huh!
-some of them look on you as the very advance agents of destruction."
-
-"That's a fact," Masters sighed, "the profession is getting a black eye
-in the rural districts. They think we are as bad as show people. By
-George, there she is now!"
-
-"Yes, that's her," and the young planter glanced towards the front
-doorway through which Virginia Hemingway was entering. So fixed was the
-drummer's admiring gaze upon the pretty creature, that he failed to
-notice that his companion had quietly slipped towards the rear of the
-store. Chester stood for a moment in the back doorway, and then stepped
-down outside and made his way into the wood near by. The drummer
-sauntered behind the counter towards the front, till he was near the
-show-case at which the girl was making her purchase, and there he stood,
-allowing the fire of his cigar to die out as he watched her, while
-Wilson was exhibiting to her a drawer full of thread for her to select
-from.
-
-"By all that's good and holy, she simply caps the stack!" Masters said
-to himself; "and to think that these galoots out here in the woods are
-not onto it. She'd set Peachtree Street on fire. I'm going to meet that
-girl if I have to put on old clothes and work for day wages in her
-mother's cornfield. Great goodness! here I am, a hardened ladies' man,
-feeling cold from head to foot on a hot day like this. I'm hit, by
-George, I'm hit! Freddy, old boy, this is the thing you read about in
-books. I wonder if--"
-
-But she was gone. She had tripped out into the sunshine. He saw the
-yellow light fall on her abundant hair and turn it into a blaze of gold.
-As if dreaming, he went to the door and stood looking after her as she
-moved away on the dusty road.
-
-"I see you are killing time." It was George Wilson at his elbow. "I'll
-be through here and with you in a minute. My crowd is thinning out now.
-That's the way it comes--all in a rush; like a mill-dam broke loose."
-
-"Oh, I'm in no hurry, Wilson," said Masters, his gaze bent upon the
-bushes behind which Virginia had just disappeared. "Say, now, old man,
-don't say you won't do it; the fact is, I want to be introduced to that
-girl--the little daisy you sold the thread to. By glory, she is the
-prettiest little thing I ever saw."
-
-"Virginia Hemingway!" said the store-keeper. "Yes, she's a regular
-beauty, and the gentlest, sweetest little trick in seven states. Well,
-Masters, I'll be straight with you. It's this way. You see, she really
-_is_ full grown, and old enough to receive company, I reckon, but her
-mother, the old woman I told you about who hates Ann Boyd so
-thoroughly--well, she doesn't seem to realize that Virginia is coming
-on, and so she won't consent to any of the boys going near her. But old
-Jane can't make nature over. Girls will be girls, and if you put too
-tight a rein on them they will learn to slip the halter, or some chap
-will teach them to take the bit in their teeth."
-
-A man came to Wilson holding a sample of syrup on a piece of
-wrapping-paper, to which he had applied his tongue. "What's this here
-brand worth?" he asked.
-
-"Sixty-five--best golden drip," was Wilson's reply. "Fill your jug
-yourself; I'll take your word for it."
-
-"All right, you make a ticket of it--jug holds two gallons," said the
-customer, and he turned away.
-
-"Say, Wilson, just a minute," cried the drummer; "do you mean that
-she--"
-
-"Oh, look here now," said the store-keeper. "I don't mean any reflection
-against that sweet girl, but it has become a sort of established habit
-among girls here in the mountains, when their folks hold them down too
-much, for them to meet fellows on the sly, out walking and the like.
-Virginia, as I started to say, is full of natural life. She knows she's
-pretty, and she wouldn't be a woman if she didn't want to be told
-so--though, to be so good-looking, she is really the most sensible girl
-I know."
-
-"You mean she has her fancies, then," said Masters, in a tone of
-disappointment.
-
-"I don't say she has." Wilson had an uneasy glance on a group of women
-bending over some bolts of calico, one of whom was chewing a sample
-clipped from a piece to see if it would fade. "But--between me and you
-now--Langdon Chester has for the last three months been laying for her.
-I see he's slipped away; I'd bet my hat he saw her just now, and has
-made a break for some point on the road where he can speak to her."
-
-"Chester? Why, the rascal pretended to me just now that he hardly knew
-her."
-
-Wilson smiled knowingly. "That's his way. He is as sly as they make 'em.
-His daddy was before him. When it comes to dealing with women who strike
-their fancy they know exactly what they are doing. But Langdon has
-struck flint-rock in that little girl. He, no doubt, is flirting with
-all his might, but she'll have him on his knees before he's through with
-it. A pair of eyes like hers would burn up every mean thought in a man."
-
-The drummer sighed, a deep frown on his brow. "You don't know him as
-well as I do," he said. "I knew him at college. George, that little
-trick ought not to be under such a fellow's influence I'm just a
-travelling man, but--well--"
-
-"Well, what are you going to do about it--even if there _is_ any
-danger?" said Wilson. "Get a drink in him, and Langdon, like his father,
-will fight at the drop of a hat. Conscience? He hasn't any. I sometimes
-wonder why the Almighty made them like they are, and other men so
-different, for it is only the men who are not bothered by conscience
-that have any fun in this life. One of the Chesters could drive a
-light-hearted woman to suicide and sleep like a log the night she was
-buried. Haven't I heard the old man laugh about Ann Boyd, and all she's
-been through? Huh! But I'm not afraid of that little girl's fate. She
-will take care of herself, and don't you forget it."
-
-"Well, I'm sorry for her," said Masters, "and I'm going to try to meet
-her. I'm tough, George--I'll play a game of cards and bet on a horse,
-and say light things to a pretty girl when she throws down the bars--but
-I draw the line at downright rascality. Once in a while I think of home
-and my own folks."
-
-"Now you are a-talking." And Wilson hurried away to a woman who sat in a
-chair holding a bolt of calico in her arms, as if it were her first-born
-child and the other women were open kidnappers.
-
-Masters stood motionless in the doorway, his eyes on the dusty road that
-stretched on towards Jane Hemingway's house.
-
-"Yes, she's in bad, _bad_ hands," he said; "and she is the first--I
-really believe she's the first that ever hit me this hard."
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-
-At dusk that day Ann Boyd went out to search for a missing cow. She
-crossed the greater part of her stretch of meadow-land in the foggy
-shadows, and finally found the animal mired to the knees in a black bog
-hidden from view by the high growth of bulrushes. Then came the task of
-releasing the patient creature, and Ann carried rails from the nearest
-fence, placing them in such a way that the cow finally secured a
-substantial footing and gladly sped homeward to her imprisoned calf.
-Then, to escape the labor of again passing through the clinging vines
-and high grass of the marsh, Ann took the nearest way to the main road
-leading from the store on to Jane Hemingway's cottage. She had just
-reached the little meeting-house, and a hot flush of anger at the memory
-of the insult passed upon her there was surging over her, when,
-happening to glance towards the graveyard in the rear of the building,
-she saw Virginia Hemingway and Langdon Chester, quite with the air of
-lovers, slowly walking homeward along a path which, if more rugged, led
-more directly towards the girl's home. Ann Boyd started and then stared;
-she could hardly credit the evidence of her sight--Virginia Hemingway
-and the scapegrace son of that man, of all men, together!
-
-"Ah, ha!" she exclaimed, under her breath, and, falling back into the
-bushes which bordered the roadside, she stood tingling from head to foot
-with a new and unexpected sensation, her eager eyes on the loitering
-pair. "So _that's_ it, is it? The young scamp has picked _her_ out,
-devil that he is by blood and birth. Well, I might have known it. Who
-could know better than me what a new generation of that cursed stock
-would be up to? Right now he's the living image of what his father was
-at the same age. He's lying to her, too, with tongue, eyes, voice, and
-very bend of body. Great God, isn't she pretty? I never, in my best day,
-saw the minute that I could have held a candle to her, and yet they all
-said--but that makes no difference. I wonder why I never thought before
-that he'd pick her out. As much as I hate her mammy, and her, too, I
-must acknowledge she's sweet-looking. She's pure-minded, too--as pure of
-thought as I was away back there when I wore my hair in a plait. But
-that man will crush your purity, you little, blind kitten, crush it like
-a fresh violet under a horse's hoof; _he'll_ teach you what life is.
-That's the business the Chesters are good at. But, look! I do believe
-she's holding off from him." Ann crept onward through the bushes to keep
-pace with the couple, now and then stretching her neck or rising to her
-full height on tiptoe.
-
-"He hasn't been on her track very long," she mused, "but he has won the
-biggest part of his battle--he's got her to meet him privately. A sight
-of this would lay her old mammy out stiff as a board, but she'll be kept
-in the dark. That scamp will see to that part of the affair. But she'll
-know in the end. Somebody will tell her the truth. Maybe the girl will
-herself, when the awful, lonely pinch comes and there is no other friend
-in sight. _Then_, Jane Hemingway, it will all come home to you. Then
-you'll look back on the long, blood-hound hunt you've given another
-woman in the same plight. The Almighty is doing it. He's working it out
-for Jane Hemingway's life-portion. The girl is the very apple of her
-eye; she has often said she was the image of herself, and that, as her
-own marriage and life had come to nothing, she was going to see to it
-that her only child's path was strewn with roses. Well, Langdon Chester
-is strewing the roses thick enough. Ha, ha, ha!" the peering woman
-chuckled. "Jane can come along an' pick 'em up when they are withered
-and crumble like powder at the slightest touch. Now I really will have
-something to occupy me. I'll watch this thing take root, and bud, and
-leave, and bloom, and die. Maybe I'll be the first to carry the news to
-headquarters. I'd love it more than anything this life could give me.
-I'd like to shake the truth in Jane Hemingway's old, blinking eyes and
-see her unable to believe it. I'd like to stand shaking it in her teeth
-till she knew it was so, and then I honestly believe I'd fall right down
-in front of her and roll over and over laughing. To think that I, maybe
-_I_ will be able to flaunt the very thing in her face that she has all
-these years held over me--the very thing, even to its being a son of the
-very scoundrel that actually bent over the cradle of my girlhood and
-blinded me with the lies that lit up his face."
-
-A few yards away the pair had paused. Chester had taken the girl's hand
-and was gently stroking it as it lay restlessly in his big palm. For a
-moment Ann lost sight of them, for she was stealthily creeping behind
-the low, hanging boughs of the bushes to get nearer. She found herself
-presently behind a big bowlder. She no longer saw the couple, but could
-hear their voices quite distinctly.
-
-"You won't even let me hold your hand," she heard him say. "You make me
-miserable, Virginia. When I am at home alone, I get to thinking over
-your coldness and indifference, and it nearly drives me crazy. Why did
-you jerk your hand away so quickly just now?"
-
-"I don't see what you were talking to a drummer about me for, in a
-public place like that," the girl answered, in pouting tones.
-
-"Why, it was this way, Virginia--now don't be silly!" protested Chester.
-"You see, this Masters and I were at college together, and rather
-intimate, and down at the store we were standing talking when you came
-in the front to buy something. He said he thought you were really the
-prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he was begging me to introduce him
-to you."
-
-"Introduce him!" Virginia snapped. "I don't want to know him. And so you
-stood there talking about me!"
-
-"It was only a minute, Virginia, and I couldn't help it," Chester
-declared. "I didn't think you'd care to know him, but I had to treat him
-decently. I told him how particular your mother was, and that I couldn't
-manage it. Oh, he's simply daft about you. He passed you on the road
-this morning, and hasn't been able to talk about anything since. But who
-could blame him, Virginia? You can form no idea of how pretty you are in
-the eyes of other people. Frankly, in a big gathering of women you'd
-create a sensation. You've got what every society woman in the country
-would die to have, perfect beauty of face and form, and the most
-remarkable part about it is your absolute unconsciousness of it all.
-I've seen good-looking women in the best sets in Augusta and Savannah
-and Atlanta, but they all seem to be actually making up before your very
-eyes. Do you know, it actually makes me sick to see a woman all rigged
-out in a satin gown so stiff that it looks like she's encased in some
-metallic painted thing that moves on rollers. It's beauty unadorned that
-you've got, and it's the real thing."
-
-"I don't want to talk about myself eternally," said Virginia, rather
-sharply, the eavesdropper thought, "and I don't see why you seem to
-think I do. When you are sensible and talk to me about what we have both
-read and thought, I like you better."
-
-"Oh, you want me to be a sort of Luke King, who put all sorts of fancies
-in your head when you were too young to know what they meant. You'd
-better let those dreams alone, Virginia, and get down to everyday facts.
-My love for you is a reality. It's a big force in my life. I find myself
-thinking about you and your coldness from early morning till late at
-night. Last Monday you were to come to the Henry Spring, and I was there
-long before the time, and stayed in agony of suspense for four hours,
-but I had my walk for nothing."
-
-"I couldn't come," Ann Boyd heard the sweet voice say. "Mother gave me
-some work to do, and I had no excuse; besides, I don't like to deceive
-her. She's harsh and severe, but I don't like to do anything she would
-disapprove of."
-
-"You don't really care much for me," said Langdon--"that is the whole
-thing in a nutshell."
-
-Virginia was silent, and Ann Boyd bit her lip and clinched her hands
-tightly. The very words and tone of enforced reproach came back to her
-across the rolling surf of time. She was for a moment lost in
-retrospection. The young girl behind the bushes seemed suddenly to be
-herself, her companion the dashing young Preston Chester, the prince of
-planters and slave-holders. Langdon's insistent voice brought back the
-present.
-
-"You don't care for me, you know you don't," he was saying. "You were
-simply born with all your beauty and sweetness to drag me down to
-despair. You make me desperate with your maddening reserve and icy
-coldness, when all this hot fire is raging in me."
-
-"That's what makes me afraid of you," Virginia said, softly. "I admit I
-like to be with you, my life is so lonely, but you always say such
-extravagant things and want to--to catch hold of me, and kiss me, and--"
-
-"Well, how can I help myself, when you are what you are?" Chester
-exclaimed, with a laugh. "I don't want to act a lie to you, and stand
-and court you like a long-faced Methodist parson, who begins and ends
-his love-making with prayer. Life is too beautiful and lovely to turn it
-into a funeral service from beginning to end. Let's be happy, little
-girl; let's laugh and be merry and thank our stars we are alive."
-
-"I won't thank my stars if I don't go on home." And Virginia laughed
-sweetly for the first time.
-
-"Yes, I suppose we had better walk on," Langdon admitted, "but I'm not
-going out into the open road with you till I've had that kiss. No, you
-needn't pull away, dear--I'm going to have it."
-
-The grim eavesdropper heard Virginia sharply protesting; there was a
-struggle, a tiny, smothered scream, and then something waked in the
-breast of Ann Boyd that lifted her above her sordid self. It was the
-enraged impulse to dart forward and with her strong, toil-hardened hands
-clutch the young man by the throat and drag him down to the ground and
-hold him there till the flames she knew so well had gone out of his
-face. Something like a prayer sprang to her lips--a prayer for help, and
-then, in a flush of shame, the slow-gained habit of years came back to
-her; she was taking another view--this time down a darkened vista.
-
-"It's no business of mine," she muttered. "It's only the way things are
-evened up. After all, where would be the justice in one woman suffering
-from a thing for a lifetime and another going scot free, and that one,
-too, the daughter of the one person that has deliberately made a life
-miserable? No, siree! My pretty child, take care of yourself, I'm not
-your mother. If she would let me alone for one minute, maybe her eyes
-would be open to her own interests."
-
-Laughing pleasantly over having obtained his kiss by sheer force,
-Langdon, holding Virginia's reluctant hand, led her out into an open
-space, and the watcher caught a plain view of the girl's profile, and
-the sight twisted her thoughts into quite another channel. For a moment
-she stood as if rooted to the ground behind the bushes which had
-shielded her. "That girl is going to be a hard one to fool," she
-muttered. "I can see that from her high forehead and firm chin. Now, it
-really _would_ be a joke on me if--if Jane Hemingway's offspring was to
-avoid the pitfall I fell into, with all the head I've got. Then, I
-reckon, Jane _could_ talk; that, I reckon, would prove her right in so
-bitterly denouncing me; but will the girl stand the pressure? If she
-intends to, she's made a bad beginning. Meeting a chap like that on the
-sly isn't the best way to be rid of him, nor that kiss; which she let
-him have without a scratch or loss of a hair on his side, is another bad
-indication. Well, the game's on. Me 'n' Jane is on the track neck to
-neck with the wire and bandstand ahead. If the angels are watching this
-sport, them in the highest seats may shed tears, but it will be fun to
-the other sort. I'm reckless. I don't much care which side I amuse; the
-whole thing come up of its own accord, and the Lord of Creation hasn't
-done as much for my spiritual condition as the Prince of Darkness. I may
-be a she-devil, but I was made one by circumstances as naturally as a
-foul weed is made to grow high and strong by the manure around its root.
-And yet, I reckon, there must be _some_ dregs of good left in my cup,
-for I felt like strangling that scamp a minute ago. But that may have
-been because I forgot and thought he was his daddy, and the girl was me
-on the brink of that chasm twenty years wide and deeper than the mystery
-of the grave of mankind. I don't know much, but I know I'm going to
-fight Jane Hemingway as long as I live. I know I'm going to do that, for
-I know she will keep her nose to my trail, and I wouldn't be human if I
-didn't hit back."
-
-The lovers had moved on; their voices were growing faint in the shadowy
-distance. The gray dusk had fallen in almost palpable folds over the
-landscape. The nearest mountain was lost like the sight of land at sea.
-She walked on to her cow that was standing bellowing to her calf in the
-stable-lot. Laying her hand on the animal's back, Ann said: "I'm not
-going to milch you to-night, Sooky; I'm going to let your baby have all
-he wants if it fills him till he can't walk. I'm going to be better to
-you--you poor, dumb brute--than I am to Jane Hemingway."
-
-Lowering the time-worn and smooth bars, she let the cow in to her young,
-and then, closing the opening, she went into her kitchen and sat down
-before the fire and pushed out her water-soaked feet to the flames to
-dry them.
-
-In an iron pot having an ash-covered lid was a piece of corn-pone
-stamped with the imprint of her fingers, and on some smouldering coals
-was a skillet containing some curled strips of fried bacon. These things
-Ann put upon a tin plate, and, holding it in her lap, she began to eat
-her supper. She was normal and healthy, and therefore her excitement had
-not subdued her appetite. She ate as with hearty enjoyment, her mind
-busy with what she had heard and seen.
-
-"Ah, old lady!" she chuckled, "you can laugh fit to split your sides
-when a loud-mouthed preacher talks in public about burning benches, but
-your laugh is likely to come back in an echo as hollow as a voice from
-the grave. If this thing ends as I want it to end, I'll be with you,
-Jane, as you've managed to be with me all these years."
-
-Till far in the night Ann sat nursing her new treasure and viewing it in
-all its possible forms, till, growing drowsy, from a long day of
-fatigue, she undressed herself, and, putting on a dingy gray night-gown,
-she crept into her big feather-bed.
-
-"It all depends on the girl," was her last reflection before sleep bore
-her off. "She isn't a bit stronger than I was at about the same age, and
-I'll bet the Chester power isn't a whit weaker than it was. Well, time
-will tell."
-
-Late in the night she was waked by a strange dream, and, to throw it out
-of mind, she rose and walked out into the entry and took a drink of
-water from the gourd. She had dreamed that Virginia had come to her
-bedraggled and torn, and had cried on her shoulder, and begged her for
-help and protection. In the dream she had pressed the girl's tear-wet
-face against her own and kissed her, and said: "I know what you feel, my
-child, for I've been through it from end to end; but if the whole world
-turns against you, come here to me and we'll live together--the young
-and old of the queerest fate known to womankind."
-
-"Ugh!" Ann ejaculated, with a shudder. "I wonder what's the matter with
-me." She went back to bed, lay down and drew her feet up under the
-sheets and shuddered. "To think I'd have a dream of that sort, and about
-_that woman's_ child!"
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-
-It was the first Sunday in June. Mrs. Waycroft came along the stony
-hill-side road that slanted gently down from her house to Ann Boyd's. It
-was a dry, breezeless morning under an unclouded sun, and but for the
-earliness of the hour it would have been hot.
-
-"I was just wondering," she said to Ann, whom she found in the back-yard
-lowering a pail of butter into the well to keep it cool--"I was just
-wondering if you'd heard that a new man is to preach to-day. He's a Mr.
-Calhoun, from Marietta, a pretty good talker, I've heard."
-
-"No, I didn't know it," said Ann, as she let the hemp rope slowly glide
-through her fingers, till, with a soft sound, the pail struck the dark
-surface of the water forty feet below. "How am I to hear such things?
-Through the whole week, unless you happen along, I only have a pack of
-negroes about me, and they have their own meetings and shindigs to go
-to."
-
-Mrs. Waycroft put her hand on the smooth, wooden windlass and peered
-down into the well. "This is a better place, Ann, to keep milk and
-butter cool than a spring-house, if you can just make folks careful
-about letting the bucket down. I got my well filled with milk from a
-busted jug once, when one of the hands, in a big hurry, pushed the
-bucket in and let it fall to the water."
-
-"Nobody draws water here but me," said Ann. She had fixed her friend
-with a steady, penetrating stare. She was silent for a moment, then she
-said, abruptly: "You've got something else to say besides that about the
-new preacher; I have got so I read you like a book. I watched you coming
-along the road. I could see you over the roof of the house when you was
-high up in the edge of the timber, and I knew by your step you had
-something unusual on your mind. Besides, you know good and well that I'd
-never darken the door of that house again, not if forty new preachers
-held forth there. No, you didn't come all the way here so early for
-that."
-
-The other woman smiled sheepishly under her gingham bonnet.
-
-"I'm not going to meeting myself," she said, "and I reckon I was just
-talking to hear myself run on. I'm that away, you know."
-
-"You might learn not to beat the Old Nick around a stump with a woman
-like me," said Ann, firmly. "You know I go straight at a thing. I've
-found that it pays in business and everything else."
-
-"Well, then, I've come to tell you that I'm going over to Gilmer
-to-morrow to see my brother and his wife."
-
-"Ah, you say you are!" Ann showed surprise against her will. "Gilmer?"
-
-"Yes, you see, Ann, they've been after me for a long time, writing
-letters and sending word, so now that my crop is laid by I've not really
-got a good excuse to delay; seems like everything tends to pull me that
-way whether or no, for Pete McQuill is going over in the morning with an
-empty wagon, and, as he's coming back Thursday, why, it will just suit.
-I wouldn't want to stay longer than that."
-
-The two women stood staring at each other in silence for a moment, then
-Ann shrugged her powerful shoulders and averted her eyes.
-
-"That wasn't _all_ you come to say," she said, almost tremulously.
-
-"No, it wasn't, Ann; I admit it wasn't _all_--not quite all."
-
-There was another silence. Ann fastened the end of the rope to a strong
-nail driven in the wood-work about the well with firm, steady fingers,
-then she sighed deeply.
-
-"You see, Ann," Mrs. Waycroft gathered courage to say, "your husband and
-Nettie live about half a mile or three-quarters from brother's, and I
-didn't know but what you--I didn't know but what I might accidentally
-run across them."
-
-Ann's face was hard as stone. Her eyes, resting on the far-off blue
-mountains and foot-hills, flashed like spiritual fires. It was at such
-moments that the weaker woman feared her, and Mrs. Waycroft's glance was
-almost apologetic. However, Ann spoke first.
-
-"You may as well tell me, Mary Waycroft," she faltered, "exactly what
-you had in mind. I know you are a friend. You are a friend if there ever
-was one to a friendless woman. What was you thinking about? Don't be
-afraid to tell me. You could not hurt my feelings to save your life."
-
-"Well, then, I will be plain, Ann," returned the widow. "I have queer
-thoughts about you sometimes, and last night I laid awake longer than
-usual and got to thinking about the vast and good blessings I have had
-in my children, and from that I got to thinking about you and the only
-baby you ever had."
-
-"Huh! you needn't bother about _that_," said Ann, her lips quivering. "I
-reckon I don't need sympathy in that direction."
-
-"But I _did_ bother; I couldn't help it, Ann; for, you see, it seems to
-me that a misunderstanding is up between you and Nettie, anyway. She's a
-grown girl now, and I reckon she can hardly remember you; but I have
-heard, Ann, that she's never had the things a girl of her age naturally
-craves. She's got her beaus over there, too, so folks tell me, and wants
-to appear well; but Joe Boyd never was able to give her anything she
-needs. You see, Ann, I just sorter put myself in your place, as I laid
-there thinking, and it struck me that if I had as much substance as you
-have, and was as free to give to the needy as you are, that, even if the
-law _had_ turned my child over to another to provide for, that I'd love
-powerful to do more for it than he was able, showing to the girl, and
-everybody else, that the court didn't know what it was about. And, Ann,
-in that way I'd feel that I was doing my duty in spite of laws or narrow
-public opinion."
-
-Ann Boyd's features were working, a soft flush had come into her tanned
-cheeks, her hard mouth had become more flexible.
-
-"I've thought of that ten thousand times," she said, huskily, "but I
-have never seen the time I could quite come down to it. Mary, it's a
-sort of pride that I never can overcome. I feel peculiar about
-Net--about the girl, anyway. It seems to me like she died away back
-there in her baby-clothes, with her playthings--her big rag-doll and tin
-kitchen--and that I almost hate the strange, grown-up person she's
-become away off from me. As God is my Judge, Mary Waycroft, I believe I
-could meet her face to face and not feel--feel like she was any near kin
-of mine, I can't see no reason in this way of feeling. I know she had
-nothing to do with what took place, but she represents Joe Boyd's part
-of the thing, and she's lost her place in my heart. If she could have
-grown up here with me it would have been different, but--" Ann went no
-further. She stood looking over the landscape, her hand clutching her
-strong chin. There was an awkward silence. Some of Ann's chickens came
-up to her very skirt, chirping and springing open-mouthed to her kindly
-hand for food. She gently and absent-mindedly waved her apron up and
-down and drove them away.
-
-"I understand all that," said Mrs. Waycroft; "but I believe you feel
-that way just because you've got in the habit of it. I really believe
-you ought to let me"--the speaker caught her breath--"ought to just let
-me tell Nettie, when I see her, about what I know you to be at heart,
-away down under what the outside world thinks. And you ought to let me
-say that if her young heart yearns for anything her pa can't afford to
-buy, that I know you'd be glad, out of your bounty, to give it to her. I
-really believe it would open the girl's eyes and heart to you. I believe
-she'd not only accept your aid, but she'd be plumb happy over it, as any
-other girl in the same fix would be."
-
-"Do you think that, Mary? Do you think she'd take anything--a single
-thing from my hands?"
-
-"I do, Ann, as the Lord is my Creator, I do; any natural girl would be
-only too glad. Young women hungering for nice things to put on along
-with other girls ain't as particular as some hide-bound old people. Then
-I'll bet she didn't know what it was all about, anyway."
-
-There was a flush in Ann's strong neck and face to the very roots of her
-hair. She leaned against the windlass and folded her bare arms. "Between
-me and you, as intimate friends, Mary Waycroft, I'd rather actually load
-that girl down with things to have and wear than to have anything on the
-face of this earth. I'd get on the train myself and go clean to Atlanta
-and lay myself out. What she had to wear would be the talk of the
-country for miles around. I'd do it to give the lie to the court that
-said she'd be in better hands than in mine when she went away with Joe
-Boyd. Oh, I'd do it fast enough, but there's no way. She wouldn't
-propose it, nor I wouldn't for my life. I wouldn't run the risk of being
-refused; that would actually humble me to the dust. No, I couldn't risk
-that."
-
-"I believe, Ann, that I could do it for you in such a way that----"
-
-"No, nobody could do it; it isn't to be done!"
-
-"I started to say, Ann, that I believed I could kind o' hint around and
-find out how the land lies without using your name at all."
-
-Ann Boyd held her breath; her face became fixed in suspense. She leaned
-forward, her great eyes staring eagerly at her neighbor.
-
-"Do you think you could do that?" she asked, finally, after a lengthy
-pause. "Do you think you could do it without letting either of them know
-I was--was willing?"
-
-"Yes, I believe I could, and you may let it rest right here. You needn't
-either consent or refuse, Ann, but I'll be back here about twelve
-o'clock Thursday, and I'll tell you what takes place."
-
-"I'll leave the whole thing in your hands," said Ann, and she moved
-towards the rear door of her house. "Now"--and her tone was more joyful
-than it had been for years--"come in and sit down."
-
-"No, I can't; I must hurry on back home," said the visitor. "I must get
-ready to go; Pete wants to make an early start."
-
-"You know you'll have plenty of time all this evening to stuff things in
-that carpet-bag of yours." Ann laughed, and her friend remarked that it
-was the first smile and joke she had heard from Ann Boyd since their
-girlhood together.
-
-"Well, I will go in, then," said Mrs. Waycroft. "I love to see you the
-way you are now, Ann. It does my heart good."
-
-But the mood was gone. Ann was serious again. They sat in the
-sitting-room chatting till the people who had been to meeting began to
-return homeward along the dusty road. Among them, in Sam Hemingway's
-spring wagon, with its wabbling wheels and ragged oil-cloth top, were
-Jane and her daughter Virginia, neither of whom looked towards the
-cottage as they passed.
-
-"I see Virginia's got a new hat," commented Mrs. Waycroft. "Her mother
-raked and scraped to get it; her credit's none too good. I hear she's in
-debt up to her eyes. Every stick of timber and animal down to her litter
-of pigs--even the farm tools--is under mortgage to money-lenders that
-won't stand no foolishness when pay-day comes. I saw two of 'em, myself,
-looking over her crop the other day and shaking their heads at the sight
-of the puny corn and cotton this dry spell. But she'd have the hat for
-Virginia if it took the roof from over her head. Her very soul's bound
-up in that girl. Looks like she thinks Virginia's better clay than
-common folks. They say she won't let her go with the Halcomb girls
-because their aunt had that talk about her."
-
-"She's no better nor no worse, I reckon," said Ann, "than the general
-run of girls."
-
-"There goes Langdon Chester on his prancing horse," said Mrs. Waycroft.
-"Oh, my! that _was_ a bow! He took off his hat to Virginia and bent
-clean down to his horse's mane. If she'd been a queen he couldn't have
-been more gallant. For all the world, like his father used to be to high
-and low. I'll bet that tickled Jane. I can see her rear herself back,
-even from here. I wonder if she's fool enough to think, rascal as he is,
-that Langdon Chester would want to marry a girl like Virginia just for
-her good looks."
-
-"No, he'll never marry her," Ann said, positively, and her face was
-hard, her eyes set in a queer stare at her neighbor. "He isn't the
-marrying sort. If he ever marries, he'll do it to feather his nest."
-
-The visitor rose to go, and Ann walked with her out to the gate. Mrs.
-Waycroft was wondering if she would, of her own accord, bring up the
-subject of their recent talk, but she did not. With her hand on the
-gate, she said, however, in a non-committal tone:
-
-"When did you say you'd be back?"
-
-"Thursday, at twelve o'clock, or thereabouts," was the ready reply.
-
-"Well, take good care of yourself," said Ann. "That will be a long, hot
-ride over a rough road there and back."
-
-Going into her kitchen, Ann, with her roughly shod foot, kicked some
-live embers on the hearth under the pot and kettle containing her
-dinner, bending to examine the boiling string-beans and hunch of salt
-pork.
-
-"I don't feel a bit like eating," she mused, "but I reckon my appetite
-will come after I calm down. Let's see now. I've got two whole days to
-wait before she gets back, and then the Lord above only knows what the
-news will be. Seems to me sorter like I'm on trial again. Nettie was too
-young to appear for or against me before, but now she's on the stand.
-Yes, she's the judge, jury, and all the rest put together. I almost wish
-I hadn't let Mary Waycroft see I was willing. It may make me look like a
-weak, begging fool, and that's something I've avoided all these years.
-But the game is worth the risk, humiliating as it may turn out. To be
-able to do something for my own flesh and blood would give me the first
-joy I've had in many a year. Lord, Lord, maybe she will consent, and
-then I'll get some good out of all the means I've been piling up. Homely
-as they say she is, I'd like to fairly load her down till her finery
-would be the talk of the county, and shiftless Joe Boyd 'ud blush to see
-her rustle out in public. Maybe--I say _maybe_--nobody really knows what
-a woman will do--but maybe she'll just up and declare to him that she's
-coming back to me, where other things will match her outfit. Come back!
-how odd!--come back here where she used to toddle about and play with
-her tricks and toys, on the floor and in the yard. That would be a
-glorious vindication, and then--I don't know, but maybe I'd learn to
-love her. I'm sure I'd feel grateful for it--even--even if it was my
-money and nothing else that brought her to me."
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-
-To Ann Boyd the period between Mrs. Waycroft's departure and return was
-long and fraught with conflicting emotions. Strange, half-defined new
-hopes fluttered into existence like young birds in air that was too
-chill, and this state of mind was succeeded by qualms of doubt and fear
-not unlike the misgivings which had preceded the child's birth; for it
-had been during that time of detachment from her little world that Ann's
-life secret had assumed its gravest and most threatening aspect. And if
-she had not loved the child quite as much after it came as might have
-seemed natural, she sometimes ascribed the shortcoming to that morbid
-period which had been filled with lurking shadows and constantly
-whispered threats rather than the assurances of a blessed maternity.
-
-Yes, the lone woman reflected, her kind neighbor had taken a reasonable
-view of the situation. And she tried valiantly to hold this pacifying
-thought over herself as she sat at her rattling and pounding loom, or in
-her walks of daily inspection over her fields and to her storage-houses,
-where her negro hands were at work. Yes, Nettie would naturally crave
-the benefits she could confer, and, to still darker promptings, Ann told
-herself, time after time, that, being plain-looking, the girl would all
-the more readily reach out for embellishments which would ameliorate
-that defect. Yes, it was not unlikely that she would want the things
-offered too much to heed the malicious and jealous advice of a shiftless
-father who thought only of his own pride and comfort. And while Ann was
-on this rack of disquietude over the outcome of Mrs. Waycroft's visit,
-there was in her heart a new and almost unusual absence of active hatred
-for the neighbors who had offended her. Old Abe Longley came by the
-second day after Mrs. Waycroft's departure. He was filled with the
-augmented venom of their last contact. His eyes flashed and the yellow
-tobacco-juice escaped from his mouth and trickled down his quivering
-chin as he informed her that he had secured from a good, law-abiding
-Christian woman the use of all the pasture-land he needed, and that she
-could keep hers for the devils' imps to play pranks on at night to her
-order. For just one instant her blood boiled, and then the thought of
-Mrs. Waycroft and her grave and spiritual mission cooled her from head
-to foot. She stared at the old man blankly for an instant, and then,
-without a word, turned into her house, leaving him astounded and
-considerably taken aback. That same day from her doorway she saw old
-Mrs. Bruce, Luke King's mother, slowly shambling along the road, and she
-went out and leaned on her gate till Mrs. Bruce was near, then she said,
-"Mrs. Bruce, I've got something to tell you."
-
-The pedestrian paused and then turned in her course and came closer.
-
-"You've heard from my boy?" she said, eagerly.
-
-"No, not since I saw you that day," said Ann. "But he's all right, Mrs.
-Bruce, as I told you, and prospering. I didn't come out to speak of him.
-I've decided to drop that law-suit against Gus Willard. He can keep his
-pond where it is and run his mill on."
-
-"Oh, you don't mean it, surely you don't mean it, Ann!" the old woman
-cried. "Why, Gus was just back from Darley last night and said your
-lawyers said thar was to be no hitch in the proceedings; but, of course,
-if _you_ say so, why--"
-
-"Well, I _do_ say so," said Ann, in a tone which sounded strange and
-compromising even to herself. "I _do_ say so; I don't want your husband
-to lose his job. Luke wouldn't like for you to suffer, either, Mrs.
-Bruce."
-
-"Then I'll go at once and tell Willard," said the older woman. "He'll be
-powerful glad, Ann, and maybe he will think as I do, an' as Luke always
-contended against everybody, that you had a lots o' good away down
-inside of you."
-
-"Tell him what you want to," Ann answered, and she returned to her
-house.
-
-On the morning she was expecting Mrs. Waycroft to return, Ann rose even
-before daybreak, lighting an abundant supply of pine kindling-wood to
-drive away the moist darkness, and bustling about the house to kill
-time. It was the greatest crisis of her rugged life; not even the day
-she was wedded to Joe Boyd could equal it in impending gravity. She was
-on trial for her life; the jury had been in retirement two days and
-nights carefully weighing the evidence for and against the probability
-of a simple, untutored country girl's acceptance of certain luxuries
-dear to a woman's heart, and would shortly render a verdict.
-
-"She will," Ann said once, as she put her ground coffee into the tin pot
-to boil on the coals--"she will if she's like the ordinary girl; she
-won't if she's as stubborn as Joe or as proud as I am. But if she
-does--oh! if she does, won't I love to pick out the things! She shall
-have the best in the land, and she can wear them and keep them in the
-log-cabin her father's giving her till she will be willing to come here
-to this comfortable house and take the best room for herself. I don't
-know that I'd ever feel natural with a strange young woman about, but
-I'd go through it. If she didn't want to stay all the time, I'd sell
-factory stock or town lots and give her the means to travel on. She
-could go out and see the world and improve like Luke King's done. I'd
-send her to school if she has the turn and isn't past the age. It would
-be a great vindication for me. Folks could say her shiftless father took
-her off when she was too young to decide for herself, but when she got
-old enough to know black from white, and right from wrong, she obeyed
-her heart's promptings. But what am I thinking about, when right at this
-minute she may--?" Ann shrugged her shoulders as she turned from the
-cheerful fire and looked out on her fields enfolded in the misty robe of
-early morning. Above the dun mountain in the east the sky was growing
-yellow. Ann suddenly grew despondent and heaved a deep sigh.
-
-"Even if she _did_ come here in the end, and I tried to do all I could,"
-she mused, "Jane Hemingway would begin on her and make it unpleasant.
-She'd manage to keep all civilization away from the girl, and nobody
-couldn't stand that. No, I reckon the jig's up with me. I'm only
-floundering in a frying-pan that will cook me to a cinder in the end.
-This life's given me the power of making money, but it's yellow dross,
-and I hate it. It isn't the means to any end for me
-unless--unless--unless my dau--unless she _does_ take Mrs. Waycroft's
-offer. Yes, she may--the girl actually may! And in that case she and I
-could run away from Jane Hemingway--clean off to some new place."
-
-Ann turned back to the fireplace and filled her big delft cup to the
-brim with strong coffee, and, blowing upon it to cool it, she gulped it
-down.
-
-"Let's see"--her musings ran on apace--"milching the three cows and
-feeding the cattle and horses and pigs and chickens will take an hour. I
-could stretch it out to that by mixing the feed-stuff for to-morrow.
-Then I could go to the loom and weave up all my yarn; that would be
-another hour. Then I might walk down to the sugar-mill and see if they
-are getting it fixed for use when the sorgum's ripe, but all that
-wouldn't throw it later than ten o'clock at latest, and there would
-still be two hours. Pete McQuill is easy on horses; he'll drive slow--a
-regular snail's pace; it will be twelve when he gets to the store, and
-then the fool may stop to buy something before he brings her on."
-
-The old-fashioned clock on the mantel-piece indicated that it was
-half-past eleven when Ann had done everything about the house and farm
-she could think of laying her hands to, and she was about to sit down in
-the shade of an apple-tree in the yard when she suddenly drew herself up
-under the inspiration of an idea. Why not start down the road to meet
-the wagon? No, that would not do. Even to such a close friend as Mrs.
-Waycroft she could not make such an obvious confession of the impatience
-which was devouring her. But, and she put the after-thought into action,
-she would go to the farthest corner of her own land, where her premises
-touched the main road, and that was fully half a mile. She walked to
-that point across her own fields rather than run the chance of meeting
-any one on the road, though the way over ploughed ground, bog, fen, and
-through riotous growth of thistle and clinging briers was anything but
-an easy one. Reaching the point to which she had directed her steps, and
-taking a hasty survey of the road leading gradually up the mountain, she
-leaned despondently on her rail-fence.
-
-"She won't, she won't--the girl won't!" she sighed. "I feel down in my
-heart of hearts that she won't. Joe Boyd won't let her; he'd see how
-ridiculous it would make him appear, and he'd die rather than give in,
-and yet Mary Waycroft knows something about human nature, and she
-said--Mary said--"
-
-Far up the road there was a rumble of wheels. Pete McQuill would let his
-horses go rapidly down-hill, and that, perhaps, was his wagon. It was.
-She recognized the gaunt, underfed white-and-bay pair through the trees
-on the mountain-side. Then Ann became all activity. She discovered that
-one of the rails of the panel of fence near by had quite rotted away,
-leaving an opening wide enough to admit of the passage of a small pig.
-To repair such a break she usually took a sound rail from some portion
-of the fence that was high enough to spare it, and this she now did, and
-was diligently at work when the wagon finally reached her. She did not
-look up, although she plainly heard Mrs. Waycroft's voice as she asked
-McQuill to stop.
-
-"You might as well let me out here," the widow said. "I'll walk back
-with Mrs. Boyd."
-
-The wagon was lumbering on its way when Ann turned her set face, down
-which drops of perspiration were rolling, towards her approaching
-friend.
-
-"You caught me hard at it." She tried to smile casually. "Do you know
-patching fence is the toughest work on a farm--harder 'n splitting
-rails, that men complain so much about."
-
-"It's a man's work, Ann, and a big, strong one's, too. You ought never
-to tax your strength like that. You don't mean to tell me you lifted
-that stack of rails to put in the new one."
-
-"Yes, but what's that?" Ann smiled. "I shouldered a
-hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of salt the other day, and it was as hard
-as a block of stone. I'm used to anything. But I'm through now. Let's
-walk on home and have a bite to eat."
-
-"You don't seem to care much whether--" Mrs. Waycroft paused and started
-again. "You haven't forgotten what I said I'd try to find out over
-there, have you, Ann?"
-
-"Me? Oh no, but I reckon I'm about pegged out with all I've done this
-morning. Don't I look tired?"
-
-"You don't looked tired--you look worried, Ann. I know you; you needn't
-try to hide your feelings from me. We are both women. When you are
-suffering the most you beat about the bush more than any other time.
-That's why this is going to be so hard for me."
-
-"It's going to be _hard_ for you, then?" Ann's impulsive voice sounded
-hollow; her face had suddenly grown pale. "I know what _that_ means. It
-means that Joe set his foot down against me and--"
-
-"I wish I could tell you all, every blessed word, Ann, but you've
-already had too much trouble in this life, and I feel like I was such a
-big, ignorant fool to get this thing up and make such a mess of it."
-
-Ann climbed over the fence and stood in the road beside her companion.
-Her face was twisted awry by some force bound up within her. She laid
-her big, toil-worn hand on Mrs. Waycroft's shoulder.
-
-"Now, looky here," she said, harshly. "I'm going to hear every word and
-know everything that took place. You must not leave out one single item.
-I've got the right to know it all, and I will. Now, you start in."
-
-"I hardly know how, Ann," the other woman faltered. "I didn't know folks
-in this world could have so little human pity or forgiveness."
-
-"You go ahead, do you hear me? You blaze away. I can stand under fire.
-I'm no kitten. Go ahead, I tell you."
-
-"Well, Ann, I met Joe and Nettie day before yesterday at bush-arbor
-meeting. Joe was there, and looked slouchier and more downhearted than
-he ever did in his life, and Nettie was there with the young man she is
-about to marry--a tall, serious-faced, parson-like young man, a Mr.
-Lawson. Well, after meeting, while he was off feeding his horse, I made
-a break and got the girl by herself. Well, Ann, from all I could gather,
-she--well, she didn't look at it favorably."
-
-"Stop!" Ann cried, peremptorily, "I don't want any shirking. I want to
-hear actually every word she said. This thing may never come up between
-you and me again while the sun shines, and I want the truth. You are not
-toting fair. I want the facts--_every word the girl said_, every look,
-every bat of the eye, every sneer. I'm prepared. You talk
-plain--_plain_, I tell you!"
-
-"I see I'll _have_ to," sighed Mrs. Waycroft, her eyes averted from the
-awful stare in Ann's eyes. "The truth is, Ann, Nettie's been thinking
-all her life, till just about a month ago, that you were--dead. Joe Boyd
-told her you was dead and buried, and got all the neighbors to keep the
-truth from her. It leaked out when she got engaged to young Lawson; his
-folks, Ann, they are as hide-bound and narrow as the worst hard-shell
-Baptists here--his folks raised objections and tried to break it off."
-
-"On account of me?" said Ann, under her breath.
-
-"Well, they tried to break it off," evaded Mrs. Waycroft, "and, in all
-the trouble over it, Nettie found out the facts--Joe finally told her.
-They say, Ann, that it brought her down to a sick-bed. She's a queer
-sort of selfish girl, that had always held her head too high, and the
-discovery went hard with her. Then, Ann, the meanest thing that was ever
-done by a human being took place. Jane Hemingway was over there visiting
-a preacher's wife she used to know, and she set in circulation the
-blackest lie that was ever afloat. Ann, she told over there that all
-your means--all the land and money you have made by hard toil, big
-brain, and saving--come to you underhand."
-
-"Underhand?" Ann exclaimed. "What did she mean by that, pray? What could
-the old she-cat mean by--"
-
-Mrs. Waycroft drew her sun-bonnet down over her eyes. She took a deep
-breath. "Ann, she's a _terrible_ woman. I used to think maybe you went
-too far in hating her so much, but I don't blame you now one bit. On the
-way over the mountain, I looked all the circumstances over, and actually
-made up my mind that you'd almost be justified in killing her, law or no
-law. Ann, she circulated a report over there that all you own in the
-world was given to you by Colonel Chester."
-
-"Ugh! Oh, my God!" Ann groaned like a strong man in sudden pain; and
-then, with her face hidden by her poke-bonnet, she trudged heavily along
-by her companion in total silence.
-
-"I've told you the worst now," Mrs. Waycroft said. "Nettie had heard all
-that, and so had Lawson. His folks finally agreed to raise no objections
-to the match if she'd never mention your name. Naturally, when I told
-her about what I thought _maybe_--you understand, _maybe_--you'd be
-willing to do she was actually scared. She cried pitifully, and begged
-me never to allow you to bother her. She said--I told you she looked
-like a selfish creature--that if the Lawsons were to find out that you'd
-been sending her messages it might spoil all. I told her it was all a
-lie of Jane Hemingway's making out of whole cloth, but the silly girl
-wouldn't listen. I thought she was going to have a spasm."
-
-They had reached the gate, and, with a firm, steady hand, Ann opened it
-and held it ajar for her guest to enter before her.
-
-They trudged along the gravel walk, bordered with uneven stones, to the
-porch and went in. On entering the house Ann always took off her bonnet.
-She seemed to forget its existence now.
-
-"Yes, I hate that woman," Mrs. Waycroft heard her mutter, "and if the
-Lord doesn't furnish me with some way of getting even I'll die a
-miserable death. I could willingly see her writhe on a bed of live
-coals. No hell could be hot enough for that woman." Ann paused suddenly
-at the door, and gazed across the green expanse towards Jane's house.
-Mrs. Waycroft heard her utter a sudden, harsh laugh. "And I think I see
-her punishment on the way. I see it--I see it!"
-
-"What is it you say you see?" the visitor asked, curiously.
-
-"Oh, nothing!" Ann said, and she sat down heavily in her chair and
-tightly locked her calloused hands in front of her.
-
-
-
-
-XI
-
-
-The continuous dry weather during the month of June had caused many
-springs and a few wells to become dry, and the women of that section
-found it difficult to get sufficient soft water for the washing of
-clothes. Mrs. Hemingway, whose own well was fed from a vein of limestone
-water too hard to be of much use in that way, remembered a certain
-rock-bottom pool in a shaded nook at the foot of the rugged hill back of
-her house where at all times of the year a quantity of soft, clear water
-was to be found; so thither, with a great bundle of household linen tied
-up in a sheet, she went one morning shortly after breakfast.
-
-Her secret ailment had not seemed to improve under the constant
-application of the peddler's medicine, and, as her doubts of ultimate
-recovery increased correspondingly, her strength seemed to wane. Hence
-she paused many times on the way to the pool to rest. Finally arriving
-at the spot and lowering her burden, she met a great and irritating
-surprise, for, bending over a tub at the edge of the pool, and quite in
-command of the only desirable space for the placing of tubs and the
-sunning of articles, was Ann Boyd. Their eyes met in a stare of
-indecision like that of two wild animals meeting in a forest, and there
-was a moment's preliminary silence. It was broken by an angry outburst
-from the new-comer. "Huh!" she grunted, "you here?"
-
-It was quickly echoed by a satisfied laugh from the depths of Ann's
-sun-bonnet. "You bet, old lady, I've beat you to the tank. You've toted
-your load here for nothing. You might go down-stream a few miles and
-find a hole good enough for your few dirty rags. I've used about all
-this up. It's getting too muddy to do any good, but I've got about all I
-want."
-
-"This land isn't yours," Jane Hemingway asserted, almost frothing at the
-mouth. "It belongs to Jim Sansom."
-
-"Jim may hold deeds to it," Ann laughed again, "but he's too poor to
-fence it in. I reckon it's public property, or you wouldn't have lugged
-that dirty load all the way through the broiling sun on that weak back
-of yours."
-
-Jane Hemingway stood panting over her big snowball. She had nothing to
-say. She could not find a use for her tongue. Through her long siege of
-underhand warfare against the woman at the tub she had wisely avoided a
-direct clash with Ann's eye, tongue, or muscle. She was more afraid of
-those things to-day than she had ever been. A chill of strange terror
-had gone through her, too, at the mention of her weak back. That the
-peddler had told Ann about the cancer she now felt was more likely than
-ever. Without a word, Jane bent to lift her bundle, but her enemy,
-dashing the water from her big, crinkled hands, had advanced towards
-her.
-
-"You just wait a minute," Ann said, sharply, her great eyes flashing,
-her hands resting on her stocky hips. "I've got something to say to you,
-and I'm glad to get this chance. What I've got to hurl in your
-death-marked face, Jane Hemingway, isn't for other ears. It's for your
-own rotting soul. Now, you listen!"
-
-Jane Hemingway gasped. "Death-marked face," the root of her paralyzed
-tongue seemed to articulate to the wolf-pack of fears within her. Her
-thin legs began to shake, and, to disguise the weakness from her
-antagonist's lynx eyes, she sank down upon her bundle. It yielded even
-to her slight weight, and her sharp knees rose to a level with her chin.
-
-"I don't want to talk to you," she managed to say, almost in a tone of
-appeal.
-
-"Oh, I know that, you trifling hussy, but I do to you, Jane Hemingway.
-I'm going to tell you what you are. You are worse than a thief--than a
-negro thief that steals corn from a crib at night, or meat from a
-smoke-house. You are a low-lived, plotting liar. For years you have
-railed out against my character. I was a bad woman because I admitted my
-one fault of girlhood, but you married a man and went to bed with him
-that you didn't love a speck. You did that to try to hide a real love
-for another man who was another woman's legal husband. Are you
-listening?--I say, are you _listening_?"
-
-"Yes, I'm listening," faltered Jane Hemingway, her face hidden under her
-bonnet.
-
-"Well, you'd better. When I had my first great trouble, God is witness
-to the fact that I thought I loved the young scamp who brought it about.
-I _thought_ I loved him, anyway. That's all the excuse I had for not
-listening to advice of older people. I wasn't old enough to know right
-from wrong, and, like lots of other young girls, I was bull-headed. My
-mother never was strict with me, and nobody else was interested in me
-enough to learn me self-protection. I've since then been through college
-in that line, and such low, snaky agents of hell as you are were my
-professors. No wonder you have hounded me all these years. You loved Joe
-Boyd with all the soul you had away back there, and you happened to be
-the sort that couldn't stand refusal. So when you met him that day on
-the road, and he told you he was on the way to ask me the twentieth time
-to be his wife, you followed him a mile and fell on his neck and
-threatened suicide, and begged and cried and screamed so that the
-wheat-cutting gang at Judmore's wondered if somebody's house was afire.
-But he told you a few things about what he thought of me, and they have
-rankled with you through your honeymoon with an unloved husband, through
-your period of childbirth, and now as you lean over your grave. Bad
-woman that you are, you married a man you had no respect for to hide
-your disappointment in another direction. You are decent in name only.
-Thank God, my own conscience is clear. I've been wronged all my life
-more than I ever wronged beast or man. I had trouble; but I did no wrong
-according to my dim lights. But you--you with one man's baby on your
-breast went on hounding the wife of another who had won what you
-couldn't get. You, I reckon, love Joe Boyd to this day, and will the
-rest of your life. I reckon you thought when he left me that he would
-marry you, but no man cares for a woman that cries after him. You even
-went over there to Gilmer a month or so ago to try to attract his
-attention with new finery bought on a credit, and you even made up to
-the daughter that was stolen from me, but I have it from good authority
-that neither one of them wanted to have anything to do with you."
-
-"There's not a bit of truth in that," said the weaker woman, in feeble
-self-defence. She would have said some of the things she was always
-saying to others but for fear that, driven further, the strong woman
-might actually resort to violence. No, there was nothing for Jane
-Hemingway to do but to listen.
-
-"Oh, I don't care what you deny," Ann hurled at her. "I know what I'm
-talking about." Then Ann's rage led her to say something which, in
-calmer mood, she would, for reasons of her own, not have even hinted at.
-"Look here, Jane," she went on, bending down and touching the shrinking
-shoulder of her enemy, "in all your life you never heard me accused of
-making false predictions. When I say a thing, folks know that I know
-what I'm talking about and look for it to happen. So now I say,
-positively, that I'm going to get even with you. Hell and all its
-inmates have been at your back for a score of years, but
-God--Providence, the law of nature, or whatever it is that rights
-wrong--is bound to prevail, and you are going to face a misfortune--a
-certain sort of misfortune--that I know all about. I reckon I'm making a
-fool of myself in preparing you for it, but I'm so glad it's coming that
-I've got to tell it to somebody. When the grim time comes I want you to
-remember that you brought it on yourself."
-
-Ann ceased speaking and stood all of a quiver before the crouching
-creature. Jane Hemingway's blood, at best sluggish of action, turned
-cold. With her face hidden by her bonnet, she sat staring at the ground.
-All her remaining strength seemed to have left her. She well knew what
-Ann meant. The peddler had told her secret--had even revealed more of
-the truth than he had to her. Discovering that Ann hated her, he had
-gone into grim and minute particulars over her affliction. He had told
-Ann the cancer was fatal, that the quack lotion he had sold would only
-keep the patient from using a better remedy or resorting to the
-surgeon's knife. In any case, her fate was sealed, else Ann would not be
-so positive about it.
-
-"I see I hit you all right that pop, madam!" Ann chuckled. "Well, you
-will wait the day in fear and trembling that is to be my sunrise of joy.
-Now, pick up your duds and go home. I want you out of my sight."
-
-Like a subject under hypnotic suggestion, Jane Hemingway, afraid of Ann,
-and yet more afraid of impending fate, rose to her feet. Ann had turned
-back to her tub and bent over it. Jane felt a feeble impulse to make
-some defiant retort, but could not rouse her bound tongue to action. In
-her helplessness and fear she hated her enemy more than ever before, but
-could find no adequate way of showing it. The sun had risen higher and
-its rays beat fiercely down on her thin back, as she managed to shoulder
-her bundle and move homeward.
-
-
-
-
-XII
-
-
-She had scarcely turned the bend in the path, and was barely out of
-Ann's view, when she had to lower her bundle and rest. Seated on a
-moss-grown stone near the dry bed of the stream which had fed Ann's pool
-before the drought, she found herself taking the most morbid view of her
-condition. The delicate roots of the livid growth on her breast seemed
-to be insidiously burrowing more deeply towards her heart than ever
-before. Ah, what a fool she had been at such a crisis to listen to an
-idle tramp, who had not only given her a stone when she had paid for
-bread, but had revealed her secret to the one person she had wished to
-keep it from! But she essayed to convince herself that all hope was not
-gone, and the very warning Ann had angrily uttered might be turned to
-advantage. She would now be open about her trouble, since Ann knew it,
-anyway, and perhaps medical skill might help her, even yet, to triumph.
-Under that faint inspiration she shouldered her burden and crept slowly
-homeward.
-
-Reaching her cottage, she dropped the ball of clothes at the door and
-went into the sitting-room, where Virginia sat complacently sewing at a
-window on the shaded side of the house. The girl had only a few moments
-before washed her long, luxuriant hair, and it hung loose and beautiful
-in the warm air. She was merrily singing a song, and hardly looked at
-her mother as she paused near her.
-
-"Hush, for God's sake, hush!" Jane groaned. "Don't you see I'm unable to
-stand?"
-
-In sheer astonishment Virginia turned her head and noticed her mother's
-pale, long-drawn face. "What is it, mother, are you sick?"
-
-By way of reply the old woman sank into one of the hide-bottomed chairs
-near the open doorway and groaned again. Quickly rising, and full of
-grave concern, the girl advanced to her. Standing over the bowed form,
-she looked out through the doorway and saw the bundle of clothes.
-
-"You don't mean to tell me, mother, that you have carried that load all
-about looking for water to wash in!" she exclaimed, aghast.
-
-"Yes, I took them to the rock-pool and back; but that ain't it," came
-from between Jane's scrawny hands, which were now spread over her face.
-"I am strong enough bodily, still, but I met Ann Boyd down there. She
-had all the place there was, and had muddied up the water. Virginia, she
-knows about that spot on my breast that the medicine peddler said was a
-cancer. She wormed it out of him. He told her more than he did me. He
-told her it would soon drag me to the grave. It's a great deal worse
-than it was before I began to rub his stuff on it. He's a quack. I was a
-fool not to go to a regular doctor right at the start."
-
-"You think, then, that it really _is_ a cancer?" gasped the girl, and
-she turned pale.
-
-"Yes, I have no doubt of it now, from the way it looks and from the way
-that woman gloated over me. She declared she knew all about it, and that
-nothing on earth had made her so glad. I want to see Dr. Evans. I wish
-you'd run over to his house and have him come."
-
-"But he's not a regular doctor," protested the girl, mildly. "They say
-he is not allowed to practise, and that he only uses remedies of his own
-making. The physicians at Darley were talking of having him arrested not
-long ago."
-
-"Oh, I know all that," Jane said, petulantly, "but that's because he
-cured one or two after they had been given up by licensed doctors. He
-knows a lots, and he will tell me, anyway, whether I've got a cancer or
-not. He knows what they are. He told Mrs. Hiram Snodgrass what her tumor
-was, and under his advice she went to Atlanta and had it cut out, and
-saved her life when two doctors was telling her it was nothing but a
-blood eruption that would pass off. You know he is good-hearted."
-
-With a troubled nod, Virginia admitted that this was true. Her sweet
-mouth was drawn down in pained concern, a stare of horror lay in her
-big, gentle eyes. "I'll go bring him," she promised. "I saw him pass
-with a bag of meal from the mill just now."
-
-"Well, tell him not to say anything about it," Jane cautioned her.
-"Evidently Ann Boyd has not talked about it much, and I don't want it to
-be all over the neighborhood. I despise pity. I'm not used to it. If it
-gets out, the tongues of these busy-bodies would run me stark crazy.
-They would roost here like a swarm of buzzards over a dying horse."
-
-Virginia returned in about half an hour, accompanied by a gray-headed
-and full-whiskered man of about seventy years of age, who had any other
-than the look of even a country doctor. He wore no coat, and his rough
-shirt was without button from his hairy neck to the waistband of his
-patched and baggy trousers. His fat hands were too much calloused by
-labor in the field and forest, and by digging for roots and herbs, to
-have felt the pulse of anything more delicate than an ox, and under less
-grave circumstances his assumed air of the regular visiting physician
-would have had its comic side.
-
-"Virginia tells me you are a little upset to-day," he said, easily,
-after he had gone to the water-bucket and taken a long, slow drink from
-the gourd. He sat down in a chair near the widow, and laid his straw hat
-upon the floor, from which it was promptly removed by Virginia to one of
-the beds. "Let me take a look at your tongue."
-
-"I'll do no such of a thing," retorted Jane, most flatly. "There is
-nothing wrong with my stomach. I am afraid I've got a cancer on my
-breast, and I want to make sure."
-
-"You don't say!" Evans exclaimed. "Well, it wouldn't surprise me. I see
-'em mighty often these days. Well, you'd better let me look at it. Stand
-thar in the door so I can get a good light. I'm wearing my wife's
-specks. I don't know whar I laid mine, but I hope I'll get 'em back. I
-only paid twenty-five cents for 'em in Darley, and yet three of my
-neighbors has taken such a liking to 'em that I've been offered as high
-as three dollars for 'em, and they are only steel rims and are sorter
-shackly at the hinges at that. Every time Gus Willard wants to write a
-letter he sends over for my specks and lays his aside. I reckon he
-thinks I'll get tired sendin' back for 'em and get me another pair. Now,
-that's right"--Mrs. Hemingway had taken a stand in one of the rear doors
-and unbuttoned her dress. Despite her stoicism, she found herself
-holding her breath in fear and suspense as to what his opinion would be.
-Virginia, pale and with a fainting sensation, sat on the edge of the
-nearest bed, her shapely hands tightly clasped in her lap. She saw Dr.
-Evans bend close to her mother's breast and touch and press the livid
-spot.
-
-"Do you feel that?" he asked.
-
-"Yes, and it hurts some when you do that."
-
-"How long have you had it thar?" he paused in his examination to ask,
-peering over the rims of his spectacles.
-
-"I noticed it first about a year ago, but thought nothing much about
-it," she answered.
-
-"And never showed it to nobody?" he said, reprovingly.
-
-"I let a peddler, who had stuff to sell, see it awhile back." There was
-a touch of shame in Jane's face. "He said his medicine would make it
-slough off, but--"
-
-"Slough nothing! That trifling skunk!" Evans cried. "Why, he's the
-biggest fake unhung! He sold that same stuff over the mountain to
-bald-headed men to make hair grow. Huh, I say! they talk about handling
-_me_ by law, and kicking _me_ out of the country on account of my
-knowledge and skill, and let chaps like him scour the country from end
-to end for its last cent. What the devil gets into you women? Here
-you've let this thing go on sinking its fangs deeper and deeper in your
-breast, and only fertilizing it by the treatment he was giving you. Are
-you hankering for a change of air? Thar was Mrs. Telworthy, that let her
-liver run on till she was as yaller as a pumpkin with jaundice before
-she'd come to me. I give 'er two bottles of my purifier, and she could
-eat a barbecued ox in a month."
-
-"What do you think I ought to do about this?" asked Jane; and Virginia,
-with strange qualms at heart, thought that her mother had put it that
-way to avoid asking if the worst was really to be faced.
-
-Evans stroked his bushy beard wisely. "Do about it?" he repeated, as he
-went back to his chair, leaving the patient to button her dress with
-stiff, fumbling fingers. "I mought put you on a course of my blood
-purifier and wait developments, and, Sister Hemingway, if I was like the
-regular run of doctors, with their own discoveries on the market, I'd do
-it in the interest of science, but I'm not going to take the resk on my
-shoulders. A man who gives domestic remedies like mine is on safe ground
-when he's treating ordinary diseases, but I reckon a medical board would
-decide that this was a case for a good, steady knife. Now, I reckon
-you'd better get on the train and take a run down to Atlanta and put
-yourself under Dr. Putnam, who is noted far and wide as the best cancer
-expert in the land."
-
-"Then--then that's what it is?" faltered Mrs. Hemingway.
-
-"Oh yes, that's what you've got, all right enough," said Evans, "and the
-thing now is to uproot it."
-
-"How--how much would it be likely to cost?" the widow asked, her
-troubled glance on Virginia's horror-stricken face.
-
-"That depends," mused Evans. "I've sent Putnam a number of cases, and he
-would, I think, make you a special widow-rate, being as you and me live
-so nigh each other. At a rough guess, I'd say that everything--board and
-room and nurse, treatment, medicines, and attention--would set you back
-a hundred dollars."
-
-"But where am I to get that much money?" Jane said, despondently.
-
-"Well, thar you have me," Evans laughed. "I reckon you know your
-resources better than anybody else, but you'll have to rake it up some
-way. You ain't ready to die yet. Callihan has a mortgage on your land,
-hain't he?"
-
-"Yes, and on my crop not yet gathered," Jane sighed; "he even included
-every old hoe and axe and piece of harness, and the cow and calf, and
-every chair and knife and fork and cracked plate in the house."
-
-"Well," and Evans rose and reached for his hat, "as I say, you'll have
-to get up the money; it will be the best investment you could make."
-
-When he had left, Virginia, horror-stricken, sat staring at her mother,
-a terrible fear in her face and eyes.
-
-"Then it really _is_ a cancer?" she gasped.
-
-"Yes, I was afraid it was all along," said Jane. "You see, the peddler
-said so plainly, and he told Ann Boyd about it. Virginia, she didn't
-know I knew how bad it was, for she hinted at some awful end that was to
-overtake me, as if it would be news to me. Daughter, I'm going to try my
-level best to throw this thing off. I always had a fear of death. My
-mother had before me; she was a Christian woman, and was prepared, if
-anybody was, and yet she died in agony. She laid in bed and begged for
-help with her last breath. But my case is worse than hers, for my one
-foe in this life is watching over me like a hawk. Oh, I can't stand it!
-You must help me study up some way to raise that money. If it was in
-sight, I'd feel better. Doctors can do wonders these days, and I'll go
-to that big one if I possibly can."
-
-
-
-
-XIII
-
-
-One afternoon, about a week later, as Ann Boyd sat in her weaving-room
-twisting bunches of carded wool into yarn on her old spinning-wheel, the
-whir of which on her busy days could be heard by persons passing along
-the road in front of her gate, a shadow fell on her floor, and, looking
-up, she saw a tall, handsome young man in the doorway, holding his hat
-in one hand, a valise in the other. He said nothing, but only stood
-smiling, as if in hearty enjoyment of the surprise he was giving her.
-
-"Luke King!" she exclaimed. "You, of all people on the face of the
-earth!"
-
-"Yes, Aunt Ann"--he had always addressed her in that way--"here I am,
-like a bad coin, always turning up."
-
-The yellow bunches of wool fell to the floor as she rose up and held out
-her hand.
-
-"You know I'm glad to see you, my boy," she said, "but I wasn't
-expecting you; I don't know as I ever looked for you to come back here
-again, where you've had such a hard time of it. When you wrote me you
-was the chief editor of a paying paper out there, I said to myself that
-you'd never care to work here in the mountains, where there is so little
-to be made by a brainy man."
-
-"If I were to tell you the main thing that brought me back you'd
-certainly scold me," he laughed; "but I never hid a fault from you, Aunt
-Ann. The truth is, good, old-fashioned home-sickness is at the bottom of
-it."
-
-"Homesickness, for _this_?" Ann sneered contemptuously, as she waved her
-hand broadly--"homesick for the hard bed you had at your step-father's,
-in a pine-pole cabin, with a mud chimney and windows without glass, when
-you've been the equal, out there, of the highest and best in the land,
-and among folks that could and would appreciate your talents and energy
-and were able to pay cash for it at the highest market-price?"
-
-"You don't understand, Aunt Ann." He flushed sensitively under her stare
-of disapproval as he sat down in a chair near her wheel. "Maybe you
-never did understand me thoroughly. I always had a big stock of
-sentiment that I couldn't entirely kill. Aunt Ann, all my life away has
-only made me love these old mountains, hills, and valleys more than
-ever, and, finally, when a good opportunity presented itself, as--"
-
-"Oh, you are just like the rest, after all. I'd hoped to the contrary,"
-Ann sighed. "But don't think I'm not glad to see you, Luke." Her voice
-shook slightly. "God knows I've prayed for a sight of the one face among
-all these here in the mountains that seemed to respect me, but there was
-another side to the matter. I wanted to feel, Luke, that I had done you
-some actual good in the world--that the education I helped you to get
-was going to lift you high above the average man. When you wrote about
-all your good-luck out there, the big salary, the interest the
-stockholders had given you in the paper that bid fair to make a pile of
-money, and stood so high in political influence, I was delighted; but,
-Luke, if a sentimental longing for these heartless red hills and their
-narrow, hide-bound inhabitants has caused you actually to throw up--"
-
-"Oh, it's really not so bad as that," King hastened to say. "The truth
-is--though I really _was_ trying to keep from bragging about my
-good-fortune before I'd had a chance to ask after your health--the truth
-is, Aunt Ann, it's business that really brings me back, though I confess
-it was partly for sentimental reasons that I decided on the change. It's
-this way: A company has been formed in Atlanta to run a daily paper on
-somewhat similar lines to the one we had in the West, and the promoters
-of it, it seems, have been watching my work, and that sort of thing, and
-so, only a few days ago, they wrote offering me a good salary to assume
-chief charge and management of the new paper. At first I declined, in a
-deliberate letter, but they wouldn't have it that way--they telegraphed
-me that they would not listen to a refusal, and offered me the same
-financial interest as the one I held."
-
-"Ah, they did, eh?" Ann's eye for business was gleaming. "They offered
-you as good as you had?"
-
-"Better, as it has turned out, Aunt Ann," said King, modestly, "for when
-my associates out there read the proposition, they said it was my duty
-to myself to accept, and with that they took my stock off my hands. They
-paid me ten thousand dollars in cash, Aunt Ann. I've got that much ready
-money and a position that is likely to be even better than the one I
-had. So, you see, all my home-sickness--"
-
-"Ten thousand dollars!" Ann cried, her strong face full of
-gratification. "Ten thousand dollars for my sturdy mountain-boy! Ah,
-that will open the eyes of some of these indolent know-it-all louts who
-said the money spent on your education was thrown in the fire. You are
-all right, Luke. I'm a judge of human stock as well as cattle and
-horses. If you'd been a light fellow you'd have dropped me when you
-began to rise out there; but you didn't. Your letters have been about
-the only solace I've had here in all my loneliness and strife, and here
-you are to see me as soon as you come--that is, I reckon, you haven't
-been here many days."
-
-"I got to Darley at two o'clock to-day," King smiled, affectionately. "I
-took the hack to Springtown and left my trunk there, to walk here. I
-haven't seen mother yet, Aunt Ann. I had to see you first."
-
-"You are a good boy, Luke," Ann said, with feeling, as was indicated by
-her husky voice and the softening of her features. "So you _are_ going
-to see your mother?"
-
-"Yes, I'm going to see her, Aunt Ann. For several years I have felt
-resentment about her marrying as she did, but, do you know, I think
-success and good-fortune make one forgiving. Somehow, with all my joy
-over my good-luck, I feel like I'd like to shake even lazy old Mark
-Bruce by the hand and tell him I am willing to let by-gones be by-gones.
-Then, if I could, I'd like to help him and my mother and step-brother
-and step-sisters in some material way."
-
-"Huh! I don't know about that," Ann frowned. "Help given to them sort is
-certainly throwed away; besides, what's yours is yours, and if you
-started in to distribute help you'll be ridden to death. No, go to see
-them if you _have_ to, but don't let them wheedle your justly earned
-money out of you. They don't deserve it, Luke."
-
-"Oh, well, we'll see about it," King laughed, lightly. "You know old
-Bruce may kick me out of the house, and if mother stood to him in it
-again"--King's eyes were flashing, his lip was drawn tight--"I guess I'd
-never go back any more, Aunt Ann."
-
-"Old Mark would never send you away if he thought you had money," Ann
-said, cynically. "If I was you I'd not let them know about that. You
-see, you could keep them in the dark easily enough, for I've told them
-absolutely nothing except that you were getting along fairly well."
-
-King smiled. "They never would think I had much to judge by this suit of
-clothes," he said. "It is an old knockabout rig I had to splash around
-in the mud in while out hunting, and I put it on this morning--well,
-just because I did not want to come back among all my poor relatives and
-friends dressed up as I have been doing in the city, Aunt Ann," he
-laughed, as if making sport of himself. "I've got a silk high-hat as
-slick as goose-grease, and a long jimswinger coat, and pants that are
-always ironed as sharp as a knife-blade in front. I took your advice and
-decided that a good appearance went a long way, but I don't really think
-I overdid it."
-
-"I'm glad you didn't put on style in coming back, anyway," Ann said,
-proudly. "It wouldn't have looked well in you; but you did right to
-dress like the best where you were, and it had something--a lots, I
-imagine--to do with your big success. If you want to go in and win in
-any undertaking, don't think failure for one minute, and the trouble is
-that shabby clothes are a continual reminder of poverty. Make folks
-believe at the outset that you are of the best, and then _be_ the best."
-
-King was looking down thoughtfully. "There is one trouble," he said, "in
-making a good appearance, and that comes from the ideas of some as to
-what sort of man or woman is the best. Before I left Seattle, Aunt Ann,
-my associates gave me a big dinner at the club--a sort of good-bye
-affair to drink to my future, you know--and some of the most
-distinguished men in the state were there, men prominent in the business
-and political world. And that night, Aunt Ann"--King had flushed
-slightly and his voice faltered--"that night a well-meaning man, a sort
-of society leader, in his toast to me plainly referred to me as a scion
-of the old Southern aristocracy, and he did it in just such a way as to
-make it appear to those who knew otherwise that I would be sailing under
-false colors if I did not correct the impression. He had made a
-beautiful talk about our old colonial homes, our slaves in livery, our
-beautiful women, who invariably graced the courts of Europe, and
-concluded by saying that it was no wonder I had succeeded where many
-other men with fewer hereditary influences to back them had failed."
-
-"Ah, you _were_ in a fix!" Ann said. "That is, it was awkward for you,
-who I know to be almost too sincere for your own good."
-
-"Well, I couldn't let it pass, Aunt Ann--I simply couldn't let all those
-men leave that table under a wrong impression. I hardly know what I said
-when I replied, but it seemed to be the right thing, for they all
-applauded me. I told him I did not belong to what was generally
-understood to be the old aristocracy of the South, but to what I
-considered the new. I told them about our log-cabin aristocracy, Aunt
-Ann, here in these blue mountains, for which my soul was famished. I
-told them of the sturdy, hard-working, half-starved mountaineers and
-their scratching, with dull tools, a bare existence out of this rocky
-soil. I told them of my bleak and barren boyhood, my heart-burnings at
-home, when my mother married again, the nights I'd spent at study in the
-light of pine-knots that filled the house with smoke. Then I told them
-about the grandest woman God ever brought to life. I told them about
-you, Aunt Ann. I gave no names, went into no painful particulars, but I
-talked about what you had done for me, and how you've been persecuted
-and misunderstood, till I could hardly hold back the tears from my
-eyes."
-
-"Oh, hush, Luke," Ann said, huskily--"hush up!"
-
-"Well, I may now, but I couldn't that night," said King. "I got started,
-and it came out of me like a flood. I said things about you that night
-that I've thought for years, but which you never would let me say to
-you."
-
-"Hush, Luke, hush--you are a good boy, but you mustn't--" Ann's voice
-broke, and she placed her hand to her eyes.
-
-"There was a celebrated novelist there," King went on, "and after dinner
-he came over to me and held out his hand. He was old and white-haired,
-and his face was full of tender, poetic emotion. 'If you ever meet your
-benefactress again,' he said, 'tell her I'd give half my life to know
-her. If I'd known her I could write a book that would be immortal.'"
-
-There was a pause. Ann seemed to be trying to crush out some obstruction
-to deliberate utterance in her big, throbbing throat.
-
-"If he knew my life just as it has been," she said, finally--"if he knew
-it all--all that I've been through, all I've thought through it all,
-from the time I was an innocent, laughing girl 'till now, as an old
-woman, I'm fighting a battle of hate with every living soul within miles
-of me--if he knew all _that_, he could write a book, and it would be a
-big one. But it wouldn't help humanity, Luke. My hate's mine, and the
-devil's. It's not for folks born lucky and happy. Some folks seem put on
-earth for love. I'm put here for hate and for joy over the misfortune of
-my enemies."
-
-"You know many things, Aunt Ann," King said, softly, "and you are older
-than I am, but you can't see the end of it all as clearly as I do."
-
-"You think not, my boy?"
-
-"No, Aunt Ann; I have learned that nothing exists on earth except to
-produce ultimate good. The vilest crime, indirectly, is productive of
-good. I confidently expect to see the day that you will simply rise one
-step higher in your remarkable life and learn to love your enemies. Then
-you'll be understood by them all as I understand you, for they will then
-look into your heart, your _real_ heart, as I've looked into it ever
-since you took pity on the friendless, barefoot boy that I was and
-lifted me out of my degradation and breathed the breath of hope into my
-despondent body. And when that day comes--mark it as my prediction--you
-will slay the ill-will of your enemies with a glance from your eye, and
-they will fall conquered at your feet."
-
-"Huh!" Ann muttered, "you say that because you are just looking at the
-surface of things. You see, I know a lots that you don't. Things have
-gone on here and are still going on that nothing earthly could stop."
-
-"That's it, Aunt Ann," Luke King said, seriously--"it won't be anything
-earthly. It will be _heavenly_, and when the bolt falls you will
-acknowledge I am right. Now, I must go. It will be about dark when I get
-to my step-father's."
-
-Ann walked with him to the gate, and as she closed it after him she held
-out her hand. It was quivering. "You are a good boy, Luke," she said,
-"but you don't know one hundredth part of what they've said and done
-since you left. I never wrote you."
-
-"I don't care what they've done or said out of their shallow heads and
-cramped lives," King laughed--"they won't be able to affect your greater
-existence. You'll slay it all, Aunt Ann, with forgiveness--yes, and
-pity. You'll see the day you'll pity them rather than hate them."
-
-"I don't believe it, Luke," Ann said, her lips set firmly, and she
-turned back into the house. Standing in the doorway, she watched him
-trudge along the road, carrying his valise easily in his hand and
-swinging it lightly to and fro.
-
-"What a funny idea!" she mused. "Me forgive Jane Hemingway! The boy
-talks that way because he's young and full of dreams, and don't know any
-better. If he was going through what I am he'd hate the whole world and
-every living thing in it."
-
-She saw him pause, turn, and put his valise down on the side of the
-road. He was coming back, and she went to meet him at the gate. He came
-up with a smile.
-
-"The thought's just struck me," he said, "that you'd be the best adviser
-in the world as to what I ought to invest my ten thousand in. You never
-have made a mistake in money matters that I ever heard of, Aunt Ann; but
-maybe you'd rather not talk about my affairs."
-
-"I don't know why," she said, as she leaned over the gate. "I'll bet
-that money of yours will worry me some, for young folks these days have
-no caution in such matters. Ten thousand dollars--why, that is exactly
-the price--" She paused, her face full of sudden excitement.
-
-"The price of what, Aunt Ann?" he asked, wonderingly.
-
-"Why, the price of the Dickerson farm. It's up for sale. Jerry Dickerson
-has been wanting to leave here for the last three years, and every year
-he's been putting a lower and lower price on his big farm and
-comfortable house and every improvement. His brother's gone in the
-wholesale grocery business in Chattanooga, and he wants to join him. The
-property is worth double the money. I wouldn't like to advise you, Luke,
-but I'd rather see your money in that place than anything else. It would
-be a guarantee of an income to you as long as you lived."
-
-"I know the place, and it's a beauty," King said, "and I'll run over
-there and look at it to-morrow, and if it's still to be had I may rake
-it in. Think of me owning one of the best plantations in the
-valley--_me_, Aunt Ann, your barefoot, adopted son."
-
-Ann's head was hanging low as she walked back to the cottage door.
-
-"'Adopted son,'" she repeated, tenderly. "As God is my Judge, I--I
-believe he's the only creature alive on this broad earth that I love.
-Yes, I love that boy. What strange, sweet ideas he has picked up! Well,
-I hope he'll always be able to keep them. I had plenty of them away back
-at his age. My unsullied faith in mankind was the tool that dug the
-grave of my happiness. Poor, blind boy! he may be on the same road. He
-may see the day that all he believes in now will crumble into bitter
-powder at his touch. I wonder if God can really be _all_-powerful. It
-seems strange that what is said to be the highest good in this life is
-doing exactly what He, Himself, has failed to do--to keep His own
-creatures from suffering. That really _is_ odd."
-
-
-
-
-XIV
-
-
-Luke King was hot, damp with perspiration, and covered with the red dust
-of the mountain road when he reached the four-roomed cabin of his
-step-father among the stunted pines and gnarled wild cedars.
-
-Old Mark Bruce sat out in front of the door. He wore no shoes nor coat,
-and his hickory shirt and trousers had been patched many times. His gray
-hair was long, sunburned, and dyed with the soil, and the corrugated
-skin of his cheeks and neck was covered with long hairs. As his step-son
-came into view from behind the pine-pole pig-pen, the old man uttered a
-grunt of surprise that brought to the doorway two young women in
-unadorned home-spun dresses, and a tall, lank young man in his
-shirt-sleeves. It was growing dark, and they all failed to recognize the
-new-comer.
-
-"I suppose you have forgotten me," King said, as he put his valise on a
-wash-bench by a tub of suds and a piggin of lye-soap.
-
-"By Jacks, it's Luke King!" After that ejaculation of the old man he and
-the others stared speechlessly.
-
-"Yes, that's who I am," continued King. "How do you do, Jake?" (to the
-tall young man in the doorway). "We might as well shake hands for the
-sake of old times. You girls have grown into women since I left. I've
-stayed away a long time and seen a lot of the world, but I've always
-wanted to get back. Where is mother?"
-
-Neither of the girls could summon up the courage to answer, and, as they
-gave him their stiff hands, they seemed under stress of great
-embarrassment.
-
-"She's poorly," said the old man, inhospitably keeping his seat. "She's
-had a hurtin' in 'er side from usin' that thar battlin' stick too much
-on dirty clothes, hoein' corn an' one thing an' another, an' a cold
-settled on her chest. Mary, go tell yore ma her son's turned up at last.
-Huh, all of us, except her, thought you was dead an' under ground! She's
-always contended you was alive an' had a job somers that was payin'
-enough to feed an' clothe you. How's times been a-servin' you?"
-
-"Pretty well." King removed his valise from the bench and took its place
-wearily.
-
-"Is that so? Things is worse than ever here. Whar have you been hangin'
-out?"
-
-"Seattle was the last place," King answered. "I've worked in several
-towns since I left here."
-
-"Huh, about as I expected! An' I reckon you hain't got much to show fer
-it except what you got on yore back an' in that carpet-bag."
-
-"That's about all."
-
-"What you been followin'?"
-
-"Doing newspaper work," replied the young man, coloring.
-
-"I 'lowed you might keep at that. You used to git a dollar a day at
-Canton, I remember. Married?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Hain't able to support a woman, I reckon. Well, you've showed a great
-lot o' good sense thar; a feller of the wishy-washy, drift-about sort,
-like you, can sorter manage to shift fer hisself ef he hain't hampered
-by a pack o' children an' a sick woman."
-
-At this juncture Mary returned. She flushed as she caught King's
-expectant glance. She spoke to her father.
-
-"She said tell 'im to come in thar."
-
-Luke went into the front room and turned thence into a small chamber
-adjoining. It was windowless and dark, the only light filtering
-indirectly through the front room. On a low, narrow bed, beneath a
-ladder leading to a trap-door above, lay a woman.
-
-"Here I am, Luke," she cried out, warningly. "Don't stumble over that
-pan o' water. I've been takin' a hot mustard foot-bath to try and get my
-blood warm. I have chilly spells every day about this time. La me! How
-you take me by surprise! I've prayed for little else in many a year, an'
-was just about to give up. I took a little hope from some'n' old Ann
-Boyd said one day about you bein' well an' employed somers out West, but
-then I met Jane Hemingway, an' she give me the blues. She 'lowed that
-old Ann just pretended you was doin' well to convince folks she'd made
-no mistake in sendin' you to school. But, thank God, here you are alive,
-anyway."
-
-"Yes, I'm as sound as a new dollar, mother." His foot came in contact
-with a three-legged stool in the darkness, and he recognized it as an
-old friend and drew it to the head of her bed and sat down. He took one
-of her hard, thin hands and bent over her. Should he kiss her? She had
-not taught him to do so as a child, and he had never done it later in
-his youth, not even when he had left home, but he had been out in the
-world and grown wiser. He had seen other men kiss their mothers, and his
-heart had ached. With his hand on her hard, withered cheek he turned her
-face towards him and pressed his lips to hers. She was much surprised,
-and drew herself from him instinctively, and wiped her mouth with a
-corner of the coverlet, but he knew she was pleased.
-
-"Why, Luke!" she said, quickly, "what on earth do you mean? Have you
-gone plumb crazy?"
-
-"I wanted to kiss you, that's all," he said, awkwardly. They were both
-silent for a moment, then she spoke, tremblingly: "You always was
-womanish and tender-like; it don't harm anybody, though; none o' the
-rest in this family are that way. But, my stars! I can't tell a bit how
-you look in this pitch-dark. Mary! oh, Mary!"
-
-"What you want, ma?" The nearness of the speaker in the adjoining room
-betrayed the fact that she had been listening.
-
-"I can't see my hand before me," answered the old woman. "I wish you'd
-fetch a light here. You'll find a stub of a candle in the clock under
-the turpentine-bottle. I hid it thar so as to have some'n' to read the
-Book with Sunday night if any preacher happened to drop in to hold
-family worship."
-
-The girl lighted the bit of tallow-dip and braced it upright in a
-cracked teacup with some bits of stone. She brought it in, placed it on
-a dry-goods box filled with cotton-seed and ears of corn, and shambled
-out. King's heart sank as he looked around him in the dim light. The
-room was only a lean-to shed walled with slabs driven into the ground
-and floored with puncheons. The bedstead was a crude, wooden frame
-supported by perpendicular saplings fastened to floor and rafters. The
-irregular cracks in the wall were filled with mud, rags, and newspapers.
-Bunches of dried herbs, roots, and red peppers hung above his head, and
-piles of clothing, earth-dyed and worn to shreds, and agricultural
-implements lay about indiscriminately. Disturbed by the light, a hen
-flew from her nest behind a dismantled cloth-loom, and with a loud
-cackling ran out at the door. There was a square cat-hole in the wall,
-and through it a lank, half-starved cat crawled and came purring and
-rubbing against the young man's ankle.
-
-The old woman shaded her eyes and gazed at him eagerly. "You hain't
-altered so overly much," she observed, "'cept your skin looks mighty
-fair fer a man, and yore hands feel soft."
-
-Then she lowered her voice into a cautious whisper, and glanced
-furtively towards the door. "You favor your father--I don't mean Mark,
-but your own daddy. You are as like him as can be. He helt his head that
-away, an' had yore habit o' being gentle with women-folks. You've got
-his high temper, too. La me! that last night you was at home, an' Mark
-cussed you an' kicked yore writin'-paper in the fire, I didn't sleep a
-wink. I thought you'd gone off to borrow a gun. It was almost a relief
-to know you'd left, kase I seed you an' him couldn't git along. Your
-father was a different sort of a man, Luke, and sometimes I miss 'im
-sharp. He loved books an' study like you do. He had good blood in 'im;
-his father was a teacher an' circuit-rider. I don't know why I married
-Mark, unless it was kase I was afraid of bein' sent to the poor-farm,
-but, la me! this is about as bad."
-
-There was a low whimper in her voice, and the lines about her mouth had
-tightened. King's breast heaved, and he suddenly put out his hand and
-began to stroke her thin, gray hair. A strange, restful feeling stole
-over him. The spell was on her, too; she closed her eyes and a satisfied
-smile lighted her wan face. Then her lips began to quiver, and she
-quickly turned her face from him.
-
-"I'm a simpleton," she sobbed, "but I can't help it. Nobody hain't
-petted me nor tuck on over me a bit since your pa died. I never treated
-you right, neither, Luke. I ort never to 'a' let Mark run over you like
-he did."
-
-"Never mind that," King said. "He and I have already made friends; but
-you must not lie in this dingy hole; you need medicine, and good, warm
-food."
-
-"Oh, I'm goin' to git up," she answered, lightly. "I'm not sick, Luke. I
-jest laid down awhile to rest. I have to do this nearly every evening. I
-must git the house straight. Mary an' Jane hain't no hands at house-work
-'thout I stand right over 'em, an' Jake an' his pa is continually
-a-fussing. I feel stronger already. If you'll go in t'other room I'll
-rise. They'll never fix you nothin' to eat nor nowhar to sleep. I reckon
-you'll have to lie with Jake like you used to, till I can fix better.
-Things has been in an awful mess since I got so porely."
-
-He went into the front room. The old man had brought his hand-bag in. He
-had placed it in a chair and opened it and was coolly inspecting the
-contents in the firelight. Jake and the two girls stood looking on. King
-stared at the old man, but the latter did not seem at all abashed.
-
-"Huh," he said, "you seem to be about as well stocked with little tricks
-as a notion peddler--five or six pair o' striped socks and no end o'
-collars; them things folded under the shirts looks like another suit o'
-clothes. I reckon you have had a good job if you carry two outfits
-around. Though I _have_ heard of printin'-men that went off owin'
-accounts here an' yan."
-
-"I paid what I owed before I left," King said, with an effort at
-lightness as he closed the valise and put it into a corner.
-
-In a few minutes his mother came in. She blew out the candle, and as she
-crossed to the mantel-piece she carefully extinguished the smoking wick
-with her fingers. The change in her was more noticeable to her son than
-it had been when she was reclining. She looked very frail in her faded
-black cotton gown. Somehow, bent as she was, she seemed shorter than of
-old, more cowed and hopeless. Her shoes were worn through, and her bare
-feet showed through the holes.
-
-"Mary," she asked, "have you put on the supper?"
-
-"Yes'm, but it hain't tuck up yet." The girl went into the next room,
-which was used at once for cooking and dining, and her mother followed
-her. In a few minutes the old woman came to the door.
-
-"Walk out, all of you," she said, wearily. "Luke, it seems funny to make
-company of you, but somehow I can't treat you like the rest. You'll have
-to make out with what is set before you, though hog-meat is mighty
-scarce this year. Just at fattenin'-time our pigs took the cholera an'
-six laid down in the swamp in one day and died. Pork is fetchin' fifteen
-cents a pound in town, and mighty few will sell on a credit."
-
-
-
-
-XV
-
-
-After supper King left his mother and step-sisters removing the dishes
-from the table and went out. He was sickened to the depths of his
-sensitive soul by the sordid meal he had just seen the family partake of
-with evident relish, as if it were of unusual occurrence. And he was
-angry with himself, too, for feeling so, when such a life had been their
-lot so long.
-
-He crossed the little brook that ran on a bed of brown stone behind the
-cabin, and leaned against the rail-fence which surrounded the pine-pole
-corn-crib. He could easily leave them in their squalor and ignorance and
-return to the great, intellectual world--the world which read his
-editorials and followed his precepts, the key-note of which had always
-been the love of man for man as the greatest force in the universe--but,
-after all, would that not stamp him with the brand he most
-despised--hypocrisy? A pretty preacher, he, of such fine-spun theories,
-while his own mother and her step-children were burrowing in the soil
-like eyeless animals, and he living on the fat of the land along with
-the wealth and power of the country!
-
-The cabin door shone out, a square of red light against the blackness of
-the hill and the silent, serried pines beyond. He heard Jake whistling a
-tune he had whistled long ago, when they had worked Mark Bruce's crop
-side by side, and the spasmodic creaking of the puncheons as the family
-moved about within.
-
-A figure appeared in the doorway. It was his mother, and she was coming
-to search for him.
-
-"Here I am, mother!" he cried out, gently, as she advanced through the
-darkness; "look out and don't get your feet wet."
-
-She chuckled childishly as she stepped across the brook on the largest
-stones. When she reached him she put her hand on his arm and laughed:
-"La me, boy, a little wet won't hurt me--I'm used to a good soakin'
-mighty nigh every drenchin' rain. I slept with a stream of it tricklin'
-through the roof on my back one night, an' I've milched the cows in that
-thar lot when the mire was shoe-mouth deep in January. I 'lowed I'd find
-you out here. You used to be a mighty hand to sneak off to yoreself to
-study, and you are still that away. But you are different in some
-things, too. You don't talk our way exactly, an' I reckon that's what
-aggravates Mark. He was goin' on jest now about yore stuck-up way o'
-eatin with yore pocket-handkerchief spread out in yore lap."
-
-King looked past her at the full moon rising above the trees on the
-mountain-top.
-
-"Mother," said he, abruptly, and he put his arm impulsively around her
-neck, and his eyes filled--"mother, I can't stay here but a few days. I
-have work to do in Atlanta. Your health is bad, and you are not
-comfortable; the others are strong and can stand it, but you can't. Come
-down there with me for a while, anyway. I'll put you under a doctor and
-bring back your health."
-
-She looked up into his eyes steadily for a moment, then she slapped him
-playfully on the breast and drew away from him. "How foolish you talk
-fer a grown-up man!" she laughed; "why, you know I can't leave Mark and
-the children. He'd go stark crazy 'thout me around to grumble at, an'
-then the rest ud be without my advice an' counsel. La me, what makes you
-think I ain't comfortable? This cabin is a sight better 'n the last one
-we had, an' drier an' a heap warmer inside when fire-wood kin be got.
-Hard times like these now is likely to come at any time an' anywhar. It
-strikes rich an' pore alike. Thar's Dickerson offerin' that fine old
-farm, with all the improvements, fer a mere song to raise money to go
-into business whar he kin hope to pay out o' debt. They say now that the
-place--lock, stock, and barrel--kin be had fer ten thousand. Why, when
-you was a boy he would have refused twenty. Now, ef we-all had it
-instead o' him, Mark an' Jake could make it pay like rips, fer they are
-hard workers."
-
-"You think they could, mother?" His heart bounded suddenly, and he stood
-staring thoughtfully into her eyes.
-
-"Pay?--of course they could. Fellers that could keep a roof over a
-family's head on what they've had to back 'em could get rich on a place
-like that. But, la me, what's the use o' pore folks thinkin' about the
-property o' the rich an' lucky? It's like dreamin' you are a queen at
-night an' wakin' up in hunger an' rags."
-
-"I remember the farm and the old house very well," King remarked,
-reflectively, the queer light still in his earnest eyes.
-
-"The _old_ one! Huh, Dickerson got on a splurge the year you left, an'
-built a grand new one with some money from his wife's estate. He turned
-the old one into a big barn an' stable an' gin. You must see the new
-house 'fore you go away, Luke. It's jest splendid, with green blinds to
-the winders, a fancy spring-house with a tin rooster on top that p'ints
-the way the wind blows, and on high stilts like thar's a big tank and a
-windmill to keep the house supplied with water. I hain't never been in
-it, but they say they've got wash-tubs long enough to lie down in handy
-to every sleepin'-room, and no end of fancy contraptions."
-
-"We'd better go in, mother," he said, abruptly. "You'll catch your death
-of cold out here in the dew."
-
-She laughed as they walked back to the cabin, side by side. A thick
-smoke and its unpleasant odor met them at the door.
-
-"It's Mark burnin' rags inside to oust the mosquitoes so he kin sleep,"
-she explained. "They are wuss this year than I ever seed 'em. Seems like
-the general starvation has tackled them, too, fer they look like they
-will eat a body up whether or no. Jake an' the gals grease their faces
-with lamp-oil when they have any, but I jest kiver up my head with a rag
-an' never know they are about. I reckon we'd better go to bed. Jake has
-fixed him a pallet on the fodder in the loft, so you kin lie by
-yoreself. He's been jowerin' at his pa ever since supper about treatin'
-you so bad. I thought once they'd come to blows."
-
-The next morning, after breakfast, Jake threw a bag of shelled corn on
-the back of his mare, and, mounting upon it as if it were a saddle, he
-started off down the valley to the mill, and his father shouldered an
-axe and went up on the hill to cut wood.
-
-"Whar you going?" Mrs. Bruce asked, as she followed Luke to the door.
-
-His eyes fell to the ground. "I thought," he answered, "that I'd walk
-over to the Dickerson farm and take a look at the improvements. I used
-to hunt over that land."
-
-"Well, whatever you do, be sure you get back to dinner," she said. "Me
-an' Jane took a torch last night after you went to bed an' blinded a hen
-on the roost and pulled her down; I'm goin' to make you an' old-time
-chicken-pie like you used to love on Christmas."
-
-Half a mile up the road, which ran along the side of the hill from which
-the slow, reverberating clap, clap of Mark Bruce's axe came on the still
-air, King came into view of the rich, level lands of the Dickerson
-plantation. He stood in the shade of a tall poplar and looked
-thoughtfully at the lush green meadows, the well-tilled fields of corn,
-cotton, and sorghum, and the large, two-storied house, with its
-dormer-windows, tall, fluted columns, and broad verandas--at the
-well-arranged out-houses, barns, and stables, and the white-gravelled
-drives and walks from the house to the main road. Then he turned and
-looked back at the cabin--the home of his nearest kin.
-
-The house was hardly discernible in the gray morning mist that lingered
-over the little vale in which it stood. He saw Jake, far away, riding
-along, in and out, among the sassafras and sumach bushes that bordered a
-worn-out wheat-field, his long legs dangling at the sides of the mare.
-There was a bent, blurred figure at the wood-pile in the yard; it was
-his mother or one of the girls.
-
-"Poor souls!" he exclaimed; "they have been in a dreary tread-mill all
-their lives, and have never known the joy of one gratified ambition. If
-only I could conquer my own selfish desires, I could lay before them
-that which they never dreamed of possessing--a glorious taste of genuine
-happiness. It would take my last dollar of ready money, but I'd still
-have my interest in the new paper and this brain and will of mine. Aunt
-Ann would never see it my way, and she might throw me over for doing it,
-but why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I do it when my very soul cries out
-for it? Why have I been preaching this thing all this time and making
-converts right and left if I am to draw back the first time a real
-opportunity confronts me? It may be to test my mettle. Yes, that's what
-it is. I've got to do one or the other--keep the money--or give it to
-them."
-
-
-
-
-XVI
-
-
-King turned towards the Dickerson place and walked on, a great weight of
-indecision on him. He had always held up Ann Boyd as his highest human
-example. She would laugh the idea to scorn--the idea of putting old Mark
-Bruce and his "lay-out" into such a home and circumstances; and yet,
-estimable as she was in many things, still she was not a free woman. She
-showed that by her slavery to the deepest hatred that ever burned in a
-human breast. No, it was plain to the young philosopher that in some
-things, at least, she was no guide for him. Rather might it not
-eventually result in the hate-hardened woman's learning brighter walks
-of life from him, young as he was? And yet, he told himself, the money
-was his, not theirs, and few really succeeded in life who gave away
-their substance.
-
-The road led him past Jane Hemingway's cottage, and at the fence, in the
-barn-yard, he saw Virginia. He saw her, bareheaded, with her wonderful
-hair and exquisite profile and curve of neck, shoulder, and breast,
-before she was aware of his approach, and the view brought him to a
-stand behind some bushes which quite hid him from her view.
-
-"It is Virginia--it must be--yes, it is Virginia!" he said,
-ecstatically. "She has become what I knew she would become, the
-loveliest woman in the world; she is exactly as I have fancied her all
-these years--proud, erect--and her eyes, oh! I must look into her eyes
-again! Ah, now I know what brought me home! Now I know why I was not
-content away. Yes, this was the cause--Virginia--my little friend and
-pupil--Virginia!"
-
-She had turned her head, and with the startled look of a wild young fawn
-on the point of running away, she stood staring at him.
-
-"Have you entirely forgotten me, Virginia?" he asked, advancing almost
-with instinctive caution towards her.
-
-"Oh no, now I know you," she said, with, he thought, quite the girlish
-smile he had taken with him in his roaming, and she leaned over the
-fence and gave him her hand. He felt it pulsing warmly in his, and a
-storm of feeling--the accumulation of years--rushed over him as he
-looked into the eyes he had never forgotten, and marvelled over their
-wonderful lights and shadows. It was all he could do to steady his voice
-when he next spoke.
-
-"It has been several years since I saw you," he said, quite aimlessly.
-"In fact, you were a little girl then, Virginia, and now you are a
-woman, a full-grown woman--just think of that! But why are you looking
-at me so steadily from head to foot?"
-
-"I--I can hardly realize that it really is you," Virginia said. "You
-see, Luke--Mr. King, I mean--I thought you were--really, I thought you
-were dead. My mother has said it many times. She quite believed it, for
-some reason or other."
-
-"She _wanted_ to believe it, Virginia, with all respect to your mother.
-She hates Aunt Ann--Mrs. Boyd, you know--and it seems she almost hoped
-I'd never amount to anything, since it was Mrs. Boyd's means that gave
-me my education."
-
-"Yes, that's the way it must have been," admitted the girl, "and it
-seems strange for you to be here when I have thought I'd perhaps never
-see you again."
-
-"So you really thought I was done for?" he said, trying to assume a
-calmness he was far from feeling under the titillating spell her beauty
-and sweet, musical voice had cast over him.
-
-"Yes, mother often declared it was so, and then--" She broke off, her
-color rising slightly.
-
-"And, then, Virginia--?" he reminded her, eagerly.
-
-She looked him frankly in the eyes; it was the old, fearless, childlike
-glance that had told him long ago of her strong, inherent nobility of
-character.
-
-"Well, I really thought if you _had_ been alive you'd have come back to
-your mother. You would have written, anyway. She's been in a pitiful
-condition, Mr. King."
-
-"I know it now, Virginia," he said, his cheeks hot with shame. "I'm
-afraid you'll never understand how a sane man could have acted as I
-have, but I went away furious with her and her husband, and I never
-allowed my mind to dwell in tenderness on her."
-
-"That was no excuse," the girl said, still firmly, though her eyes were
-averted. "She had a right to marry again, and, if you and her husband
-couldn't get along together, that did not release you from your duty to
-see that she was given ordinary comfort. I've seen her walk by here and
-stop to rest, when it looked like she could hardly drag one foot after
-another. The thought came to me once that she was starving to give what
-she had to eat to the others."
-
-"You needn't tell me about it," he faltered, the flames of his shame
-mounting high in his face--"I stayed there last night. I saw enough to
-drag my soul out of my body. Don't form hasty judgment yet, Virginia.
-You shall see that I'll do my duty now. I'll work my hands to the bone."
-
-"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk that way," the girl answered. "It would
-make her so happy to have help from you."
-
-"Your ideas of filial duty were always beautiful, Virginia," he said,
-his admiring eyes feasting on her face. "I remember once--I shall never
-forget it--it was the day you let me wade across the creek with you in
-my arms. You said you were too big to be carried, but you were as light
-as a feather. I could have carried you that way all day and never been
-tired. It was then that you told me in all sincerity that you would
-really die for your mother's sake. It seemed a strangely unselfish thing
-for a little girl to say, but I believe now that you'd do it."
-
-"Yes, in my eyes it is the first, almost the _whole_ of one's duty in
-life," Virginia replied. "I hardly have a moment's happiness now, owing
-to my mother's failing health."
-
-"Yes, I was sorry to hear she was afflicted," said King. "She's up and
-about, though, I believe."
-
-"Yes, but she is suffering more than mere bodily pain. She has her
-trouble on her mind night and day. She's afraid to die, Luke. That's
-queer to me. Even at my age I'd not be afraid, and she is old, and
-really ought not to care. I'd think she would have had enough of life,
-such as it has been from the beginning till now, full of strife, anger,
-and envy. I hear her calling me now, and I must go in. Come see her,
-won't you?"
-
-"Yes, very soon," King said, as she turned away. He stood at the fence
-and watched her as she moved gracefully over the grass to the gate near
-the cottage. At the door she turned and smiled upon him, and then was
-gone.
-
-"Yes, I now know why I came back," he said. "It was Virginia--little
-Virginia--that brought me. Oh, God, isn't she beautiful--isn't she
-strong of character and noble? Away back there when she wore short
-dresses she believed in me. Once" (he caught his breath) "I seemed to
-see the dawn of love in her eyes, but it has died away. She has
-out-grown it. She thought me dead; she didn't want to think me alive and
-capable of neglecting my mother. Well, she shall see. She, too, looks on
-me as an idle drift-about; in due time she shall know I am more serious
-than that. But I must go slowly; if I am too impulsive I may spoil all
-my chances, and, Luke King, if that woman does not become your wife you
-will be a failure--a dead failure at everything to which you lay your
-hands, for you'd never be able to put your heart into anything
-again--you couldn't, for it's hers for all time and eternity."
-
-It was dusk when he returned to his mother's cabin. Jake sat on his warm
-bag of meal just inside the door. Old Mark had taken off his shoes, and
-sat under a persimmon-tree "cooling off" and yelling impatiently at his
-wife to "hurry up supper."
-
-When she heard Luke had returned, she came to the door where he sat
-talking to Jake. "We didn't know what had become of you," she said, as
-she emerged from the cabin, bending her head to pass through the low
-doorway.
-
-"I got interested in looking over the Dickerson farm," he replied, "and
-before I realized it the sun was almost down."
-
-"Oh, it don't matter; I saved you a piece of pie; I'm just warming it
-over now. I'll bet you didn't get a bite o' dinner."
-
-"Yes, I did. The fact is, Dickerson remembered me, and made me go to
-dinner with him; but I'm ready to eat again."
-
-As they were rising from the table a few minutes later, King said, in a
-rather constrained tone, "I've got something to say to you all, and I
-may as well do it now."
-
-With much clatter they dragged their chairs after him to the front room
-and sat down with awkward ceremony--the sort of dignified quiet that
-usually governed them during the visit of some strolling preacher or
-benighted peddler. They stared with ever-increasing wonder as he placed
-his own chair in front of them. Old Mark seemed embarrassed by the
-formality of the proceedings, and endeavored to relieve himself by
-assuming indifference. He coughed conspicuously and hitched his chair
-back till it leaned against the door-jamb.
-
-There was a queer, boyish tremor in Luke King's voice when he began to
-speak, and it vibrated there till he had finished.
-
-"Since I went away from you," he began, his eyes on the floor, "I have
-studied hard and closely applied myself to a profession, and, though
-I've wandered about a good deal, I've made it pay pretty well. I'm not
-rich, now, but I'm worth more than you think I am. In big cities the
-sort of talent I happen to have brings a sort of market-price, and I
-have profited by my calling. You have never had any luck, and you have
-worked hard and deserve more than has fallen to your lot. You'd never be
-able to make anything on this poor land, even if you could buy your
-supplies as low as those who pay cash, but you have not had the ready
-money at any time, and the merchants have swindled you on every deal
-you've made with them. The Dickerson plantation is the sort of place you
-really need. It is worth double the price he asked for it. I happened to
-have the money to spare, and I bought it to-day while I was over there."
-
-There was a profound silence in the room. The occupants of the row of
-chairs stared at him with widening eyes, mute and motionless. A sudden
-breeze came in at the door and turned the oblong flame of the candle on
-the mantel towards the wall, and caused black ropes of smoke from the
-pine-knots in the chimney to curl out into the room like pyrotechnic
-snakes. Mrs. Bruce bent forward and peered into King's motionless face
-and smiled and slyly winked, then she glanced at the serious faces of
-the others, and broke into a childish laugh of genuine merriment.
-
-"La me! ef you-uns ain't settin' thar with mouths open like bull-frogs
-swallowin' down ever'thing that boy says, as ef it was so much law an'
-gospel."
-
-But none of them entered her mood; indeed, they gave her not so much as
-a glance. Without replying to her, King rose and took the candle from
-the mantel-piece. He stood it on the table and laid a folded document
-beside it. "There's the deed," he said. "It's made out to mother as long
-as she lives, and to fall eventually to her step-daughters and step-son,
-Jake."
-
-He left the paper on the table and went back to his chair. An awkward
-silence ensued. It was broken by old Mark. He coughed and threw his
-tobacco-quid out at the door, and, smiling to hide his half-sceptical
-agitation, he moved to the table. His gaunt back was to them, and his
-grizzled face went out of view when he bent to hold the paper in the
-light.
-
-"By Jacks, that's what it is!" he blurted out. "There's no shenanigan
-about it. The Dickerson place is Mariar Habersham Bruce's, ef _I_ kin
-read writin'."
-
-With a great clatter of heavy shoes and tilted chairs falling back into
-place, they rose and gathered about him, leaving their benefactor
-submerged in their combined shadow. Each took the paper, examined it in
-reverent silence, and then slowly fell back, leaving the document on the
-table. Mark Bruce started aimlessly towards the next room, but finally
-turned to the front door, where he stood irresolute, staring out at the
-night-wrapped mountain road. Mrs. Bruce looked at Luke helplessly and
-went into the next room, and, exchanging glances of dumb wonder with
-each other, the girls followed. Jake noticed that the wind was blowing
-the document from the table, and he rescued it and silently offered it
-to his step-brother.
-
-King motioned it from him. "Give it to mother," he said. "She'll take
-care of it; besides, it's been recorded at the court-house. By-the-way,
-Dickerson will get out at once; the transfer includes all the furniture,
-and the crops, which are in a good condition."
-
-King had Jake's bed to himself again that night. For hours he lay awake
-listening to the insistent drone of conversation from the family, which
-had gathered under the apple-trees in front of the cabin. About eleven
-o'clock some one came softly into his room. The moon had risen, and its
-beams fell in at the open door and through a window with a sliding
-wooden shutter. It was Mrs. Bruce, and she was moving with catlike
-caution.
-
-"Is that you, mother?" he asked.
-
-For an instant she was so much startled at finding him awake that she
-made no reply. Then she stammered: "Oh, I was tryin' so hard not to wake
-you! I jest wanted to make shore yore bed was comfortable. We put new
-straw in the tick to-day, and sometimes new beds lie lumpy and uneven."
-
-"It's all right," he assured her. "I wasn't asleep, anyway."
-
-He could feel her still trembling in excitement as she sat down on the
-edge of the bed. "I reckon you couldn't sleep, nuther," she said. "Thar
-hain't a shut eye in this cabin. They've all laid down, an' laid down,
-an' got up over an' over." She laughed softly and twisted her hands
-nervously in her lap. "We are all that excited we don't know which end
-of us is up. Why, Luke, boy, it will be the talk of the whole county,
-and it'll be a big feather in old Ann Boyd's cap--you goin' off an'
-makin' money so fast after she give you your schoolin', an' they all
-predicted it ud come to no good end. Sech luck hain't fell to any family
-as pore as we are sence I kin remember. I don't know as I ever heard o'
-such a thing in my life. La me, it ud make you split your sides laughin'
-to set out thar an' listen to all the plans them children are a-makin'.
-But Mark, he has the least to say of all, an', Luke, as happy as I am,
-I'm sorter sorry fer that pore old fellow. He feels bad about the way
-he's always treated you, an' run down yore kind o' work. He's too
-back'ard an' shamefaced to ax yore pardon, an' in a sheepish sort of a
-way, jest now, he hinted he'd like fer me to plaster it over fer 'im.
-He's a good man, Luke, but he's gittin' old an' childish, an' has been
-hounded to death by debt an' circumstances."
-
-"He's all right," King said, strangely moved. "Tell him I have not the
-slightest ill-will against him, an' I hope he'll get along well on the
-new place."
-
-"Somehow you keep talkin' like you don't intend to stay long," she said,
-tentatively.
-
-"I know, but I sha'n't be far away," he replied. "I can run up from my
-work in Atlanta every now and then, and it would be great to rest up on
-a farm among home folks, here in the mountains."
-
-"Well, I'll be glad of that," Mrs. Bruce said, plaintively. "I have got
-sorter used to my step-children, but they ain't the same as a body's own
-flesh and blood. I'm proud of you, Luke," she added, tremulously. "After
-all my fears that you'd not come to much, you've turned out to be my
-main-stay. You'll be a great man before you die. Anybody that kin make
-an' throw away ten thousand dollars as easy as you have, ain't no small
-potato as men go these days. I reckon the trouble with us all is that
-none of us had brains enough to comprehend what yore aims was. But Ann
-Boyd did. She's the most wonderful woman that ever lived in this part of
-the country, anyhow--kicked an' shoved about, hated an' hatin', an' yet
-ever' now an' then hittin' the nail square on the head an' doin'
-somethin' big an' grand--something Christ-like an' holy--like what she
-done when she with-drawed her suit agin Gus Willard, simply because it
-would throw Mark out of a job to go on with it."
-
-"Yes, she's a good woman, mother."
-
-Mrs. Bruce went out, so that her son might go to sleep, but he slept
-very little. All night, at intervals, the buzz of low voices and sudden
-outbursts of merriment reached him and found soothing lodgment in his
-satisfied soul. Then, too, he was revelling in the memory of Virginia
-Hemingway's eyes and voice, and a dazzling hope that his meeting with
-her had inspired.
-
-His mother stole softly into his room towards the break of day. This
-time it was to bring an old shawl, full of holes and worn to shreds,
-which she cautiously spread over him, for the mountain air had grown
-cool. She thought him asleep, but as she was turning away he caught her
-hand and drew her down and kissed her.
-
-"Why, Luke!" she exclaimed; "don't be foolish! What's got in you? I--"
-But her voice had grown husky, and her words died away in an
-irrepressible sob. She did not stir for an instant, then she put her
-arms round his neck and kissed him.
-
-
-
-
-XVII
-
-
-It was in the latter part of August. Breezes with just a touch of
-autumnal crispness bore down from the mountain-sides, clipping from
-their stems the first dead and dying leaves, and swept on across Ann
-Boyd's level cotton-fields, where she was at work at the head of a score
-of cotton-pickers--negro men, boys, women, and girls. There were certain
-social reasons why the unemployed poor white females would not labor
-under this strange woman, though they needed her ready money as badly as
-the blacks, and that, too, was a constant thorn in the flesh of Ann's
-pride. She could afford to pay well for work, inasmuch as her planting
-and harvesting were invariably profitable. She had good agricultural
-judgment, and she used it. Even her cotton picking would average up
-better to the acre than any other farmer's, for she saw to it that her
-workers put in good time and left no white, fluttering scrap on stalk,
-leaf, or bole to attract the birds looking for linings for their
-winter's nests. When her black band had left a portion of her field, it
-was as if a forest fire had swept over it, leaving it brown and bare.
-The negroes were always ready to work for her, for the best of them were
-never criticised for having done so. The most fault-finding of her
-enemies had even been glad of the opportunity to call attention to the
-fact that only negroes would sink so low as to toil by her side. But the
-blacks didn't care, and in their taciturn fidelity they never said aught
-against her. As a rule, the colored people had contempt for the "pore
-white trash," and reverenced the ex-slave-holder and his family; but Ann
-Boyd was neither one nor the other. She was rich, and therefore
-powerful--a creature to be measured by no existing standards. When they
-worked for their old owners and others of the same impoverished class,
-they were asked to take in payment old clothing, meat--and not the
-choicest--from the smoke-house, and grain from the barn, or a
-questionable order to some store-keeper who, being dubious about the
-planter's account himself, usually charged double in self-protection.
-But on Ann's place it was different. At the end of each day, hard,
-jingling cash was laid into their ready palms, and it was symbolic of
-the freedom which years before had been talked about so much, but which
-somehow had appeared in name only. Yes, Ann Boyd was different. Coming
-in closer contact with her than the whites, they knew her better and
-felt her inherent worth. They always addressed her as "Miss Ann," and as
-"Miss Ann" she was known among them far and near--a queer, powerful
-individuality about whose private life--having naught to lose or gain by
-it--they never gossiped.
-
-On the present day, when the sun dipped below the mountain-top, Ann
-raised the cow's horn, which she always wore at her belt, and blew a
-resounding blast upon it. This was the signal that the day's toil was
-ended, and yet so faithful were her black allies that each tried to
-complete the row he happened to be on before he brought in his bag. The
-crop for the year was good over all that portion of the state, and the
-newspapers, which Ann read carefully by candle-light at night, were
-saying that, owing to the little cotton being produced in other parts of
-the South, the price was going to be high. And that meant that Ann Boyd
-would be a "holder" in the market--not needing ready money, her bales
-would remain in a warehouse in Darley till the highest price had been
-reached in the long-headed woman's judgment, which in this, too, was
-always good--so good, in fact, that the Darley cotton speculators were
-often guided by it to their advantage.
-
-The gathering-bags all in the cotton-house, Ann locked the rusty
-padlock, paid the toilers from her leather bag, and trudged home to her
-well-earned supper. When that was prepared and eaten, she moved her
-chair to the front porch and sat down; but the air was cool to
-unpleasantness, and she moved back into the gracious warmth of the big,
-open fire. All the afternoon her heart had thrilled over a report that
-Jane Hemingway's small cotton crop was being hastily and carelessly
-gathered and sold at the present low price by the man who held a
-mortgage on it. It pleased Ann to think that Jane would later hear of
-her own high receipts and be stung by it. Then, too, she had heard that
-Jane was more and more concerned about her bodily affliction and the
-inability to receive proper treatment. Yes, Jane was getting payment for
-what she had done in such an underhanded way, and Ann was glad of it.
-
-Other things had not gone to please Ann of late. She had tried her best
-to be in sympathy with Luke King's action in paying out his last dollar
-of ready money for a farm for his family, whom she heartily despised for
-their treatment of her, but she could not see it from the young man's
-sanguine and cheerful stand-point. She had seen the Bruce family driving
-by in one of the old-fashioned vehicles the Dickersons had owned, and
-the sight had seemed ludicrous to her. "The boy will never amount to
-anything," she said. "He'll be poor all his life. He'll let anybody
-impose on him." And yet she loved him with a strange, insistent
-affection she could hardly understand. Even when she had bitterly
-upbraided him for that amazing act of impulsive generosity, as he sat in
-her doorway the next morning, and she saw the youthful blaze of
-enthusiasm in his eyes as he essayed to justify his course by the
-theories of life which had guided him in his professional career--even
-then an impulse was tugging at her heart to listen and believe the
-things he was so ardently declaring would free her from her bondage to
-hate and avarice. She could have kissed him as she might have kissed a
-happy, misguided son, and yet her coldness, her severity, she argued,
-was to be for his ultimate good. He had sent her copies of his new
-paper, with his editorials proudly marked in blue pencil. They were all
-in the same altruistic vein, and, strange to say, the extracts printed
-from leading journals all over the South in regard to his work were full
-of hearty approval. He had become a great factor for good in the world.
-He was one man who had the unfaltering courage of his convictions. Ann
-laughed to herself as she recalled all she had said to him that day. No
-wonder that he had thrown it off with a smile and a playful kiss, when
-such high authorities were backing him up. True, he might live in such a
-way as never to need the money which had been her weapon of defence, and
-he might finally rise to a sort of penniless greatness. Besides, his
-life was one thing, hers another. No great calamity had come to him in
-youth, such as she had known and so grimly fought; no persistent enemy
-was following his track with the scent and bay of a blood-hound, night
-and day seeking to rend him to pieces.
-
-These reflections were suddenly disturbed by a most unusual sound at
-that time of night. It was the sharp click of the iron gate-latch. Ann's
-heart sprang to her throat and seemed to be held there by taut suspense.
-She stood up, her hand on the mantel-piece, bending her ears for further
-sounds. Then she heard a heavy, even tread approaching. How could it be?
-And yet, though a score of years had sped since it had fallen on her
-ears, she knew it well. "It can't be!" she gasped. "It's somebody else
-that happens to walk like him; he'd never dare to--"
-
-The step had reached the porch. The sagging floor bent and creaked. It
-was Joe Boyd. She knew it now full well, for no one else would have
-paused like that before rapping. There was silence. The visitor was
-actually feeling for the door-latch. It was like Joe Boyd, after years
-of absence, to have thought to enter her house as of old without the
-formality of announcing himself. He tried the latch; the door was fast.
-He paused another moment, then rapped firmly and loudly. Ann stood
-motionless, her face pale and set almost in a grimace of expectancy.
-Then Boyd stalked heavily to the window at the end of the porch; she saw
-his bushy head and beard against the small square of glass. As one
-walking in sleep, Ann stepped close to the window, and through the glass
-their eyes met in the first visual greeting since he had gone away.
-
-"Open the door, Ann," he said, simply. "I want to see you."
-
-"Huh, you _do_, do you?" she cried. "Well, you march yourself through
-that gate an' come round here in daytime. I see myself opening up at
-night for you or anybody else."
-
-He pressed his face closer to the glass. His breath spread moisture upon
-it, and he raised his hands on either side of his head that he might
-more clearly see within.
-
-"I want to see you, Ann," he repeated, simply. "I've been riding since
-dinner, and just got here; my hoss is lame."
-
-"Huh!" she sniffed. "I tell you, Joe Boyd, I'll not--" She went no
-further. Something in his aging features tied her tongue. He had really
-altered remarkably; his face was full of lines cut since she had seen
-him. His beard had grown rough and bristly, as had his heavy eyebrows.
-How little was he now like the once popular beau of the country-side who
-had been considered the best "catch" among young farmers! No, she had
-not thought of him as such a wreck, such an impersonation of utter
-failure, and even resignation to it.
-
-"I reckon you'd better open the door an' let me in, Ann," he said. "I
-won't bother you long. I've just a few words to say. It's not about me.
-It's about Nettie."
-
-"Oh, it's about the child!" Ann breathed more freely. "Well, wait a
-minute, till I make a light."
-
-He saw her go to the mantel-piece and get a candle and bend over the
-fire. There was a sudden flare of bluish flame as the dripping tallow
-became ignited in the hot ashes, then she straightened up and placed the
-light on a table. She moved slowly to the door and opened it. They stood
-face to face. He started--as if from the habit of general greeting--to
-hold out his rough hand, but changed his mind and rubbed it awkwardly
-against his thigh as his dumb stare clung to hers.
-
-"Yes," he began, doggedly, "it's about Nettie." He had started to close
-the door after him, but, grasping the shutter firmly, Ann pushed it back
-against the wall.
-
-"Let the door stand open," she said, harshly.
-
-"Oh," he grunted, stupidly, "I didn't know but somebody passin' along
-the road might--"
-
-"Well, let 'em pass and look in, too," Ann retorted. "I'd a sight rather
-they'd pass and see you here in open candle-light than to have the door
-of my house closed with us two behind it. Huh!"
-
-"Well," he said, a blear in his big, weary eyes, "you know best, I
-reckon. I admit I don't go deep into such matters. It's sorter funny to
-see you so particular, though, and with--with _me_."
-
-He walked to the fire and mechanically held out his hands to the warmth.
-Then, with his back to the red glow, he stood awkwardly, his eyes on the
-floor. After a pause, he said, suddenly: "If you don't mind, Ann, I'd
-rather set down. I'm tired to death, nearly, from that blasted long
-ride. Coming down-hill for five or six miles on a slow, stiff-jointed
-hoss is heavy on a man as old as I am."
-
-She reached behind her and gave him a chair, but refused to sit down
-herself, standing near him as he sank into the chair; and, quite in his
-old way, she noticed he thrust out his pitifully ill-shod feet to the
-flames and clasped his hair-grown hands in his lap--that, too, in the
-old way, but with added feebleness.
-
-"You said it was about the child," Ann reminded him. "Ain't she well?"
-
-"Oh yes, she's well an' hearty," Boyd made haste to reply. "I reckon you
-may think it's odd fer me to ride away over here, but, Ann, I'm a man
-that feels like I want to do my full duty if I can in this life, and
-I've been bothering a lots here lately--a lots. I've lost sleep over a
-certain delicate matter, but nothing I kin do seems to help me out. It's
-a thing, you see, that I couldn't well ask advice on, and so I had to
-tussle with it in private. Finally I thought I'd just ride over and lay
-the whole thing before you."
-
-"Well, what is it?" Ann asked.
-
-"It's about the hardest thing to talk about that I ever tried to
-approach," Boyd said, with lowered glance, "but I reckon I'll have to
-get it out and be done with it, one way or another. You see, Ann, when
-the law gave me the custody of the child I was a younger man, with more
-outlook and health and management, in the judgment of the court, than
-I've got now, and I thought that what I couldn't do for my own flesh and
-blood nobody else could, and so I took her off."
-
-"_Yes, you took her off!_" Ann straightened up, and a sneer touched her
-set features; there was a sarcastic, almost triumphant cry of
-vindictiveness in her tone.
-
-"Yes, I thought all that," Boyd continued. "And I meant well, but
-miscalculated my own capacity and endurance. Instead of making money
-hand over hand as folks said almost any man could do out West, I sunk
-all I put in. We come back this way then, and I located in Gilmer,
-thinking I'd do better on soil I understood, and among the kind o' folks
-and religion I was used to, but it's been down-hill work ever since
-then. When Nettie was little it didn't seem like so much was demanded,
-but now, Ann, she's like all the balance o' young women of her age. She
-wants things like the rest around her, an' she pines for them, an'
-sulks, and--and makes me feel awful. It's a powerful hard matter for me
-to dress her like some o' the rest about us, and she's the proudest
-thing that ever wore shoe-leather."
-
-"Oh, I see!" said Ann. "She's going about, too, with--she's bein'
-courted by some feller or other."
-
-"Yes, Sam Lawson, over there, a likely young chap, has taken a big fancy
-to her, and he's good enough, too, but I reckon a little under the
-influence of his daddy, who is a hard-shell Baptist, a man that believes
-in sanctification and talks it all the time. Well, to come down to it,
-things between Nettie and Sam is sorter hanging fire, and Nettie's
-nearly crazy for fear it will fall through. And that's why, right now, I
-screwed up to the point of coming to see you."
-
-"You thought I could help her out in her courting?" Ann sneered, and yet
-beneath her sneer lay an almost eager curiosity.
-
-"Well, not that exactly"--Joe Boyd spread out his rough fingers very
-wide to embrace as much of his dust-coated beard as possible; he pulled
-downward on a rope of it, and let his shifting glance rest on the
-fire--"not that exactly, Ann."
-
-"Well, then, I don't understand, Joe Boyd," Ann said; "and let me tell
-you that no matter what sort of young thing I was when we lived
-together, I'm now a _business_ woman, and a _successful_ one, and I have
-a habit of not beating about the bush. I talk straight and make others
-do the same. Business is business, and life is short."
-
-"Well, I'll talk as straight as I can," Boyd swallowed. "You see, as I
-say, old Lawson is a narrow, grasping kind of a man, and he can't bear
-the idea of his only boy not coming into something, even if it's very
-little, and I happen to know that he's been expecting my little farm
-over there to fall to Nettie."
-
-"Well, _won't_ it?" Ann demanded.
-
-Boyd lowered his shaggy head. There was a piteous flicker of despair in
-the lashes of the eyes Ann had once loved so well.
-
-"It's mortgaged to the hilt, Ann," he gulped, "and next Wednesday if I
-can't pay down five hundred to Carson in Darley, it will go under the
-hammer. That will bust Nettie's love business all to flinders. Old
-Lawson's got Sam under his thumb, and he'll call it off. Nettie knows
-all about it. She's no fool for a girl of her age; she found out about
-the debt; she hardly sleeps a wink, but mopes about with red eyes all
-day long. I thought I had trouble away back when me 'n' you--away back
-there, you know--but I was younger then, and this sorter seems to be
-_my_ fault."
-
-Ann fell to quivering with excitement as she reached for a chair and
-leaned upon it, her stout knee in the seat, her strong, bare arms
-resting on the back.
-
-"Right here I want to ask you one question, Joe Boyd, before we go a
-step further. Did Mary Waycroft make a proposal to Nettie--did Mary
-Waycroft hint to Nettie that maybe I'd be willing to help her along in
-some substantial way?"
-
-The farmer raised a pair of shifting eyes to the piercing orbs above
-him, and then looked down.
-
-"I believe she did something of the sort, Ann," he said, reluctantly,
-"but, you see--"
-
-"I see nothing but _this_," Ann threw into the gap left by his sheer
-inability to proceed--"I see nothing but the fact that my proposition
-scared her nearly to death. She was afraid it would get out that she was
-having something to do with me, and now, if I do rescue this land from
-public sale, I must keep in the background, not even let her know where
-the money is coming from."
-
-"I didn't say _that_," Boyd said, heavily stricken by the combined force
-of her tone and words. "The--the whole thing's for _you_ to decide on.
-I've tussled with it till I'm sick and tired. I wouldn't have come over
-if I hadn't thought it was my bounden duty to lay it before you. The
-situation has growed up unforeseen out of my trouble and yours. If you
-want the girl's land to go under hammer and bust up her marriage, that's
-all right. I won't cry about it, for I'm at the end of my rope. You see,
-law or no law, she's yore natural flesh and blood, jest as she is mine,
-an' she wasn't--the girl wasn't responsible fer what you an' me tuck a
-notion to do away back there. The report is out generally that
-everything you touch somehow turns to gold--that you are rolling in
-money. That's the reason I thought it was my duty--by God, Ann
-Lincoln"--his eyes were flashing with something like the fire which had
-blazed in them when he had gone away in his health and prime--"I
-wouldn't ask you for a red cent, for myself, not if I was dying for a
-mouthful of something to eat. I'm doing this because it seems right
-according to my poor lights. The child's happiness is at stake; you can
-look at it as you want to and act as you see fit."
-
-Ann bit her lip; a shudder passed over her strong frame from head to
-foot. She lowered her big head to her hands. "Sometimes," she groaned,
-"I wish I could actually curse God for the unfairness of my lot. The
-hardest things that ever fell to the fate of any human being have been
-mine. In agony, Jesus Christ prayed, they say, to let His cup pass if
-possible. _His_ cup! What _was_ His cup? Just death--that's all; but
-_this_ is a million times worse than death--this here crucifixion of
-pride--this here forcing me to help and protect people who deny me, who
-shiver at a hint of my approach, yelling 'Unclean, unclean!' like the
-lepers outside the city gates--beyond the walls that encompass accepted
-humanity. Joe Boyd"--she raised her face and stared at him--"you don't
-no more know me than you know the stars above your head. I am no more
-the silly girl that you married than I am some one else. I learned the
-lesson of life away back there when you left in that wagon with the
-child of my breast. I have fought a long battle, and I'm still fighting.
-To me, with all my experience, you--you poor little thing--are a baby of
-a man. You had a wife who, if she _does_ say it, had the brain of a
-dozen such men as you are, and yet you listened to the talk of a weak,
-jealous, disappointed woman and came and dared to wipe your feet on me,
-spit in my face, and drag my name into the mire of public court. I made
-no defence then--I don't make any now. I'll never make any. My life
-shall be my defence before God, and Him only. I wish it could be a
-lesson to all young women who are led into misfortune such as mine. To
-every unfortunate girl I'd say, 'Never marry a man too weak to
-understand and appreciate you.' I loved you, Joe Boyd, as much as a
-woman ever loved a man, but it was like the love of a strong man for a
-weak, dependent woman. Somehow I gloried in your big, hulking
-helplessness. What I have since done in the management of affairs I
-wanted to do for you."
-
-"Oh, I know all that, Ann, but this is no time or place to--"
-
-"But it's _got_ to be the time and place," she retorted, shaking a stiff
-finger in his face. "I want to show you one side of this matter. I won't
-mention names, but a man, an old man, come to me one day. He set there
-on my door-step and told me about his life of his own free will and
-accord, because he'd heard of mine, and wanted to comfort me. He'd just
-buried his wife--a woman he'd lived with for thirty-odd years, and big
-tears rolled down his cheeks while he was talking. He said he was going
-to tell me what he'd never told a living soul. He said away back, when
-he was young, he loved his wife and courted her. He saw that she loved
-him, but she kept holding off and wouldn't give in till he was nearly
-distracted; then he said her mother come to him and told him what the
-trouble was. It was because the girl had had bad luck like I did. She
-loved him and wanted to make him a good wife, but was afraid it would be
-wrong. He said he told the girl's mother that it made no difference to
-him, and that he then and there promised never on this earth to mention
-it to her, and he never did. She was the woman he lived with for a third
-of a century in holy wedlock, and who he couldn't speak of without
-shedding tears. Now, Joe Boyd, here's my point--the only difference I
-can see in that woman's conduct and mine is that I would have told you,
-but I didn't think you was the kind of a man to tell a thing like that
-to. I didn't think you was strong enough, as a man, but I thought your
-happiness and mine depended on our marriage, and so after you had dogged
-my steps for years I consented. So you see, if--if, I say--you had gone
-and let the old matter drop, you wouldn't have been in the plight you
-are now, and our child would have had more of the things she needed."
-
-"There are two sides to it," Boyd said, raising a sullen glance to her
-impassioned face. "And that reminds me of an old man I knew about. He
-was the best husband that ever walked the earth. He loved his wife and
-children, and when he was seventytwo years of age he used to totter
-about with his grandchildren all day long, loving them, with his whole
-heart. Then one day proof was handed him--actual proof--that not a speck
-of his blood flowed in their veins. He was hugging one of the little
-ones in his arms when he heard the truth. Ann, it killed him. That's
-t'other side. You nor me can't handle a matter as big and endless as
-that is. The Lord God of the universe is handling ours. We can talk and
-plan, but most of us, in a pinch, will do as generations before us have
-done in sech delicate matters."
-
-"I suppose so." Ann's lips were white; there was a wild, hunted look in
-her great, staring eyes.
-
-"I tried to reason myself out of the action I finally took," Boyd went
-on, deliberately, "but there was nothing else to do. I was bothered nigh
-to death. The thing was running me stark crazy. I had to chop it off,
-and I'm frank to say, even at this late day, that I don't see how I
-could have done otherwise. But I didn't come here to fetch all this up.
-It was just the other matter, and the belief that it was my duty to give
-you a chance to act on it as you saw fit."
-
-"If her wedding depends on it, the farm must be saved," Ann said,
-quietly. "I give away money to others, why shouldn't I to--to her? I'll
-get a blank and write a check for the money."
-
-He lowered his head, staring at the flames. "That's for you to decide,"
-he muttered. "When the debt is paid the land shall be deeded to her.
-I'll die rather than borrow on it again."
-
-Ann went to the clock on the mantel-piece and took down a pad of blank
-checks and a pen and bottle of ink. Placing them on the table, she sat
-down and began to write with a steady hand and a firm tilt of her head
-to one side.
-
-"Hold on!" Boyd said, turning his slow glance upon her. "Excuse me, but
-there's one thing we haven't thought of."
-
-Ann looked up from the paper questioningly. "What is that?"
-
-"Why, you see, I reckon I'd have to get that check cashed somewhere,
-Ann, and as it will have your name on it, why, you see, in a country
-where everybody knows everybody else's business--"
-
-"I understand," Ann broke in--"they would know I had a hand in it."
-
-"Yes, they would know that, of course, if I made use of that particular
-check."
-
-Ann Boyd rested her massive jaw on her hand in such a way as to hide her
-face from his view. She was still and silent for a minute, then she
-rose, and, going to the fire, she bent to the flame of a pine-knot and
-destroyed the slip of paper.
-
-"I don't _usually_ keep that much money about the house," she said,
-looking down on him, "but I happen to have some hidden away. Go out and
-get your horse ready and I'll bring it to you at the fence."
-
-He obeyed, rising stiffly from his chair and reaching for his worn
-slouch hat.
-
-He was standing holding his bony horse by the rein when she came out a
-few minutes later and gave him a roll of bills wrapped in a piece of
-cloth.
-
-"Here it is," she said. "You came after it under a sense of duty, and I
-am sending it the same way. I may be made out of odd material, but I
-don't care one single thing about the girl. If you had come and told me
-she was dead, I don't think I'd have felt one bit different. It might
-have made me a little curious to know which of us was going next--you,
-me, or her--that's all. Good-bye, Joe Boyd."
-
-"Good-bye, Ann," he grunted, as he mounted his horse. "I'll see that
-this matter goes through right."
-
-
-
-
-XVIII
-
-
-Colonel Preston Chester and his son Langdon were at breakfast two days
-after this. The dining-room of the old mansion was a long, narrow
-chamber on the first floor, connected with the brick kitchen outside by
-a wooden passage, roofed, latticed at both sides, and vine-grown. The
-dining-room had several wide windows which opened on a level with the
-floor of the side veranda. Strong coffee, hot biscuits, and birds
-delicately browned were brought in by a turbaned black woman, who had
-once been a slave in the family, and then she discreetly retired.
-
-The old gentleman, white-haired, pink and clear of complexion, and
-wearing a flowing mustache and an imperial, which he nervously clutched
-and twisted in his soft fingers, was not in a good humor.
-
-"Here I am ready to go to Savannah, as I promised, to pay a visit and
-bring your mother back," he fumed, "and now find that you have taxed my
-credit at the bank so heavily with your blasted idleness and poker debts
-that they actually gave me a lecture about my financial condition. But
-I've certainly headed you off, sir. I left positive orders that no check
-of yours is to be honored during my absence."
-
-"You did that, father? Why--"
-
-"Of course I did it. I can't put up with your extravagance and damnable
-habits, and I don't intend to."
-
-"But, father, I've heard you say you cost your parents on an average of
-four thousand dollars a year before you got married, and--"
-
-"Don't begin that twaddle over again," roared the Colonel in his
-coffee-cup. "What my father did for me in those easy times has nothing
-to do with our condition in the present day. Besides, it was the custom
-of the times to live high, while now it's coming to be a disgrace to be
-idle or to have luxuries. We've got to work like the rest at something
-or other. Here's that Luke King back from the West with enough money to
-install his whole gang of white trash in one of the best places in the
-entire river valley, and is conducting a paper in Atlanta that everybody
-is talking about. Why, blast it all, I heard Governor Crawford say at
-the Capital City Club the other day that if he--mind you, the governor
-of the State--if he could get King's influence he would be re-elected
-sure. Think of that, when I put a fortune into your education. You are
-doing nothing for your name, while he's climbing like that on the poor
-chances he had."
-
-"Oh, he had education, such as he needed," Langdon replied, with a
-retaliatory glance at his father. "Ann Boyd sent him to school, you
-know."
-
-The old man's eyes wavered; he drank from his cup silently, and then
-carefully wiped his mustache on his napkin. It was not the first time
-Langdon had dared to pronounce the woman's name in his presence, and it
-looked as if the Colonel dreaded further allusions.
-
-"Well, I've got to make the trip to Savannah," he said, still avoiding
-his son's glance, and trying to keep up his attitude of cold reproof. He
-was becoming convinced that Langdon was acquiring a most disagreeable
-habit of justifying his own wild conduct by what he had heard of his
-father's past, and this was decidedly irritating to the planter, who
-found enough to reproach himself with in reflecting upon what he had
-gone through without being held accountable for another career which
-looked quite as bad in the bud and might bear even worse fruit.
-
-"Yes, I think myself, all jokes aside, that you ought to go," Langdon
-said. "I'll do the best I can to keep things straight here. The hunting
-will be good, and I can manage to kill time. You'll want to take along
-some spending money, father. Those old chums of yours down there will
-draw you into a poker game sure."
-
-"I'll cut that out, I reckon"--the Colonel smiled in spite of himself.
-Langdon was such a copy of what he had been at the same age that it
-seemed, under stress of certain memories, almost wrong to reprove him.
-"No, I've sworn off from cards, and that's one thing I want you to let
-alone. I don't want to hear of your having any more of those all-night
-carouses here, leaving bullet-holes in your grandfather's portrait, as
-you and your dissolute gang did the last time I was away. It's a wonder
-to me you and those fellows didn't burn the house down."
-
-At this juncture Langdon was glad to see the overseer of the plantation
-on the veranda, and the Colonel went out to give him some instructions.
-
-Two nights later, when he had seen his father off at the door and turned
-back into the great, partly lighted house, Langdon set about thinking
-how he could spend the evening and rid himself of the abiding sense of
-loneliness that had beset him. He might stroll over to Wilson's store,
-but the farmers he met there would be far from congenial, for he was not
-popular with many of them, and unless he could meet, which was unlikely
-at night, some drummer who would play poker freely with the funds of the
-house he represented against Langdon's ready promises to pay, his walk
-would be fruitless. No, he would not go to the store, he decided; and
-still he was in no mood, at so early an hour, for the solitude of his
-room or the antiquated library, from the shelves of which frowned the
-puritanical books of his Presbyterian ancestors. Irresolute, he had
-wandered to the front veranda again, and as he stood looking eastward he
-espied, through the trees across the fields and meadows, a light. It was
-Jane Hemingway's kitchen candle, and the young man's pulse beat more
-rapidly as he gazed at it. He had occasionally seen Virginia outside the
-house of evenings, and had stolen chats with her. Perhaps he might have
-such luck again. In any case, nothing would be lost in trying, and the
-walk would kill time. Besides, he was sure the girl was beginning to
-like him; she now trusted him more, and seemed always willing to talk to
-him. She believed he loved her; who could doubt it when he himself had
-been surprised at his tenderness and flights of eloquence when inspired
-by her rare beauty and sweetness? Sometimes he believed that his feeling
-for the beautiful, trustful girl was a love that would endure, but when
-he reflected on the difference in their stations in life he had grave
-and unmanly doubts. As he walked along the road, the light of Jane's
-candle, like the glow of a fire-fly, intermittently appearing and
-disappearing ahead of him through the interstices of the trees and
-foliage, the memory of the gossip about his father and Ann Boyd flashed
-unpleasantly upon him. Was he, after all, following his parent's early
-bent? Was family history repeating itself? But when the worst was said
-about that affair, who had been seriously injured? Certainly not the
-easy-going Colonel, surely not the sturdy pariah herself, who had,
-somehow, turned her enforced isolation to such purpose that she was rich
-in the world's goods and to all appearances cared not a rap for public
-opinion.
-
-                                  ----
-
-That day had been the gloomiest in Virginia's life. Early in the morning
-Jane had gone to Darley for the twentieth time to try to borrow the
-money with which to defray her expenses to Atlanta. She had failed
-again, and came home at dusk absolutely dejected.
-
-"It's all up with me!" she groaned, as she sank heavily into a chair in
-front of the cheerful fire Virginia had in readiness, and pushed her
-worn shoes out to the flames. "I went from one old friend to another,
-telling them my condition, but they seemed actually afraid of me,
-treating me almost like a stranger. They all told tales of need,
-although they seemed to have plenty of everything. Judge Crane met me in
-Main Street and told me I could appeal to the county fund and get on the
-pauper list, but without offering to help me; he said he knew I'd almost
-rather die than fall so low. No, I'll not do that, Virginia. That's what
-would tickle Ann Boyd and some others powerfully."
-
-With lagging steps and a heart like lead, Virginia went about preparing
-the simple meal. Her mother ate only hot buttered toast with boiled milk
-on it to soften it for her toothless gums, but the fair cook scarcely
-touched food at all. Her mother's grewsome affliction was in the
-sensitive girl's mind all through each successive day, and even at night
-her sleep was broken by intermittent dreams of this or that opportunity
-to raise the coveted money. Sometimes it was the jovial face of a crude,
-penniless neighbor who laughed carelessly as he handed her a cumbersome
-roll of bank-bills; again she would find a great heap of gold glittering
-in the sun, only to wake with her delicate fingers tightly clasped on
-nothing at all--to wake that she might lie and listen to Jane's sighs
-and moans as the old woman crouched over the ash-buried coals to light a
-tallow-dip to look, for the thousandth time, at the angry threat of fate
-upon her withered breast.
-
-To-night, greatly wearied by her long ride and being on her feet so
-long, Jane went to bed early, and, when she was alone, Virginia, with a
-mental depression that had become almost physical pain, went out and sat
-on the front door-step in the moonlight. That very day a plan of her own
-in regard to the raising of the money had fallen to earth. She had heard
-of the munificent gift Luke King had made to his mother, and she
-determined that she would go to him, lay the case before him, and pledge
-herself to toil for him in any capacity till he was repaid; but when she
-had gone as far in the direction of the newly purchased farm as the
-Hincock Spring, she met Mary Bruce in a new dress and hat, and
-indirectly discovered that King had given up his last dollar of ready
-money to secure the property for his people. No, she would not take her
-own filial troubles to a young man who was so nobly battling with his
-own. At any other moment she might have had time to admire King's
-sacrifice, but her mind was too full of her own depressing problem to
-give thought to that of another. Her sharp reproof to him for his
-neglect of his mother during his absence in the West flitted through her
-memory, and at a less troubled moment she would have seen how
-ridiculously unjust her childish words must have sounded.
-
-As she sat, weighted down with these things, she heard a step down the
-road. It was slow and leisured, if not deliberately cautious. It was
-accompanied by a persistent spark of fire which flitted always on a
-straight line, in view and out, among the low bushes growing close to
-the fence along the roadside. A moment later a handsome face in the
-flare of a burning cigar appeared, smiling confidently at the gate. It
-was Langdon Chester.
-
-"Come out here," he said, in a soft, guarded voice. "I want to see you."
-
-Virginia rose, listened to ascertain if her mother was still asleep, and
-then, drawing her light shawl about her shoulders, she went to the
-fence. He reached over the gate and took her hand and pressed it warmly.
-"I was awfully afraid I'd not see you," he said. "I've failed so many
-times. My father left to-day, and I am very lonely in that big house
-with not a soul nearer than the negro-quarter."
-
-"It must be lonely," Virginia said, trying to be pleasant and to throw
-off her despondency.
-
-"Your mother went to town to-day, didn't she?" Chester pursued, still
-holding the hand which showed an indifferent inclination to quit his
-clasp. "I think I saw her coming back. Did she get what she went for?"
-
-"No, she failed utterly," Virginia sighed. "I don't know what to do.
-She's suffering awfully--not in bodily pain, you know, for there is none
-at all, but in the constant and morbid fear of death. It is an awful
-thing to be face to face, day after day, night after night, with a
-mother who is in such agony. I never dreamed such a fate could be in
-store for any young girl. It is actually driving me crazy."
-
-"Yes, yes," Langdon said, hesitatingly. "I want to tell you something. I
-had a talk with my father about her just before he left. I've worried
-over it, too, little girl. Folks may run me down, you know, but I've got
-real feelings; and so, as a last resort, as I say, I told him about it.
-He's hard up himself, as you may know, along with our heavy family
-expenses, and interest on debts, and taxes, but I managed to put it in
-such a way as to get him interested, and he's promised to let me have
-the money provided he can make a certain deal down at Savannah. But he
-says it must be kept absolutely quiet, you understand. If he sends me
-this money, you must not speak of it to any one--the old man is very
-peculiar."
-
-Virginia's heart bounded, the hot blood of a dazzling new hope pulsed
-madly in her veins. The tensity of her hand in his warm clasp relaxed;
-her eyes, into which his own passionate ones were melting, held kindling
-fires of gratitude and trust.
-
-"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried, "if he only _would_!"
-
-"Well, there is a splendid chance of his doing it," Langdon said. "I was
-awfully afraid to mention the subject to him, you know, for fear that he
-would suspect my interest was wholly due to you, but it happens that he
-has never seen us together, and so he thought it was simply my sympathy
-for one of our neighbors. I had to do something, Virginia. I couldn't
-stay idle when my beautiful little sweetheart was in such downright
-trouble."
-
-With a furtive glance towards the house and up and down the road,
-Langdon drew her towards him. Just one instant she resisted, and then,
-for the first time in her life, she allowed him to kiss her without open
-protest. She remained thus close to him, permitting him to stroke her
-soft, rounded cheeks gently. Never before were two persons impelled by
-diverse forces so closely united.
-
-"When do you--you think your father will write?" she asked, her voice
-low, her soul almost shrieking in joy.
-
-"That depends," said Chester. "You see, he may not get at the matter
-_the very day_ he arrives in Savannah, for he is a great old codger to
-let matters slide in the background while he is meeting old friends.
-But, little girl, I don't intend to let it slip out of his mind. I'll
-drop him a line and urge him to fix it up if possible. That, I think,
-will bring him around. Your mother is sound asleep," he added,
-seductively; "let's walk a little way down the road. I sha'n't keep you
-long. I feel awfully happy with you all to myself."
-
-She raised no objection as he unfastened the latch of the gate with
-deft, noiseless fingers and, smiling playfully, drew her after him and
-silently closed the opening.
-
-"Now, this is more like it," he said. "Lovers should have the starry
-skies above them and open fields about. Forget your mother a little
-while, Virginia. It will all come out right, and you and I will be the
-happiest people in the world. Great Heavens! how perfectly lovely you
-are in the moonlight! You look like a statue of Venus waking to life."
-
-They had reached the brook which rippled on brown stones across the road
-at the foot of the slight rise on which the cottage stood, when they saw
-some one approaching. It was Ann Boyd driving her cow home, her heavy
-skirts pinned up half-way to her stout knees. With one sharp, steady
-stare at them, Ann, without greeting of any kind, lowered her bare,
-dew-damp head and trudged on.
-
-"It's that miserly old hag, Ann Boyd," Langdon said, lightly. "I don't
-like her any more than she does me. I reckon that old woman has
-circulated more lies about me than all the rest of the country put
-together."
-
-At the first sight of Ann, Virginia had withdrawn her hand from
-Langdon's arm and passionate clasp of fingers, but the action had not
-escaped Ann's lynx eyes.
-
-"It's coming, thank God, it's coming as fast as a dog can trot!" she
-chuckled as she plodded along after her waddling cow. "Now, Jane
-Hemingway, you'll have something else to bother about besides your
-blasted cancer--something that will cut your pride as deep as that does
-your selfish flesh. It won't fail to come, either. Don't I know the
-Chester method? Huh, if I don't, it isn't known. With his head bent that
-way, and holding her hand with hand and arm both at once, he might have
-been his father over again. Huh, I felt like tearing his eyes out, just
-now--the young beast! I felt like she was me, and the old brink was
-yawning again right at my feet. Huh, I felt that way about Jane
-Hemingway's daughter--that's the oddest thing of all! But she _is_
-beautiful; she's the prettiest thing I ever saw in all my life. No
-wonder he is after her; she's the greatest prize for a Chester in
-Georgia. Jane's asleep right now, but she'll wake before long and she'll
-wonder with all her wounded pride how God ever let her close her eyes.
-Yes, my revenge is on the way. I see the light its blaze has cast on
-ahead. It may be Old Nick's torch--what do I care? He can wave it, wave
-it, wave it!"
-
-She increased her step till she overtook her cow. Laying her hand on the
-animal's back, she gently patted it. "Go on home to your calf, you
-hussy," she laughed. "The young of even _your_ sort is safer, according
-to the plan that guides the world, than Jane Hemingway's. She's felt so
-safe, too, that she's made it her prime object in life to devil a person
-for exactly what's coming under her own roof--_exactly to a gnat's
-heel_!"
-
-
-
-
-XIX
-
-
-One evening, about four days later, Mrs. Waycroft hurried in to see Ann.
-The sharp-sighted woman, as she nodded indifferently to the visitor, and
-continued her work of raking live coals under a three-legged pot on the
-hearth, saw that Mrs. Waycroft was the fluttering bearer of news of some
-sort, but she made no show of being ready to listen to it. The widow,
-however, had come to be heard, she had come for the sheer enjoyment of
-recital.
-
-"Ann," she panted, "let that oven alone and listen to me. I've got about
-the biggest piece of news that has come your way in many a long day."
-
-"You say you have?" Ann's brass-handled poker rang as she gave a parting
-thrust at a burning chunk, and struck the leg of the pot.
-
-"Yes, and I dropped on to it by the barest accident. About an hour after
-sunset to-day, I was in the graveyard, sitting over Jennie's grave, and
-planning how to place the new stones. I looked at the spot where I'd
-been sitting afterwards, and saw that it was well sheltered with thick
-vines. I was completely covered from the sight of anybody passing along
-the road. Well, as I was sitting there kind o' tired from my work and
-the walk, I heard a man's voice and a woman's. It was Langdon Chester
-and Virginia Hemingway. He seemed to be doing most of the talking, and
-since God made me, I never heard such tender love-making since I was
-born. I knew I had no business to listen, but I just couldn't help it.
-It took me back to the time I was a girl and used to imagine that some
-fine young man was coming to talk to me that way and offer me a happy
-home and all heart could desire. I never dreamed such tender words could
-fall from a man's tongue. I tried to see Virginia's face, but couldn't.
-He went on to say that his folks was to know nothing at present about
-him and her, but that everything would finally be satisfactorily
-arranged."
-
-"Huh, I reckon so!" Ann ejaculated, off her usual guard, and then she
-lapsed into discreet silence again.
-
-"But I got on to the biggest secret of all," Mrs. Waycroft continued.
-"It seems that Langdon has been talking in a roundabout way to his
-father about Jane's sad plight, and that Colonel Chester had agreed to
-send the money for the operation from Savannah."
-
-"Huh! he's got no money to give away," slipped again from Ann's too
-facile lips, "and if he _did_ have it, he wouldn't--"
-
-"Well, that may be, or it may not," said Mrs. Waycroft; "but Langdon
-said he wasn't going to wait for the check. He said a man in Darley had
-been bantering him for a long time to buy his fine horse, Prince, and as
-he didn't care to keep the animal, he had sent him by one of the negroes
-on the place this morning."
-
-"Oh, he did that!" Ann panted. She carefully leaned the poker against
-the jamb of the fireplace and sat staring, her rugged face working under
-stress of deep and far-reaching thought.
-
-"So I heard him say as plainly as you and me are talking right now. He
-said the negro couldn't possibly make the transfer and get back with the
-money till about ten o'clock to-night. And that, to me, Ann--just
-between us two, was the oddest thing of all. For he was begging her to
-slip away from home at that hour and come to his house for the money, so
-she could surprise her ma with it the first thing in the morning."
-
-"He was, was he? huh!" Ann rose and went to the door and looked out.
-There she stood stroking her set face with a steady hand. She was
-tingling with excitement and trying to hide it. Then she turned back and
-bent low to look at the coals under her pot. "Well, I reckon she was
-willing to grant a little favor like that under the circumstances."
-
-"She had to be begged powerful," said the visitor. "I never in all my
-life heard such pleading. Part of the time he'd scold her and reproach
-her with not caring for him like he did for her. Then he'd accuse her of
-being suspicious of him, even when he was trying his level best to help
-her out of trouble. Finally, he got to talking about how folks died,
-slow-like, from cancers, and what her real duty was to her mother. It
-was then that she give in. I know she did, though I didn't hear what she
-said, for he laughed out sudden, and gladlike, and I heard him kiss her
-and begin over again, about how happy they were going to be and the
-like. I reckon, Ann, he really _does_ mean to marry her."
-
-"I reckon so," Ann said. "I reckon so. Such things have been known to
-happen."
-
-"Well, we'll wait and see what comes of it," said Mrs. Waycroft.
-"Anyway, Jane will get her cancer-money, and that's all she cares for.
-They say she's in agony day and night, driving Virginia distracted. I'm
-sorry for that pore little thing. I don't like her mammy, for treating
-you as she has so long and persistent, but I can't hold Virginia
-accountable."
-
-Ann shrugged her broad shoulders. There was a twinkling light of dawning
-triumph in each of her non-committal eyes, and unwonted color in her
-cheeks, all of which escaped the widow's notice.
-
-"Well, that wasn't the end," she said, tentatively.
-
-"I couldn't hear any more, Ann. They walked on. I stood up and watched
-them as they went on through the bushes, arm in arm, towards her home.
-I'm sure he loves her. Anybody would know it that heard him talk;
-besides she is pretty--you know that, Ann. She is the most beautiful
-girl I have ever seen anywhere. They looked fine, too, walking side by
-side. They say he's a spendthrift and got bad habits, but maybe his
-folks will be glad to have him settle down with such a sensible girl if
-she is poor. She'll keep him straight. I'd rather nothing is said about
-where Jane's money is coming from, Ann. That seems to be their secret,
-and I have no right to circulate it."
-
-"I'll not talk it," Ann said. "It will be safe with me."
-
-When the widow had left, Ann became a changed creature in outward
-appearance. She stood on the porch till her guest had disappeared in the
-dusk, and then she paced the floor of her sitting-room in a spasm of
-ecstasy, now and then shaken by a hearty laugh.
-
-"I see through him," she chuckled. "He is trying to ease his dirty
-conscience by paying money down. It's a slick trick--on a par with a
-promise to marry. He's telling his filthy soul that he's saving her
-mother's life. The girl's as blind as a bat--the average woman can only
-see one thing at a time; she's simply bent on getting that money, and
-thinks of nothing else. But, Jane Hemingway--old lady--I've got you
-where I want you at last. It won't be long before your forked tongue
-will be tied fast in a knot. You can't keep on after me publicly for
-what is in your own dirty flesh. And when you know the truth you'll
-know, too, that it all come about to save your worthless life. You'll
-get down on your knees then and beg the Lord to have mercy on you. Maybe
-you'll remember all you've done against me from your girl-days till now
-as you set with your legs dangling in the grave. Folks will shun your
-house, too, unless you rid it of contagion. But you _bet I'll_ call.
-I'll send in _my_ card. Me'n' you'll be on a level then, and we'll owe
-it to the self-same high and mighty source."
-
-Ann suddenly felt a desire for the open air, as if the very walls of her
-house checked the pleasurable out-pourings of her triumph, and she went
-outside and strode up and down in the yard, fairly aflame with joy. All
-at once she paused; she was confronting the sudden fear that she might
-be fired by a false hope. Virginia, it was true, had agreed to go to
-Chester's at the appointed hour, but might she not, in calmer moments,
-when removed from Langdon's persistent influence, think better of it and
-stay at home? Ah, yes, there was the chance that the girl might fail to
-keep the appointment, and then--
-
-Cold from head to foot, Ann went back into the cottage and stood before
-the fire looking at the clock. It was fifteen minutes of ten, and ten
-was the hour. Why not make sure of the outcome? Why not, indeed? It was
-a good idea, and would save her days and days of suspense.
-
-Going out, Ann trudged across the dewy meadow, her coarse skirt clutched
-in her hands till she stood in one of the brier-grown fence-corners near
-the main road. Here, quite hidden from the open view of any one passing,
-by the shade of a young mulberry-tree, whose boughs hung over her like
-the ribs of an umbrella, she stood and waited. She must have been there
-ten minutes or more, her tense gaze on the road leading to Jane
-Hemingway's cottage, when she was sure she heard soft footsteps coming
-towards her. Yes, it was some one, but could it be--? It was a woman's
-figure; she could see that already, and, yes, there could be no mistake
-now--it _was_ Virginia. There was no one in the neighborhood quite so
-slight, light of foot, and erect. Ann suddenly crouched down till she
-could peer between the lower rails of the fence. She held her breath
-while the girl was passing, then she clasped her hands over her knees
-and chuckled. "It's _her_!" she whispered. "It's her, and she's headed
-for everlasting doom if ever a creature walked into a net of damnation."
-
-When Virginia was thirty or forty yards away, Ann cautiously climbed
-over the fence, almost swearing in impatience as she pulled her skirts
-from the detaining clutch of thorns, briers, and splinters, and with her
-head down she followed.
-
-"I'll make dead sure," she said, between pressed lips. "This is a matter
-I don't want to have a shadow of a doubt about."
-
-Presently, the long, white palings comprising the front fence at the
-Chesters' appeared into view, and the dark, moving figure of the girl
-outlined against it could be seen more clearly.
-
-Virginia moved onward till she had reached the gate. The smooth, steel
-latch clicked; there was a rip of darkness in the ribbon of white; the
-hinges creaked; the gate closed with a slam, as if it had slipped from
-nerveless fingers, and the tall boxwood bordering the walk to the door
-of the old house swallowed Virginia from the sight of her grim pursuer.
-
-"That will do me," Ann chuckled, as she turned back, warm with content
-in every vein. On her rapid walk to her house she allowed her fancy to
-play upon scores of situations in which the happening of that night
-would bring dire humiliation and shame to her enemy. Ann well knew what
-was coming; she had only to hold the album of her own life open and let
-the breeze of chance turn the pages to view what Jane Hemingway was to
-look upon later.
-
-
-
-
-XX
-
-
-Ann had just closed her gate, and was turning towards her door, when she
-heard a sound on the porch, and a man stepped down into the yard. It was
-Luke King.
-
-"Why, hello, Aunt Ann!" he cried out, cheerily. "Been driving hogs out
-of your field I'll bet. You need me here with my dog Pomp, who used to
-be such a dandy at that job."
-
-"Oh, it's you, Luke!" Ann cried, trying to collect herself, after the
-start he had given her.
-
-"Yes, I didn't mean to come at this hour of night, but as I was riding
-by just now, on my way home to see my mother, who is not exactly well, I
-noticed your door open, and not seeing you in sight, I hitched my horse
-up the road a piece and came back and watched at the gate. Then not
-hearing any sound, and knowing you never go to bed with your door open,
-I went in. Then you bet I _was_ scared. Things do once in a while happen
-here in the mountains, and--"
-
-"Oh, well, nothing was the matter with me," Ann smiled. "Besides, I can
-take care of myself."
-
-"I know that, too," he said. "I'm glad to get this chance to talk to
-you. I understand that mother is not as ill as they thought she was, and
-I'll have to catch the first train back to Atlanta in the morning. I'm
-doing pretty well down there, Aunt Ann."
-
-"I know it, Luke, and I'm glad," Ann said, her mind still on the things
-she had just witnessed.
-
-"But you haven't yet forgiven me for giving my people that farm. I can
-see that by your manner."
-
-"I thought it was foolish," she replied.
-
-"But that's because you simply don't know all about it, Aunt Ann," he
-insisted. "I don't want to make you mad again; but really I would do
-that thing over again and again. It has helped me more than anything I
-ever did. You see, you've been thinking on one line all your life and,
-of late years, I have been on quite another. You are a great woman, Aunt
-Ann, but you still believe that the only way to fight is to hit back.
-You have been hitting back for years, and may keep on at it for a while,
-but you'll see the truth one of these days, and you'll actually love
-your neighbors--even your vilest enemies. You'll come to see--your big
-brain will simply _have_ to grasp it--that your retaliation, being
-obedient to bad life-laws, is as blamable as the antagonism of your
-enemies. The time will come when your very suffering will be the medium
-through which you will view and pity their sordid narrowness. Then
-you'll appear to them in their long darkness as a blazing light; they
-will look up to you as a thing divine; they will fall blinded at your
-feet; they will see your soul as it has always been, pure white and
-dazzlingly bright, and look upon you as the very impersonation of--"
-
-"Huh, don't be a fool!" Ann sank on the edge of the porch, her eyes
-fixed angrily on the ground. "You are ignorant of what you are talking
-about--as ignorant as a new-born baby. You are a silly dreamer, boy.
-Your life is an easy, flowery one, and you can't look into a dark,
-rugged one like mine. If God is at the head of all things, he put evil
-here as well as the good, and to-night I'm thankful for the evil. I'm
-tasting it, I tell you, and it's sweet, sweet, sweet!"
-
-"Ah, I know," King sighed. "You are trying to make yourself believe you
-are glad Mrs. Hemingway is in such agony over her affliction."
-
-"I didn't say anything about her affliction." Ann stared half fearfully
-into his honest face.
-
-"But I know you well enough to see that's what you are driving at." King
-sat down beside her, and for a moment rested his hand on her shoulder.
-"But it's got to end. It shall not go on. I am talking to you, Aunt Ann,
-with the voice of the New Thought that is sweeping the face of the world
-to-day--only that mountain in the east and that one in the west have
-dammed its flow and kept it from this benighted valley. I did not intend
-yet to tell you the great overwhelming secret of my life, but I want to
-do it to-night. You love me as a son. I know that, and I love you as a
-mother. You are in a corner--in the tightest place you've ever been in
-in all your life. I'm going to ask you to do something for my sake that
-will tear your very soul out by the roots. You'll have to grant my wish
-or refuse--if you refuse, I shall be miserable for life."
-
-"Luke, what's the matter with you?" Ann shook his hand from its
-resting-place on his shoulder, and with bated breath leaned towards him.
-
-King was silent for a moment, his brows drawn together, his head
-lowered, his strong, manly hands clasped between his knees. A buggy
-passed along the road. In it sat Fred Masters and another man. Both were
-smoking and talking loudly.
-
-"Well, listen, and don't break in, Aunt Ann," King said, in a calm,
-steady voice. "I'm going to tell you something you don't yet know. I'm
-going to tell you of my first and only great love."
-
-"Oh, is _that_ it?" Ann took a deep breath of relief. "You've been roped
-in down there already, eh? Well, I thought that would come, my boy, with
-the papers full of you and your work."
-
-"Wait, I told you not to break in," he said. "I don't believe I'm a
-shallow man. To me the right kind of love is as eternal as the stars,
-and every bit as majestic. Mine, Aunt Ann, began years ago, here in the
-mountains, on the banks of these streams, in the shadow of these green
-hills. I loved her when she was a child. I went far off and met women of
-all sorts and ranks, and in their blank faces I always saw the soulful
-features of my child sweetheart. I came back here--_here_, do you
-understand, to find her the loveliest full-grown human flower that ever
-bloomed in God's spiritual sunshine."
-
-"You mean--great God, you mean--? Look here, Luke King." Ann drew her
-body erect, her eyes were flashing fire. "Don't tell me it is Virginia
-Hemingway. Don't, don't--"
-
-"That's who it is, and no one else this side of heaven!" he cried, in an
-impassioned voice. "That's who it is, and if I lose her--if I lose her
-my life will be a total failure. I could never rise above it, _never_!"
-
-Their eyes met in a long, steady stare.
-
-"You love that girl!" Ann gasped; "_that girl!_"
-
-"With all my soul and body," he answered, fervidly. "Life, work,
-success, power, nothing under high heaven can knock it out of me. She
-has got to be mine, and you must never interfere, either. I love you as
-a son loves his mother, and you must not take her from me. You must do
-more--you must help me. I've never asked many things of you. I ask only
-this one--give her to me, help me to win her. That's all. Now we
-understand each other. She's the whole world to me. She's young; she may
-be thoughtless; her final character is just forming; but she is destined
-to be the grandest, loveliest woman on the face of the earth. She is to
-be my wife, Aunt Ann--_my wife_!"
-
-Ann's head sank till her massive brow touched her crossed arms; he could
-see that she was quivering from head to foot. There was a long pause,
-then the woman looked up, faint defiance struggling in her face.
-
-"You _are_ a fool," she said. "A great, big, whimpering fool of a man.
-She's the only one, eh? Jane Hemingway's daughter is an angel on earth,
-above all the rest. Huh! and just because of her pretty face and slim
-body and high head. Huh, oh, you _are_ a fool--an idiot, if there ever
-was one!"
-
-"Stop, talk sense, if you _will_ talk," he said, sternly, his eyes
-flashing. "Don't begin to run her down. I won't stand it. I know what
-she is. I know she was made for me!"
-
-"She's not a whit better than the average," Ann retorted, her fierce
-eyes fixed on his face. "She's as weak as any of the rest. Do you
-know--do you know--" Ann looked away from him. "Do you know Langdon
-Chester has his eye on her, that he is following her everywhere, meeting
-her unbeknownst to her old mammy?"
-
-"Yes, I know that, too," King surprised her with the statement; "and
-between you and me, that as much as my mother's sickness made me lay
-down my work and come up here to-night. It is the crisis of my whole
-life. She is at the turning-point of hers, just as you were at yours
-when you were a young and happy girl. She might listen to him, and love
-him; it is as natural for her to believe in a well-acted lie, as it is
-for her to be good and pure. Listen and don't get mad--the grandest
-woman I ever knew once trusted in falseness, and suffered. Virginia
-might, too; she might enter the life-darkness that you were led into by
-sheer faith in mankind, and have a life of sorrow before her. But if it
-should happen, Aunt Ann, my career in the right way would end."
-
-"You wouldn't let a--a thing like that--" Ann began, anxiously, "a thing
-like that ruin your whole life, when--"
-
-"Wouldn't I? You don't know me. These two hands would be dyed to the
-bone with the slow death-blood of a certain human being, and I would go
-to the gallows with both a smile and a curse. That's why it's my crisis.
-I don't know how far it has gone. I only know that I want to save her
-from--yes, from what you've been through, and lay my life and energy at
-her feet."
-
-"Jane Hemingway's _daughter_!" Ann Boyd groaned.
-
-"Yes, Jane Hemingway's daughter. You hate her, I know, with the
-unreasonable hatred that comes from despising her mother, but you've got
-to help me, Aunt Ann. You put me where I am, in education and standing,
-and you must not see me pulled down."
-
-"How could I help you, even--even--oh, you don't know, you don't know
-that at this very minute--"
-
-"Oh yes, he may be with her right now, for all I know," King broke in,
-passionately. "He may be pouring his lies into her confiding ear at this
-very minute, as you say, but Fate would not be cruel enough to let them
-harm her. You must see her, Aunt Ann. For my sake, you must see her. You
-will know what to say. One word from you would open her eyes, when from
-me it would be an offence. She would know that you knew; it would shock
-her to her very soul, but it would--if she's actually in danger--save
-her; I know her well enough for that; it would save her."
-
-"You are asking too much of me, Luke," Ann groaned, almost in piteous
-appeal. "I can't do it--I just _can't_!"
-
-"Yes, you will," King said. "You have got a grand soul asleep under that
-crust of sordid hatred and enmity, and it will awake, now that I have
-laid bare my heart. You, knowing the grim penalty of a false step in a
-woman's life, will not sit idle and see one of the gentlest of your kind
-blindly take it. You can't, and you won't. You'll save her for me.
-You'll save me, too--save me from the fate of a murderer."
-
-He stood up. "I'm going now," he finished. "I must hurry on home. I
-won't have time to see you in the morning before I leave, but you now
-know what I am living for. I am living only for Virginia Hemingway. Men
-and women are made for each other, we were made for each other. She may
-fancy she cares for that man, but she doesn't, Aunt Ann, any more than
-you now care for--but I won't say it. Good-bye. You are angry now, but
-you will get over it, and--and, you will stand by me, and by her."
-
-
-
-
-XXI
-
-
-Left alone, still crouching on her door-step, Ann, with fixed eyes and a
-face like carved stone, watched him move away in the soft moonlight, the
-very embodiment of youth and faith. She twisted her cold hands between
-her knees and moaned. What was the matter with her, anyway? Was it
-possible that the recent raging fires of her life's triumph were already
-smouldering embers, half covered with the ashes of cowardly indecision?
-Was she to sit quaking like that because a mere youth wanted his toy?
-Was she not entitled to the sweet spoils of victory, after her long
-struggle and defence? Yes, but Virginia! After all, what had the
-innocent, sweet-natured girl to do with the grim battle? Never, in all
-Ann had heard of the constant gossip against her, had one word come from
-Virginia. Once, years ago, Ann recalled a remark of Mrs. Waycroft that
-the girl had tried to keep her mother from speaking so harshly of the
-lone brunt of general reproach, and yet Virginia was at that very moment
-treading the crumbling edge of the self-same precipice over which Ann
-had toppled.
-
-The lone woman rose stiffly and went into the house to go to bed--to go
-to bed--to sleep! with all that battle of emotion in her soul and brain.
-The clock steadily ticking and throwing its round, brass pendulum from
-side to side caught her eye. It was too dark to see the hands, so she
-lighted a tallow-dip, and with the fixed stare of a dying person she
-peered into the clock's face. Half-past ten! Yes, there was perhaps time
-for the rescue. If she were to get to Chester's in time, her judgment of
-woman's nature told her one word from her would complete the rescue--the
-rescue of Jane Hemingway's child--Jane's chief hope and flag of virtue
-that she would still wave defiantly in her eyes. Without
-undressing--why, she could not have explained--Ann threw herself on her
-bed and buried her face in the pillow, clutching it with tense, angry
-hands.
-
-"Oh, what's the matter with me?" she groaned. "Why did that fool boy
-come here to-night, telling me that it would bring him to the gallows
-stained to the bone with the dye of hell, and that _I_ must keep her in
-the right road--me? Huh, me keep a girl in the right track, so they can
-keep on saying I'm the only scab on the body of the community? I won't;
-by all the powers above and below, _I won't_! She can look out for
-herself, even if it _does_ ruin an idiot of a man and pull him--It
-really _would_ ruin him, though. Maybe it would ruin _me_. Maybe he's
-right and I ought to make a life business of saving others from what
-I've been through--saving even my enemies. Christ said it; there is no
-doubt about that. He said it. He never had to go through with what I
-have, though, for He was free from the desire to fight, but He meant
-that one thing, as the one great law of life--_the only law of life_!
-Oh, God, I must do something! I must either save the girl or let it go
-on. I don't know which to do, as God is my creator, I don't actually
-know which to do. I don't--I don't--I don't--really--know--which--I
-_want_ to do. That's it--I don't know which I _want_ to do. I'm simply
-crazy to-night. I've never felt this way before. I've always been able
-to tell whether I wanted, or didn't want, a thing, but now--"
-
-She turned over on her side. Then she sat up, staring at the clock. Next
-she put her feet on the floor and stood erect. "I won't," she said,
-between set teeth. "I won't. Before God, and all the imps of hell I'll
-not meddle with it. It's Jane Hemingway's business to look after her
-silly girl, and not mine."
-
-She went again to the porch and stood staring out into the white
-moonlight. The steady beat of the hoofs of Luke King's horse, dying out
-on the still night, came to her. Dear, dear boy! he did love the girl
-and he never would be the same again--never. It would mean his downfall
-from the glorious heights he had climbed. He would grapple as a wild
-beast with the despoiler, and, as he said, go willingly to his own end?
-Yes, that was Luke King; he had preached of the rugged road to heaven,
-he would take the easier way to hell, and laugh in his despair at the
-whole thing as a joke of fate.
-
-Before she knew it, Ann found herself out at her gate. Forces within her
-raised her hand to the latch and pushed her body through.
-
-"I'll not meddle," she said, and yet she moved on down the road. She met
-no one, heard nothing save the dismal croakings of the frogs in the
-marshes. On she went, increasing her speed at every step. Yes, she
-realized now that she must try to save the girl, for Virginia had done
-her no personal injury. No, she must abide another time and seek some
-other means for revenge against the mother. Chance would offer
-something. Why, the cancer--why hadn't she thought of that? Wasn't that
-enough for any human being to bear? Yes, Jane would get her reward. It
-was fast on the road. And for Luke's sake--for the sake of the brave,
-good-hearted, struggling boy, she would try to save his sweetheart. Yes,
-that seemed inevitable. The long, white fence of the Chester place
-suddenly cut across her view. Near the centre Ann descried the tall,
-imitation stone gate-posts, spanned at the top by a white crescent, and
-towards this portal she sped, breathing through her big nostrils like a
-laboring ox.
-
-Reaching the gate and opening it, she saw a buggy and a pair of horses
-hitched near the door. Ann paused among the boxwood bushes and stared in
-perplexity. What could it mean? she asked herself. Had Colonel Chester
-suddenly returned home, or was Langdon recklessly planning to flee the
-country with the thoughtless girl? Mystified, Ann trudged up the
-gravelled walk, seeing no one, till she stood on the veranda steps. The
-big, old-fashioned drawing-room on the right of the dark entrance-hall
-was lighted up. Loud, masculine laughter and bacchanalian voices burst
-through the half-open windows. Ann went up the steps and peered in at
-one of them, keeping her body well back in the shadow. There were three
-men within--two drummers, one of whom was Fred Masters, and Langdon
-Chester. The latter, calm and collected, and yet with a look of
-suppressed fury on his face, was reluctantly serving whiskey from an
-ancient cut-glass decanter. Ann saw that he was on the verge of an angry
-outburst, and began to speculate on the cause. Ah! she had an idea, and
-it thrilled her through and through. Quietly retracing her steps to the
-lawn, she inspected the exterior of the great, rambling structure. She
-was now sure that the visit of the men had come in the nature of an
-unwelcome surprise to the young master of the house, and she found
-herself suddenly clinging to the warm hope that the accident might have
-saved the girl.
-
-"Oh, God, let it be so!" Ann heard herself actually praying. "Give the
-poor young thing a chance to escape what I've been through!"
-
-But where was the object of her quest? Surely, Virginia had not gone
-back home, else Ann would have met her on the way. Looking long and
-steadily at the house, Ann suddenly descried a dim light burning
-up-stairs in the front room on the left-hand side of the upper hall.
-Instinct told her that she ought to search there, and, going back to the
-house, the determined rescuer crossed the veranda, walked boldly through
-the open doorway, and tiptoed to the foot of the broad, winding
-stairway. Loud laughter, the clinking of glasses, and blatant voices
-raised in harsh college-songs burst upon her. The yawning space through
-which the stairs reached upward was dark, but with a steady hand on the
-smooth walnut balustrade, Ann mounted higher and higher with absolutely
-fearless tread. She had just gained the first landing, and stood there
-encompassed in darkness, when the door of the drawing-room was suddenly
-wrenched open and Langdon and Masters, in each other's arms, playfully
-struggled into view.
-
-"You really must go now, boys," Chester was saying, in a persuasive
-voice. "I don't want to be inhospitable, you know, but I have that
-important work to do, and it must be done to-night. It is a serious
-legal matter, and I promised to mail the papers to my father the first
-thing in the morning."
-
-"Papers nothing!" Masters cried, in a drink-muffled tone. "This is the
-first time I ever honored your old ancestral shack with my presence, and
-I won't be sent off like a tramp from the door. Besides, you are not
-open and above-board--you never were so at college. That was your great
-forte, freezing your friends out of asking questions where your private
-devilment was concerned. That, and the reputation of your family for
-fighting duels, kept the whole school afraid of you. On my honor, Dick,"
-he called out to the man in the drawing-room, "I tell you I'm sure I saw
-a woman with him on the steps of the veranda as we drove up. He had hold
-of her hand and was pulling her into the hall."
-
-"Ah, don't be absurd," Ann heard Chester say, with a smooth, guarded
-laugh. "Get in your rig, boys, and drive back to the hotel. I'll see you
-in the morning."
-
-"Get in the rig nothing!" Masters laughed. "We are going to spend the
-night here, aren't we, Dick?"
-
-"You bet; that's what I came for," a voice replied from within. "But let
-him go do his work, Fred. You and I can finish the game, and empty his
-decanter. You can't walk off with my money and not give me a chance to
-win it back."
-
-"Yes, yes, that's a bang-up idea," Masters laughed, and he pushed
-Chester by main force back into the light. "You go burn the midnight
-oil, old man, and I'll make this tenderfoot telegraph his house for more
-expense money."
-
-With a thunderous slam, the door was closed. Loud voices in hot argument
-came from the room, and then there was silence. Chester had evidently
-given up in despair of getting rid of his guests. Ann moved on up the
-steps. In the room on the left the light was still burning, she could
-see a pencil of it under the door-shutter. To this she groped and softly
-rapped, bending her ear to the key-hole to listen. There was no sound
-within. Ann rapped again, more loudly, her hand on the latch. She
-listened again, and this time she was sure she heard a low moan. Turning
-the bolt, she found the door locked, but at the same instant noticed
-that the key had been left in the door on the outside. Turning the key,
-Ann opened the door, went in, and softly closed the opening after her. A
-lamp, turned low, stood on the mantel-piece, and in its light she saw a
-crouching figure in a chair. It was Virginia, her face covered with her
-hand, moaning piteously.
-
-"Let me go home, for God's sake, let me go home!" she cried, without
-looking up. "You said I was to get the money, if I came only to the
-door, and now--oh, oh!" The girl buried her face still deeper in her
-apron and sobbed.
-
-Ann, an almost repulsive grimace on her impassive face, stood over her
-and looked about the quaintly furnished room with its quiet puritanical
-luxury of space, at the massive mahogany centre-table, with carved legs
-and dragon-heads supporting the polished top, the high-posted bed and
-rich, old, faded canopy, the white counterpane and pillows looking like
-freshly fallen snow.
-
-"Thank God," Ann said, aloud.
-
-Virginia heard, sat as if stunned for an instant, and then with a stare
-of bewilderment looked up.
-
-"Oh!" she gasped. "I thought it was--"
-
-"I know, huh, child! nobody could know better than I do. Don't ask me
-what I come here for. I don't know any better than you do, but I come,
-and I'm going to get you out of it--that is, if I'm in time to do any
-good at all. Oh, you understand me, Virginia Hemingway. If I'm in time,
-you'll march out of here with me, if not, God knows you might as well
-stay here as anywhere else."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, how can you ask me such an awful--"
-
-"Well, then, I won't!" Ann said, more softly. "Besides, I can see the
-truth in your young face. The Almighty has put lights in the eyes of
-women that only one thing can put out. Yours are still burning."
-
-Virginia rose to her feet and clutched Ann's strong arm convulsively.
-
-"Oh, if you only knew _why_ I came, you'd not have the heart to think me
-absolutely bad. Mrs. Boyd, as God is my Judge, I came because he--"
-
-"You needn't bother to tell me anything about it," Ann grunted, with a
-shrug of her shoulders. "I know why you come; if I hadn't suspicioned
-the truth I'd have let you alone, but I ain't going to tell you why I
-come. I come, that's all. I come, and if we are going to get out of here
-without a scandal we've got to be slick about it. Those devils are still
-carousing down there. Let's go now while the parlor door is shut."
-
-They had reached the threshold of the chamber when Virginia drew back
-suddenly.
-
-"He told me not to dare to go that way!" she cried. "He said I'd be seen
-if I did. He locked me in, Mrs. Boyd--_he_ locked the door!"
-
-"I know that, too," Ann retorted, impatiently. "Didn't I have to turn
-the key to get in? But we've _got_ to go this way. We've got to go down
-them steps like I come, and past the room where they are holding high
-carnival. We've got to chance it, but we must be quick about it. We
-haven't time to stand here talking."
-
-She turned the carved brass knob and drew the shutter towards her. At
-the same instant she shrank back into Virginia's arms, for the
-drawing-room door was wrenched open, and Masters's voice rang out loudly
-in the great hall.
-
-"We will see where he bunks, won't we, Dick? By George, the idea of an
-old college-chum refusing to let a man see his house! I want to look at
-the photographs you used to stick up on the walls, you sly dog! Oh,
-you've got them yet! You don't throw beauties like them away when they
-cost a dollar apiece."
-
-"Go back to your game, boys!" Langdon commanded, with desperate
-coolness. "I'll show you the house after a while. Finish your game!"
-
-"The cold-blooded scoundrel!" Ann exclaimed, under her breath. "Not a
-drop has passed his lips to-night, as much as he likes a dram." She
-closed the door gently and stood looking about the room. On the edge of
-the mantel-piece she saw something that gleamed in the dim lamplight,
-and she went to it. It was a loaded revolver.
-
-"He threatened you with this, didn't he?" Ann asked, holding it before
-her with the easy clasp of an expert.
-
-"No, he didn't do that," Virginia faltered, "but he told me if--if I
-made a noise and attracted their attention and caused exposure, he'd
-kill himself. Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I didn't mean to come here to this room at
-first. I swear I didn't. He begged me to come as far as the front door
-to get the money the man had brought back from Darley, then--"
-
-"Then those drunken fools drove up, and he persuaded you to hide here,"
-Ann interrupted, her mind evidently on something else. "Oh, I
-understand; they played into his hands without knowing it, and it's my
-private opinion that they saved you, silly child. You can't tell me
-anything about men full of the fire of hell. You'd 'a' gone out of this
-house at break of day with every bit of self-respect wrung out of you
-like water out of a rag. You'd 'a' done that, if I hadn't come."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd--"
-
-"Don't oh Mrs. Boyd me!" Ann snapped out. "I know what I'm talking
-about. That isn't the point. The point is getting out to the road
-without a row and a scandal that will ring half-way round the world. Let
-a couple of foul-mouthed drummers know a thing like this, and they would
-actually pay to advertise it in the papers. I tell you, child--"
-
-Ann broke off to listen. The door of the drawing-room seemed to be
-opened again, and as quickly closed.
-
-"Come on." Ann held the revolver before her. "We've got to make a break
-for freedom. This ain't no place for a pure young woman. You've got what
-the highfaluting society gang at Darley would call a chaperon, but she
-isn't exactly of the first water, according to the way such things are
-usually graded. Seems like she's able to teach you tricks to-night."
-
-Virginia caught Ann's arm. "You are not going to shoot--" she began,
-nervously.
-
-"Not unless I _have_ to," Ann said. "But only hell knows what two
-drunken men and a cold, calculating devil of that brand will do in a
-pinch. I'll see you down them steps, and out into God's moonlight, if I
-have to drag you over enough corpses to make a corduroy road. I know how
-to shoot. I killed a squirrel once in a high tree with a pistol. Come
-on; they happen to be quiet right now."
-
-Ann opened the door and led the quaking girl across the upper corridor
-to the stairs, and they began to grope down the steps, Ann's revolver
-harshly scratching as it slid along the railing. The voices in the
-drawing-room, as they neared the door, grew more boisterous. There was a
-spasmodic and abortive effort at song on the part of Masters, a dash of
-a deck of playing-cards on the floor, angry swearing, and the calm
-remonstrance of the master of the house. Down the steps the two women
-went till the drawing-room door was passed. Then the veranda was gained,
-and the wide lawn and gravelled walks stretched out invitingly in the
-moonlight.
-
-"Thank God," Ann muttered, as if to herself. "Now come on, let's hustle
-out into the shelter of the woods."
-
-Speeding down the walk, hand-in-hand, they passed through the gate and
-reached the road. "Slick as goose-grease," Ann chuckled. "Now we are
-plumb safe--as safe as we'd be anywhere in the world."
-
-Drawing Virginia into the shadow of the trees bordering the road, she
-continued, more deliberately: "I could take you through the woods and
-across my meadows and fields, but it's a rough way at night, and it
-won't be necessary. We can take the main road and dodge out of the way
-if we hear anybody coming."
-
-"I'm not afraid now," Virginia sighed. "I'm not thinking about that. I'm
-only worried about what you think--what you think, Mrs. Boyd."
-
-"Never you mind what _I_ think, child," Ann said, quietly. "God knows I
-never would blame you like other folks, for I know a thing or two about
-life. I've learned my lesson."
-
-Virginia laid her hand firmly on Ann's strong one. "He promised me the
-money to have mother's operation performed. Oh, I couldn't let the
-chance escape, Mrs. Boyd--it meant so much to the poor woman. You have
-no idea what torture she is in. He wouldn't give it to me unless--unless
-I went all the way to his house for it. I hardly knew why, but--yes, I
-_knew_--"
-
-"That's right," Ann broke in, "it won't do any good to tell a story
-about it. You knew what he wanted; any girl of your age with
-common-sense would know."
-
-"Yes, I knew," Virginia confessed again, her head hanging, "but it was
-the only chance to get the money, and I thought I'd risk it. I _did_
-risk it, and have come away empty-handed. I'm safe, but my poor
-mother--"
-
-"Put that woman out of it for one minute, for God's sake!" Ann hurled at
-her. "And right here I want it understood I didn't leave a warm bed
-to-night to do her a favor. I done it, that's all there is about it, but
-keep her out of it."
-
-"All right," the girl gave in. "I don't want to make you mad after what
-you have done, but I owe it to myself to show you that I was thinking
-only of her. I am not bad at heart, Mrs. Boyd. I wanted to save my
-mother's life."
-
-"And you never thought of yourself, poor child!" slipped impulsively
-from Ann's firm lips. "Yes, yes, I believe that."
-
-"I thought only of her, till I found myself locked there in his room and
-remembered what, in my excitement, I had promised him. I promised him,
-Mrs. Boyd, to make no outcry, and--and--" Virginia raised her hands to
-her face. "I promised, on my word of honor, to wait there till he came
-back. When you knocked on the door I thought it was he, and when you
-opened it and came in and stood above me, I thought it was all over.
-Instead, it was you, and--"
-
-"And here we are out in the open air," Ann said, shifting the revolver
-to the other hand. She suddenly fixed her eyes on Virginia's thin-clad
-shoulders. "You didn't come here a cool night like this without
-something around you, did you?"
-
-"No, I--oh, I've left my shawl!" the girl cried. "He took it from me,
-and kept it. He said it was to bind me to my promise to stay till he got
-back."
-
-"The scoundrel!--the wily scamp!" Ann muttered. "Well, there is only one
-thing about it, child. I'm going back after that shawl. I wouldn't leave
-a thing like that in the hands of a young devil beat in his game; he'd
-make use of it. You go on home. I'll get your shawl by some hook or
-crook. You run over to my house on the sly to-morrow morning and I'll
-give it back to you."
-
-"But, Mrs. Boyd, I--"
-
-"Do as I tell you," the elder woman commanded, "and see that you keep
-this thing from Jane Hemingway. I don't want her to know the part I've
-taken to-night. Seems to me I'd rather die. What I've done, I've done,
-but it isn't for her to know. I've helped her daughter out of trouble,
-but the fight is still on between me and her, and don't you forget it.
-Now, go on; don't stand there and argue with me. Go on, I tell you. What
-you standing there like a sign-post with the boards knocked off for? Go
-on home. I'm going back for that shawl."
-
-Virginia hesitated for a moment, and then, without speaking again, and
-with her head hanging down, she turned homeward.
-
-
-
-
-XXII
-
-
-As Ann Boyd reached the veranda, on her return to the house, loud and
-angry voices came from the parlor through an open window.
-
-"Blast you, I believe it _was_ some woman," she heard Masters say in a
-maudlin tone, "and that's why you are so anxious to hurry us away. Oh,
-I'm onto you. George Wilson told me you were hanging round the girl you
-refused to introduce me to, and for all I know--"
-
-"That's no business of yours," Chester retorted, in a tone of sudden
-fury. "I've stood this about as long as I'm going to, Masters, even if
-you are drunk and don't know what you are about. Peterkin, you'd better
-take your friend home; my house is not a bar-room, and my affairs are my
-own. I want that understood."
-
-"Look here, Masters," a new voice broke in, "you _are_ going too far,
-and I'm not going to stand for it. Chester's right. When you are full
-you are the most unreasonable man alive. This is my turnout at the
-door--come on, or I'll leave you to walk to Springtown."
-
-"Well, I'll go all right," threatened Masters, "but I am not done yet.
-I'll see you again, my boy. What they used to say in college is true;
-you won't tote fair. You are for number one every time, and would
-sacrifice a friend for your own interests at the drop of a hat."
-
-"Take him on, take him on!" cried Chester.
-
-"Oh, I'm going all right!" growled Masters. "And I'm not drunk either.
-My judgment of you is sober-headed enough. You--"
-
-They were coming through the hall to gain the door, and Ann quickly
-concealed herself behind one of the tall Corinthian columns that
-supported the massive, projecting roof of the veranda. She was standing
-well in the shadow when Masters, drawn forcibly by his friend, staggered
-limply out and down the steps. Langdon followed to the edge of the
-veranda, and stood there, frowning sullenly in the light from the
-window. He was pale and haggard, his lip quivering in the rage he was
-trying to control as he watched Peterkin half lifting and almost roughly
-shoving Masters into the vehicle.
-
-"The puppy!" Ann heard him muttering. "I ought to have slapped his
-meddlesome mouth."
-
-Several minutes passed. Ann scarcely dared to breathe freely, so close
-was she to the young planter. Masters was now in the buggy, leaning
-forward, his head lolling over the dashboard, and Peterkin was getting
-in beside him. The next moment the impatient horses had turned around
-and were off down the drive in a brisk trot.
-
-"Yes, I ought to have kicked the meddling devil out and been done with
-it!" Ann heard Langdon say. "She, no doubt, has heard all the racket and
-been scared to death all this time, poor little thing!"
-
-Chester was on the point of turning into the hall when a step sounded at
-the corner of the house nearest the negro quarter, and a short, portly
-figure emerged into the light.
-
-"Marse Langdon, you dar?" a voice sounded.
-
-"Yes, Aunt Maria." The young planter spoke with ill-disguised
-impatience. "What is it?"
-
-"Nothin', Marse Langdon, 'cep' dem rapscallions kept me awake, an' I
-heard you stormin' out at um. I tol' yo' pa, Marse Langdon, ef dey was
-any mo' night carouses while he was gone I'd let 'im know, but I ain't
-gwine mention dis, kase I done see how hard you tried to oust dat low
-white trash widout a row. You acted de plumb gentleman, Marse Langdon.
-Is de anything I kin do fer you, Marse Langdon?"
-
-"No, Aunt Maria." Chester's tone betrayed impatience even with the
-consideration of the faithful servant. "No, I don't want a thing. I'm
-going to bed. I've got a headache. If any one should call to-night,
-which is not likely at this hour, send them away. I sha'n't get up."
-
-Ann was now fearful lest in turning he would discover her presence
-before the negro had withdrawn, and, seeing her opportunity while his
-attention was still on the road, from which the trotting of the
-departing horses came in a steady beat of hoofs, she noiselessly glided
-into the big hall through the open door and stood against a wall in the
-darkness.
-
-"Now, I reckon, they will let me alone!" she heard Chester say, as he
-came into the hall and turned into the parlor. The next instant he had
-blown out the tall prismed lamp, lowered a window, and come out to close
-and lock the front door.
-
-His hand was on the big brass handle when, in a calm voice, Ann
-addressed him:
-
-"I want a word with you, Mr. Chester," she said, and she moved towards
-him, the revolver hanging at her side.
-
-She heard him gasp, and he stood as if paralyzed in the moonbeams which
-fell through the open doorway and the side-lights of frosted glass.
-
-"Who are you?" he managed to articulate.
-
-"Oh, you know me, I reckon, Mr. Chester. I'm Ann Boyd. I want to see you
-on a little private business, just between you and me, you know. It
-needn't go any further."
-
-"Oh, Ann Boyd!" he exclaimed, and the thought ran through his bewildered
-brain that she had mistaken him for his father, and that he was
-accidentally running upon evidence of an intercourse between the two
-that he had thought was a thing of the past. "But, Mrs. Boyd," he said,
-"you've made a mistake. My father is away; he left for Savannah--"
-
-"I didn't want to see your father," Ann snarled, angrily. "My business
-is with you, my fine young man, and nobody else."
-
-"Me?" he gasped, in growing surprise. "Me?"
-
-"Yes, you. I've come back for Virginia Hemingway's shawl. She says you
-kept it. Just between you and me," she went on, "I don't intend to leave
-a thing like that in the hands of a man of your stamp to hold over the
-poor girl and intimidate her with."
-
-"You say--you say--" He seemed unable to formulate expression for his
-abject astonishment, and he left the door and aimlessly moved to the
-railing of the stairs and stood facing her. His eyes now fell on the
-revolver in her hand, and the sight of it increased his wondering
-perturbation.
-
-"I said I wanted her shawl," Ann repeated, firmly, "and I don't see no
-reason why I should stand here all night to get it. You know what you
-did with it. Hand it to me!"
-
-"Her shawl?" he muttered, still staring at her wide-eyed and bewildered,
-and wondering if this might not be some trap the vindictive recluse was
-setting for him.
-
-"Oh, I see," Ann laughed--"you think the poor, frail thing is still up
-there locked in that room; but she ain't. I saw her coming this way
-to-night, and, happening to know what you wanted her for, I come after
-her. You was busy with them galoots in the parlor, and I didn't care to
-bother you, so I went up and fetched her down without waiting to send in
-a card. She's in her bed by this time, poor little thing! And I come
-back for the shawl. I wasn't afraid of you, even without this gun that I
-found in your room. Thank God, the girl's as pure as she was the day she
-drew milk from her mother's breast, and I'll see to it that you won't
-never bother her again. This night you have sunk lower than man ever
-sunk--even them in your own family. You tried everything hell could
-invent, and when you failed you went to heaven for your bribes. You knew
-how she loved her wretched old hag of a mammy and what she wanted the
-money for. Some sensible folks argue that there isn't no such place as a
-hell. I tell you, Langdon Chester, there _is_ one, and it's full to
-running over--packed to the brink--with your sort. For your own low and
-selfish gratification you'd consign that beautiful flower of a girl to a
-long life of misery. You dirty scamp, I'm a good mind to--Look here, get
-me that shawl! You'll make me mad in a minute." She suddenly advanced
-towards him, the revolver raised half threateningly, and he shrank back
-in alarm.
-
-"Don't, don't point that thing at me!" he cried. "I don't want trouble
-with you."
-
-"Well, you get that shawl then, and be quick about it."
-
-He put a foot on the lower step of the stairs. "It's up at the door of
-the room," he said, doggedly. "I dropped it there just for a joke. I was
-only teasing her. I--I know she's a good girl. She--she knew I was going
-to give it back to her. I was afraid she'd get frightened and run down
-before those men, and--"
-
-"And your hellish cake would be dough!" Ann sneered. "Oh, I see, but
-that isn't getting the shawl."
-
-He took another slow step, his eyes upon her face, and paused.
-
-"You are trying to make it out worse than it is," he said, at the end of
-his resources. "I promised to give her the money, which I had locked in
-the desk in the library for safe-keeping, and asked her to come get it.
-She and I were on the steps when those men drove up. I begged her to run
-up-stairs to that room. I--I locked the door to--to keep them out more
-than for--for any other reason."
-
-"Oh yes, I know you did, Langdon Chester, and you took her shawl for the
-same reason and made the poor, helpless, scared thing agree to wait for
-you. A good scamp pleases me powerful, but you are too good a sample for
-any use. Get the shawl."
-
-"I don't want to be misunderstood," Chester said, in an all but
-conciliatory tone, as he took a slow, upward step.
-
-"Well, you bet there's no danger of me not understanding you," Ann
-sneered. "Get that shawl."
-
-Without another word he groped up the dark steps. Ann heard him walking
-about on the floor above, striking matches and uttering exclamations of
-anger. Presently she heard him coming. When half-way down the stairs he
-paused and threw the shawl to her.
-
-"There it is," he said, sullenly. "Leave my revolver on the steps."
-
-Ann caught the shawl, which, like some winged thing, swooped down
-through the darkness, and the next instant she had lowered the hammer of
-the revolver and laid it on the lowest step of the stairs.
-
-"All right, it's an even swap," she chuckled--"your gun for our shawl.
-Now go to your bed and sleep on this. It's my opinion that, bad as you
-are, young man, I've done you a favor to-night."
-
-"There's one thing I'll try to find out," he summoned up retaliatory
-courage to say, "and that is why you are bothering yourself so much
-about the daughter of a woman you are doing all you can to injure."
-
-Ann laughed from the door as she crossed the threshold, the shawl under
-her arm. "It will do you good to study on that problem," she said. "You
-find that out, and I'll pay you well for the answer. I don't know that
-myself."
-
-From the window of his room above, Langdon watched her as she passed
-through the gate and disappeared on the lonely road.
-
-"She won't tell it," he decided. "She'll keep quiet, unless it is her
-plan to hold it over Jane Hemingway. That may be it--and yet if that is
-so, why didn't she--wait?"
-
-
-
-
-XXIII
-
-
-The sun had just risen the next morning, and its long, red streamers
-were kindling iridescent fires in the jewels of dew on the dying grass
-of the fields. White mists, like tenderly caressing clouds, hung along
-the rocky sides of the mountains. Ann Boyd, her eyes heavy from unwonted
-loss of sleep, was at the barn feeding her horses when she saw Virginia
-coming across the meadows. "She wants her shawl, poor thing!" Ann mused.
-"I'll go get it."
-
-She went back into the house and brought it out just as the beautiful
-girl reached the barn-yard fence and stood there wordless, timid, and
-staring. "You see, I kept my word," the elder woman said, with an effort
-at a smile. "Here is your shawl." Virginia reached out for it. She said
-nothing, simply folding the shawl on her arm and staring into Ann's eyes
-with a woe-begone expression. She had lost her usual color, and there
-were black rings round her wonderful eyes that gave them more depth and
-seeming mystery than ever.
-
-"I hope your mother wasn't awake last night when you got back," Ann
-said.
-
-"No, she wasn't--she was sound asleep," Virginia said, without change of
-expression. It was as if, in her utter depression, she had lost all
-individuality.
-
-"Then she don't know," Ann put in.
-
-"No, she don't suspect, Mrs. Boyd. If she did, she'd die, and so would
-I."
-
-"Well, I don't see as she is likely to know--_ever_, as long as she
-lives," Ann said, in a crude attempt at comfort-giving.
-
-"I fancied you'd _want_ her to know," said the girl, looking at Ann
-frankly. "After I thought it over, I came to the conclusion that maybe
-you did it all so you could tell her. I see no other reason for--for you
-being so--so good to--to me."
-
-"Well, I don't know as I've been good to anybody." Ann's color was
-rising in spite of her cold exterior. "But we won't talk about that.
-Though I'll tell you one thing, child, and that is that I'll never tell
-this to a living soul. Nobody but you and me an' that trifling scamp
-will ever know it. Now, will _that_ do you any good? It's the same, you
-see, as if it had never really taken place."
-
-"But it _did_ take place!" Virginia said, despondently.
-
-"Oh yes, but you don't know when you are in luck," Ann said, grimly. "In
-things like that a miss is as good as a mile. Study my life awhile, and
-you'll fall down on your knees and thank God for His mercy. Huh, child,
-don't be silly! I know when a young and good-looking girl that has gone
-a step too far is fortunate. Look here--changing the subject--I saw your
-mammy standing in the back door just now. Does she know you left the
-house?"
-
-"Yes, I came to look for the cow," said Virginia.
-
-"Then she don't suspicion where you are at," said Ann. "Now, you see,
-she may have noticed that you walked off without a shawl, and you'd
-better not wear one home. Leave it with me and come over for it some
-time in the day when she won't miss you."
-
-"I think I'd better take it back," Virginia replied. "She wears it
-herself sometimes and might miss it."
-
-"Oh, I see!" Ann's brows ran together reflectively. "Well, I'll tell
-you. Tote it under your arm till you get near the house, and then drop
-it somewhere in the weeds or behind the ash-hopper, and go out and get
-it when she ain't looking."
-
-"I'll do that, then," the girl said, wearily. "I was thinking, Mrs.
-Boyd, that not once last night did I remember to thank you for--"
-
-"Oh, don't thank _me_, child!" Had Ann been a close observer of her own
-idiosyncrasies, her unwary softness of tone and gentleness to a daughter
-of her sworn enemy would have surprised her. "Don't thank me," she
-repeated. "Thank God for letting you escape the lot of others just as
-young and unsuspecting as you ever were. I don't deserve credit for what
-I done last night. In fact, between you and me, I tried my level best
-not to interfere. Why I finally gave in I don't know, but I done it, and
-that's all there is to it. I done it. I got started and couldn't stop.
-But I want to talk to you. Come in the house a minute. It won't take
-long. Jane--your mother--will think the cow has strayed off, but there
-stands the cow in the edge of the swamp. Come on."
-
-Dumbly, Virginia followed into the house and sank into a chair, holding
-her shapely hands in her lap, her wealth of golden-brown hair massed on
-her head and exquisite neck. Ann shambled in her untied, dew-wet shoes
-to the fireplace and poured out a cup of coffee from a tin pot on the
-coals.
-
-"Drink this," she said. "If what I hear is true, you don't get any too
-much to eat and drink over your way."
-
-Virginia took it and sipped it daintily, but with evident relish.
-
-"I see you take to that," Ann said, unconscious of the genuine, motherly
-delight she was betraying. "Here, child, I'll tell you what I want you
-to do. These spiced sausages of mine, dry as powder in the corn-shuck,
-are the best and sweetest flavored that ever you stuck a tooth in. They
-fry in their own grease almost as soon as they hit a hot pan when they
-are sliced thin."
-
-"Oh no, I thank you," Virginia protested; "I really couldn't."
-
-"But I know you _can_," Ann insisted, as she cut down from a rafter
-overhead one of the sausages and deftly sliced it in a pan already hot
-on the coals. "You needn't tell me you ain't hungry. I can see it in
-your face. Besides, do you know it's a strange fact that a woman will
-eat just the same in trouble as out, while a man's appetite is gone the
-minute he's worried?"
-
-The girl made no further protest, and Ann soon brought some hot slices
-of the aromatic food, with nicely browned toast, and placed them in a
-plate in her lap. "How funny all this seems!" Ann ran on.
-
-"Here I am feeding you up and feeling sorry for you when only last night
-I--well, I've got to talk to you, and I'm going to get it over with.
-I'll have to speak of the part of my life that has been the cud for
-every idle woman in these mountains to chaw on for many, many years, but
-I'm going to do it, so you will know better what you escaped last night;
-but, first of all, I want to ask you a straight question, and I don't
-mean no harm nor to be meddling where I have no business. I want to know
-if you love this Langdon Chester as--well, as you've always fancied
-you'd love the man you became a wife to."
-
-There was a moment's hesitation on the part of the girl. Her cheeks took
-on color; she broke a bit of the sausage with her fork, but did not
-raise it to her lips.
-
-"I'm asking you a simple, plain question," Ann reminded her.
-
-"No, I don't," Virginia answered, haltingly;--"that is, not now, not--"
-
-"Ah, I see!" the old woman cried. "The feeling died just as soon as you
-saw straight down into his real nature, just as soon as you saw that
-he'd treat you like a slave, that he'd abuse you, beat you, lock you up,
-if necessary--in fact, do anything a brute would do to gain his aims."
-
-"I'm afraid, now, that I never really loved him," Virginia said, a catch
-in her voice.
-
-"Humph!" Ann ejaculated. "I see. Then you went all the way over that
-lonely road to his house with just one thought in your mind, and that
-was to get that money for your mother."
-
-"As God is my Judge, Mrs. Boyd, that's all I went for," Virginia said,
-her earnest eyes staring steadily at her companion.
-
-"Well, I'm glad it was that way," Ann mused. "There was a time when I
-thought you were a silly girl whose head could easily be turned, but
-I've been hearing fine things about you, and I see you are made of good,
-solid, womanly stuff. Now, I want to tell you the whole truth, and then,
-if you want to consider me a friend and a well-wisher, all right. I'm no
-better-hearted than the average mortal woman. The truth is, Virginia
-Hemingway, I hate your mother as much as one human being can hate
-another this side of the bad place. She's been a thorn in my side the
-biggest part of my life. Away back when I was about your age, I got into
-just such a tight as you was in last night. For a long time afterwards I
-was nearly crazy, but when the prime cause of my trouble went off and
-married I begun to try to live again. I fell in love with a real
-good-natured, honest man. I wanted him to know the truth, but I never
-knew how to tell him, and so I kept holding off. He was a great beau
-among the girls of that day, making love to all of them, your mother
-among the rest. Finally, I give in. I couldn't resist his begging, my
-friends advised it, and me and him was married. That was the beginning
-of your mammy's enmity. It kept up, and when the truth about me finally
-leaked out she saw to it that my husband would not overlook the
-past--she saw to it that I was despised, kicked, and sneered at by the
-community--and my husband left with my only child. I sent up a daily
-prayer to be furnished with the means for revenge, but it didn't do any
-good, and then I got to begging the devil for what the Lord had refused.
-That seemed to work better, for one day a hint came to me that Langdon
-Chester was on your trail. That gave me the first glimpse of hope of
-solid revenge I'd had. I kept my eyes and ears open day and night. I saw
-your doom coming--I lived over what I'd been through, and the thought
-that you were to go through it was as sweet to me as honey in the comb.
-Finally the climax arrived. I saw you on the way to his house last
-night, and understood what it meant. I was squatting down behind a fence
-at the side of the road. I saw you pass, and followed you clean to the
-gate, and then turned back, at every step exulting over my triumph. The
-very sky overhead was ablaze with the fire of your fall to my level. But
-at my gate I was halted suddenly. Virginia--to go back a bit--there is a
-certain young man in this world that I reckon is the only human being
-that I love. I love him, I reckon, because he always seemed to love me,
-and believe me better than I am, and, more than that, he was the only
-person that ever pointed out a higher life to me. He was the poor boy
-that I educated, and who went off and done well, and has just come back
-to this country."
-
-"Luke King!" Virginia exclaimed, softly, and then she impulsively placed
-her hand on her lips and sat staring at the speaker, almost breathlessly
-alert.
-
-"Yes, Luke King," said Ann, with feeling. "Strange to say, he has always
-said the day would come when I'd rise above hatred and revenge; he has
-learned some queer things in the West. Well, last night when I met him
-he said he'd come up to see his mother, who he heard was a little sick,
-but he finally admitted that her sickness wasn't all that fetched him.
-He said he was worried. He was more downhearted than I ever saw him
-before. Virginia Hemingway, he said he was worried about _you_."
-
-"About _me_? Oh no," Virginia gasped.
-
-"Yes, about you," Ann went on. "The poor fellow sat down on the
-door-step and laid bare his whole young heart to me. He'd loved you, he
-said, ever since you was a little girl. He'd taken your sweet face off
-with him on that long stay, and it had been with him constantly. It was
-on your account he yielded to the temptation to locate in Georgia again,
-and when he come back and saw you a full-grown woman he told me he felt
-that you and he were intended for one another. He said he knew your
-beautiful character. He said he'd been afraid to mention it to you,
-seeing you didn't feel the same way, and he thought it would be wiser to
-let it rest awhile; but then he learned that Langdon Chester was going
-with you, and he got worried. He was afraid that Langdon wouldn't tote
-fair with you. I may as well tell you the truth, Virginia. I never was
-so mad in all my life, for there I was right at that minute gloating
-over your ruin. I was feeling that way while he was telling me, with
-tears in his eyes and voice, that if--if harm came to a hair of your
-bonny head he'd kill Langdon Chester in cold blood, and go to the
-gallows with a smile on his lips. He didn't know anything wrong, he was
-just afraid--that was all, just afraid--and he begged me--just think of
-it, _me_, who was right then hot with joy over your plight--he begged me
-to see you some day soon and try to get you to care for him. I was so
-mad I couldn't speak, and he went off, his last word being that he knew
-I wouldn't fail him."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I can't stand this!" Virginia bowed her head and began
-to sob. "He was always a good friend, but I never dreamed that he cared
-for me that way, and now he thinks that I--thinks that I--oh!"
-
-"Well," Ann went on, disregarding the interruption, "I was left to
-tussle with the biggest situation of my life. I tried to fight it. I
-laid down to sleep, but rolled and tossed, unable to close my eyes, till
-at last, as God is my Judge, something inside of me--a big and swelling
-something I'd never felt before--picked me up and made me go to that
-house. You know the rest. Instead of standing by in triumph and seeing
-the child of my enemy swept away by my fate, I was praying God to save
-her. I don't know what to make of my conduct, even now. Last night, when
-I come back to my house, I seemed all afire with feelings like none I
-ever had. As the Lord is my holy Guide, I felt like I wished I'd
-comforted you more--wished I'd taken you in my poor old arms there in
-the moonlight and held you to my breast, like I wish somebody had done
-me away back there before that dark chasm opened in front of me. I'm
-talking to you now as I never dreamt I could talk to a female, much less
-a daughter of Jane Hemingway; but I can't help it. You are Luke's chosen
-sweetheart, and to cast a slur on you for what took place last night
-would be to blight my own eternal chances of salvation; for, God bless
-your gentle little soul, you went there blinded by your mother's
-suffering, an excuse I couldn't make. No, there's just one thing about
-it. Luke is right. You are a good, noble girl, and you've had your cross
-to bear, and I want to see you get what I missed--a long, happy life of
-love and usefulness in this world. You will get it with Luke, for he is
-the grandest character I ever knew or heard about. I don't know but what
-right now it is his influence that's making me whirl about this odd way.
-I don't know what to make of it. As much as I hate your mother, I almost
-feel like I could let her stand and abuse me to my face and not talk
-back. Now, dry your eyes and finish that sausage. I reckon I hain't the
-virago and spitfire you've been taught to think I am. Most of us are
-better on the inside than out. Stop--stop now! crying won't do any
-good."
-
-"I can't help it," Virginia sobbed. "You are so good to me, and to think
-that it was from my mother that you got all your abuse."
-
-"Well, never mind about that," Ann said, laying her hand almost with
-shamefaced stealth on the girl's head and looking towards the swamp
-through the open door. "I see your cow is heading for home on her own
-accord. Follow her. This is our secret; nobody need know but us two.
-Your mammy would have you put in a house of detention if she knew it.
-Slip over and see me again when her back is turned. Lord, Lord, I wonder
-why I never thought about pitying you all along, instead of actually
-hating you for no fault of yours!"
-
-Virginia rose, put the plate on the table, and, with her face full of
-emotion, she impulsively put her arms around Ann's neck.
-
-"You are the best woman on earth," she said, huskily, "and I love you--I
-can't help it. I love you."
-
-"Oh, I reckon you don't do _that_," Ann said, coloring to the roots of
-her heavy hair. "That wouldn't be possible."
-
-"But I _do_, I tell you, I _do_," Virginia said again, "and I'll never
-do an unwomanly thing again in my life. But I don't want to meet Luke
-King again. I couldn't after what has happened."
-
-"Oh, you let that take care of itself," Ann said, accompanying Virginia
-to the door.
-
-She stood there, her red hands folded under her apron, and watched the
-girl move slowly across the meadow after the plodding cow.
-
-"What a pretty trick!" Ann mused. "And to think she'd actually put her
-arms round my old neck and hug me, and say she--oh, that was odd, very,
-very odd! I don't seem to be my own boss any longer."
-
-An hour later, as she stood in her front porch cutting the dying vines
-from the strings which held them upward, she saw Mrs. Waycroft hastening
-along the road towards her. "There, I clean forgot that woman," Ann
-said, her brow wrinkled. "She's plumb full of what she heard that scamp
-saying to Virginia at the graveyard. I'll have to switch her off the
-track some way, the Lord only knows how, but off she goes, if I have to
-lie to my best friend till I'm black in the face."
-
-"I've been wanting to get over all morning," the visitor said, as she
-opened the gate and hurried in. "I had my breakfast two hours ago, but
-Sally Hinds and her two children dropped in and detained me. They
-pretended they wanted to talk about the next preaching, but it was
-really to get something to eat. The littlest one actually sopped the
-gravy from the frying-pan with a piece of bread-crust. I wanted to slip
-out last night and come over here to watch the road to see if Virginia
-Hemingway kept her promise, but just about that hour Jim Dilk--he lives
-in my yard, you know--he had a spasm, and we all thought he was going to
-die."
-
-"Well, I reckon," Ann said, carelessly, as she pulled at a rotten piece
-of twine supporting a dead vine, and broke it from its nail under the
-eaves of the porch--"I reckon you'd 'a' had your trip for nothing, and
-maybe feel as sneaking about it as I confess I do."
-
-"Sneaking?" echoed Mrs. Waycroft.
-
-"Yes, the truth is, I was mean enough, Mary, to hold watch on the road
-in that chill night air, and got nothing but a twitch of rheumatism in
-my leg as a reward. The truth is, Virginia Hemingway is all right. She
-wanted that money bad enough, but it was just on old Jane's account, and
-she wasn't going to be led into sech a trap as that. I reckon Langdon
-Chester was doing most of the talking when you saw them together. She
-may be flirting a little with him, as most any natural young girl would,
-but, just between me 'n' you--now, see that this goes no further,
-Mary--there is a big, big case up between Virginia and Luke King."
-
-"You _don't say_! How did you drop onto that?" gasped Mrs. Waycroft.
-
-"Well, I don't feel at liberty exactly to tell how I got onto it," Ann
-said, pulling at another piece of twine; "but it will get out before
-long. Luke has been in love with her ever since she wore short dresses."
-
-"Huh, that _is_ a surprise!" said Mrs. Waycroft. "Well, she is
-fortunate, Ann. He's a fine young man."
-
-
-
-
-XXIV
-
-
-Towards sunset that afternoon, as Ann was returning from her
-cotton-house, she came upon Virginia in a thicket on the roadside
-picking up pieces of fallen tree-branches for fire-wood. Ann had
-approached from the rear, and Virginia was unaware of her nearness. To
-the old woman's surprise, the girl's eyes were red from weeping, and
-there was a droop of utter despondency on her as she moved about, her
-apron full of sticks, her glance on the ground. Ann hesitated for a
-minute, and then stepped across the stunted grass and touched her on the
-arm.
-
-"What's the matter _now_, child?" she asked.
-
-The girl turned suddenly and flushed to the roots of her hair, but she
-made no response.
-
-"What's gone wrong?" Ann pursued, anxiously. "Don't tell me your mother
-has found out about--"
-
-"Oh no, it's not that," Virginia said, wiping her eyes with her
-disengaged hand. "It's not that. I'm just miserable, Mrs. Boyd, that's
-all--thoroughly miserable. You mustn't think I'm like this all the time,
-for I'm not. I've been cheerful at home all day--as cheerful as I could
-be under the circumstances; but, being alone out here for the first
-time, I got to thinking about my mother, and the sadness of it all was
-too much for me."
-
-"She hain't worse, is she?" Ann asked.
-
-"Not that anybody could see, Mrs. Boyd," the girl replied; "but the
-cancer must be worse. Two doctors from Springtown, who were riding by,
-stopped to ask for a drink of water, and my uncle told them about
-mother's trouble. It looked like they just wanted to see it out of
-professional curiosity, for when they heard we had no money and were
-deeply in debt they didn't offer any advice. But they looked very much
-surprised when they made an examination, and it was plain that they
-didn't think she had much chance. My mother was watching their faces,
-and knew what they thought, and when they had gone away she fairly
-collapsed. I never heard such pitiful moaning in all my life. She is
-more afraid of death than any one I ever saw, and she just threw herself
-on her bed and prayed for mercy. Oh, it was awful! awful! Then my uncle
-came in and said the doctors had said the specialist in Atlanta could
-really cure her, if she had the means to get the treatment, and that
-made her more desperate. From praying she turned almost to cursing in
-despair. My uncle is usually indifferent about most matters, but the
-whole thing almost made him sick. He went out to the side of the house
-to keep from hearing her cries. Some of his friends came along the road
-and joked with him, but he never spoke to them. He told me there was a
-young doctor at Darley who was willing to operate on her, but that he
-would be doing it only as an experiment, and that nobody but the Atlanta
-specialist would be safe in such a case."
-
-"And the cost, if I understood right," said Ann--"the cost, first and
-last, would foot up to about a hundred dollars."
-
-"Yes, that's what it would take," Virginia sighed.
-
-Ann's brow was furrowed; her eyes flashed reminiscently. "She ought to
-have been laying by something all along," she said, "instead of making
-it her life business to harass and pull down a person that never did her
-no harm."
-
-"Don't say anything against her!" Virginia flared up. "If you do, I
-shall be sorry I said what I did this morning. You have been kind to me,
-but not to her, and she is my mother, who is now lying at the point of
-death begging for help that never will come."
-
-Ann stared steadily, and then her lashes began to flicker. "I don't know
-but I think more of you for giving me that whack, my girl," she said,
-simply. "I deserve it. I've got no right on earth to abuse a mother to
-her only child, much less a mother in the fix yours is in. No, I went
-too far, my child. You are not in the fight between me and her."
-
-"You ought to be ashamed to be in it, when she's down," said Virginia,
-warmly.
-
-"Well, I _am_," Ann admitted. "I _am_. Come on to my gate with me. I
-want to talk to you. There is a lot of loose wood lying about up there,
-and you are welcome to all you pick up; so you won't be losing time."
-
-With her apron drawn close up under her shapely chin, her eyes still red
-and her cheeks damp, Virginia obeyed. If she had been watching her
-companion closely, she might have wondered over the strange expression
-of Ann's face. Now and then, as she trudged along, kicking up the back
-part of her heavy linsey skirt in her sturdy strides, a shudder would
-pass over her and a weighty sigh of indecision escape her big chest.
-
-"To think this would come to me!" she muttered once. "_Me!_ God knows it
-looks like my work t'other night was far enough out of my regular track
-without--huh!"
-
-Reaching the gate, she told Virginia to wait a minute at the fence till
-she went into the house. She was gone several minutes, during which time
-the wondering girl heard her moving about within; then she appeared in
-the doorway, almost pale, a frown on her strong face.
-
-"Look here, child," she said, coming out and leaning her big, bare
-elbows on the top rail of the fence, "I've thought this all over and
-over till my head spins like a top, and I can see but one way for your
-mother to get out of her trouble. I'm the greatest believer you ever run
-across of every human being doing his or her _full_ duty in every case.
-Now, strange as it may sound, I left my home last night and deliberately
-made it my special business to step in between you and the only chance
-of getting the money your mother stands in need of. I thought I was
-doing what was right, and I still believe I was, as far as it went, but
-I was on the point of making a botched job of it. I'd get mighty few
-thanks, I reckon, for saving you from the clutches of that scamp if I
-left your mother to die in torment of body and soul. So, as I say, there
-ain't but one way out of it."
-
-Ann paused; she was holding something tightly clasped in her hand, and
-not looking at Virginia.
-
-"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," the girl said, wonderingly. "If
-you see any way out, it is more than I can."
-
-"Well, your mother's got to go to Atlanta," Ann said, sheepishly; "and,
-as I see it, there isn't but one person whose duty it is to put up the
-cash for it, _and that person is me_."
-
-"You? Oh no, Mrs. Boyd!"
-
-"But I know better, child. The duty has come on me like a load of bricks
-dumped from a wagon. The whole thing has driven me slap-dab in a corner.
-I know when I'm whipped--that's one of the things that has helped me
-along in a moneyed way in this life--it was always knowing when to let
-up. I've got to wave the white flag in this battle till my enemy's on
-her feet, then the war may go on. But"--Ann opened her hand and
-displayed the bills she was holding--"take this money home with you."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I couldn't think of--"
-
-"Well, don't think about it; take it on, and don't argue with a woman
-older than you are, and who knows better when and how a thing has to be
-done."
-
-Most reluctantly Virginia allowed Ann to press the money into her
-unwilling hand. "But remember this," Ann said, firmly: "Jane Hemingway
-must never know where you got it--never! Do you understand? It looks
-like I can stand most anything better than letting that woman know I put
-up money on this; besides, bad off as she is, she'd peg out before she'd
-let me help her."
-
-Virginia's face was now aflame with joy. "I tell you what I'll do," she
-said. "I'll accept it as a loan, and I'll pay it back some day if I have
-to work my hands to the bone."
-
-"Well, you can do as you like about that," Ann said. "The only thing I
-absolutely insist on is that she isn't told who sent it. It wouldn't be
-hard to keep her in the dark; if you'll promise me right here, on your
-word, not to tell, then you can say you gave your sacred promise to that
-effect, and that would settle it."
-
-"Well, I'll do that," Virginia finally agreed. "I know I can do that."
-
-"All right," Ann said. "It may set the old thing to guessing powerful,
-and she may bore you to tell, promise or no promise, but she'll never
-suspicion _me_--never while the sun shines from the sky."
-
-"No, she won't suspect you," Virginia admitted, and with a grateful,
-backward look she moved away.
-
-Ann stood leaning against the fence, her eyes on the receding figure as
-the girl moved along the sunlit road towards the dun cottage in the
-shadow of the mountain.
-
-"I reckon I'm a born idiot," she said; "but there wasn't no other way
-out of it--no other under the sun. I got my foot in it when I laid in
-wait watching for the girl to walk into that trap. If I hadn't been so
-eager for that, I could have left Jane Hemingway to her fate. Good Lord,
-if this goes on, I'll soon be bowing and scraping at that old hag's
-feet--_me!_ huh! when it's been _her_ all this time that has been at the
-bottom of the devilment."
-
-
-
-
-XXV
-
-
-During this talk Jane Hemingway had gone out to the fence to speak to
-Dr. Evans, who had passed along the road, a side of bacon on his left
-shoulder, and she came back, and with a low groan sat down. Sam
-Hemingway, who sat near the fire, shrugged his shoulders and sniffed.
-"You are making too much of a hullabaloo over it," he said. "I've been
-thinking about the matter a lots, and I've come to the final conclusion
-that you are going it entirely too heavy, considering the balance of us.
-Every man, woman, and child, born and unborn, is predestinated to die,
-and them that meet their fate graceful-like are the right sort. Seeing
-you takin' on after them doctors left actually turned _me_ sick at the
-stomach, and that ain't right. I'll be sick enough when my own time
-comes, I reckon, without having to go through separate spells for all my
-kin by marriage every time they have a little eruption break out on
-them. Then here's Virginia having her bright young life blighted when it
-ought to be all sunshine and roses, if I may be allowed to quote the
-poets. I'll bet when you was a young girl your cheeks wasn't kept wet as
-a dish-rag by a complaining mother. No, what you've got to do, Sister
-Jane, is to pucker up courage and face the music--be resigned."
-
-"Resigned! I say, resigned!" was the rebellious reply--"I say, resigned!
-with a slow thing like this eating away at my vitals and nothing under
-high heaven to make it let go. You can talk, sitting there with a pipe
-in your mouth, and every limb sound, and a long life ahead of you."
-
-"But you are openly disobeying Biblical injunction," said Sam, knocking
-his exhausted pipe on the heel of his shoe. "You are kicking agin the
-pricks. All of us have to die, and you are raising a racket because your
-turn is somewhere in sight. You are kicking agin something that's as
-natural as a child coming into the world. Besides, you are going back on
-what you preach. You are eternally telling folks there's a life in front
-of us that beats this one all hollow, and, now that Providence has
-really blessed you by giving you a chance to sorter peep ahead at the
-pearly gates, you are actually balking worse than a mean mule. I say you
-ought to give me and Virginia a rest. If you can't possibly raise the
-scads to pay for having the thing cut out, then pucker up and grin and
-bear it. Folks will think a sight more of you. Being a baby at both ends
-of life is foolish--there ain't nobody willing to do the nursing the
-second time."
-
-"I want you to hush all that drivel, Sam," the widow retorted. "I reckon
-folks are different. Some are born with a natural dread of death, and it
-was always in my family. I stood over my mother and watched her breathe
-her last, and it went awfully hard with her. She begged and begged for
-somebody to save her, even sitting up in bed while all the neighbors
-were crouched about crying and praying, and yelled out to them to stop
-that and do something. We'd called in every doctor for forty miles
-about, and she had somehow heard of a young one away off, and she was
-calling out his name when she fell back and died."
-
-"Well, she must have had some load on her mind that she wasn't ready to
-dump at the throne," said Sam, without a hint of humor in his drawling
-voice. "I've always understood your folks, in the woman line at least,
-was unforgiving. They say forgiveness is the softest pillow to expire
-on. I dunno, I've never tried it."
-
-"I'm miserable, simply miserable!" groaned Jane. "Dr. Evans has just
-been to Darley. He promised to see if any of my old friends would lend
-me the money, but he says nobody had a cent to spare."
-
-"Folks never have cash for an investment of that sort," answered Sam. "I
-fetched up your case to old Milward Dedham at the store the other day.
-He'd just sold five thousand acres of wild mountain land to a Boston man
-for the timber that was on it, and was puffed up powerful. I thought if
-ever a man would be prepared to help a friend he would. 'La me, Sam,'
-said he, 'you are wasting time trying to keep a woman from pegging out
-when wheat's off ten cents a bushel. Any woman ought to be happy lying
-in a grave that is paid for sech times as these.'"
-
-The widow was really not listening to Sam's talk. With her bony elbows
-on her knee, her hand intuitively resting on the painless and yet
-insistent seat of her trouble, she rocked back and forth, sighing and
-moaning. There was a clicking of the gate-latch, a step on the gravelled
-walk, and Virginia, flushed from exercise in the cool air, came in and
-emptied her apron in the chimney corner, from which her uncle lazily
-dragged his feet. He leaned forward and critically scanned the heap of
-wood.
-
-"You've got some good, rich, kindling pine there, Virginia," he drawled
-out. "But you needn't bother after to-day, though. I'll have my wagon
-back from the shop to-morrow, and Simpson has promised to lend me his
-yoke of oxen, and let me haul some logs from his hill. Most of it is
-good, seasoned red oak, and when it gets started to burning it pops like
-a pack of fire-crackers."
-
-Virginia said nothing. Save for the firelight, which was a red glow from
-live coals, rather than any sort of flame, the big room was dark, and
-her mother took no notice of her, but Sam had his eyes on her over his
-left shoulder.
-
-"Your mother has been keeping up the same old song and dance," he said,
-dryly; "so much so that she's clean forgot living folks want to eat at
-stated times. I reckon you'll have to make the bread and fry what bacon
-is left on that strip of skin."
-
-Virginia said nothing to him, for her glance was steadily resting on her
-mother's despondent form. "Mother," she said, in a faltering, almost
-frightened tone, for she had been accustomed to no sort of deception in
-her life, and the part she was to play was a most repellent
-one--"mother, I've got something to tell you, and I hardly know how to
-do it. Down the road just a while ago I met a friend--a person who told
-me--the person told me--"
-
-"Well, what did the person tell you?" Sam asked, as both he and the
-bowed wreck at the fire stared through the red glow.
-
-"The person wants to help you out of trouble, mother, and gave me the
-hundred dollars you need. Before I got it I had to give my sacred word
-of honor that I'd never let even you know who sent it. I hardly knew
-what to do, but I thought perhaps I ought to--"
-
-"What? You mean--oh, Virginia, you don't mean--" Jane began, as she rose
-stiffly, her scrawny hand on the mantel-piece, and took a step towards
-her almost shrinking daughter.
-
-"Here's the money, mother," Virginia said, holding out the roll of
-bills, now damp and packed close together by her warm, tense fingers.
-"That's all I am allowed to tell you. I had to promise not to let you
-know who sent it."
-
-As if electrified from death to life, Jane Hemingway sprang forward and
-took the money into her quivering fingers. "A light, Sam!" she cried.
-"Make a light, and let me see. If the child's plumb crazy I want to know
-it, and have it over with. Oh, my Lord! Don't fool me, Virginia. Don't
-raise my hopes with any trick anybody wants to play."
-
-With far more activity than was his by birth, Sam stood up, secured a
-tallow candle from the mantel-piece, and bent over the coals.
-
-"Crazy?" he said. "I _know_ the girl's crazy, if she says there's any
-human being left on the earth after Noah's flood who gives away money
-without taking a receipt for it--to say nothing of a double, iron-clad
-mortgage."
-
-"It looks and feels like money!" panted the widow. "Hurry up with the
-light. I wonder if my prayer has been heard at last."
-
-"Hearing it and answering are two different things; the whole
-neighborhood has _heard_ it often enough," growled Sam, as he fumed
-impatiently over the hot coals, fairly hidden in a stifling cloud of
-tallow-smoke.
-
-"Here's a match," said Virginia, who had found one near the clock, and
-she struck it on the top of one of the dog-irons, and applied it to the
-dripping wick. At the same instant the hot tallow in the coals and ashes
-burst into flame, lighting up every corner and crevice of the great,
-ill-furnished room. Sam, holding the candle, bent over Jane's hands as
-they nervously fumbled the money.
-
-"Ten-dollar bills!" she cried. "Oh, count 'em, Sam! I can't. They stick
-together, she's wadded 'em so tight."
-
-With almost painful deliberation Sam counted the money, licking his
-rough thumb as he raised each bill.
-
-"It's a hundred dollars all right enough," he said, turning the roll
-over to his sister-in-law. "The only thing that's worrying me is who's
-had sech a sudden enlargement of the heart in this section."
-
-"Virginia, who gave you this money?" Mrs. Hemingway asked, her face
-abeam, her eyes gleaming with joy.
-
-"I told you I was bound by a promise not to tell you or anybody else,"
-Virginia awkwardly replied, as she avoided their combined stare.
-
-"Oh, I smell a great big dead rat under the barn!" Sam laughed. "I'd bet
-my Sunday-go-to-meeting hat I know who sent it."
-
-"You do?" exclaimed the widow. "Who do you think it was, Sam?"
-
-"Why, the only chap around about here that seems to have wads of cash to
-throw at cats," Sam laughed. "He pitched one solid roll amounting to ten
-thousand at his starving family awhile back. Of course, he did this,
-too. He always _did_ have a hankering for Virginia, anyway. Hain't I
-seen them two--"
-
-"He didn't send it!" Virginia said, impulsively. "There! I didn't intend
-to set you guessing, and after this I'll never answer one way or the
-other. I didn't know whether I ought to take it on those conditions or
-not, but I couldn't see mother suffering when this would help her so
-much."
-
-"No, God knows I'm glad you took it," said Jane, slowly, "even if I'm
-never to know. I'm sure it was a friend, for nobody but a friend would
-care that much to help me out of trouble."
-
-"You bet it was a friend," said Sam, "unless it was some thief trying to
-get rid of some marked bills he's hooked some'r's. Now, Virginia, for
-the love of the Lord, get something ready to eat. For a family with a
-hundred dollars in hand, we are the nighest starvation of any I ever
-heard of."
-
-While the girl was busy preparing the cornmeal dough in a wooden
-bread-tray, her mother walked about excitedly.
-
-"I'll go to Darley in the hack in the morning," she said, "and right on
-to Atlanta on the evening train. I feel better already. Dr. Evans says I
-won't suffer a particle of pain, and will come back weighing more and
-with a better appetite."
-
-"Well, I believe I'd not put myself out to improve on mine," said Sam,
-"unless this person who is so flush with boodle wants to keep up the
-good work. Dern if I don't believe I'll grow _me_ a cancer, and talk
-about it till folks pay me to hush."
-
-
-
-
-XXVI
-
-
-It was one fairly warm evening, three days after Jane had left for
-Atlanta. Virginia had given Sam his supper, and he had strolled off down
-to the store with his pipe. Then, with a light shawl over her shoulders,
-the girl sat in the bright moonlight on the porch. She had not been
-there long when she saw a man on a horse in the road reining in at the
-gate. Even before he dismounted she had recognized him. It was Luke
-King. Hardly knowing why she did so, she sprang up and was on the point
-of disappearing in the house, when, in a calm voice, he called out to
-her:
-
-"Wait, Virginia! Don't run. I have a message for you."
-
-"For me?" she faltered, and with unaccountable misgivings she stood
-still.
-
-Throwing the bridle-rein over the gate-post, he entered the yard and
-came towards her, his big felt-hat held easily in his hand, his fine
-head showing to wonderful advantage in the moonlight.
-
-"You started to run," he laughed. "You needn't deny it. I saw you, and
-you knew who it was, too. Just think of my little friend dodging
-whenever she sees me. Well, I can't help that. It must be natural. You
-were always timid with me, Virginia."
-
-"Won't you come in and have a chair?" she returned. "Mother has gone
-away to Atlanta, and there is no one at home but my uncle and me."
-
-"I knew she was down there," King said, feasting his hungry and yet
-gentle and all-seeing eyes on her. "That's what I stopped to speak to
-you about. She sent you a message."
-
-"Oh, you saw her, then!" Virginia said, more at ease.
-
-"Yes, I happened to be at the big Union car-shed when her train came in,
-and saw her in the crowd. The poor woman didn't know which way to turn,
-and I really believe she was afraid she'd get lost or stolen, or
-something as bad. When she saw me she gave a glad scream and fairly
-tumbled into my arms. She told me where she wanted to go, and I got a
-cab and saw her safe to the doctor's."
-
-"Oh, that was very good of you!" Virginia said. "I'm so glad you met
-her."
-
-"She was in splendid spirits, too, when I last saw her," King went on.
-"I dropped in there this morning before I left, so that I could bring
-you the latest news. She was very jolly, laughing and joking about
-everything. The doctor had not had time to make an examination, but he
-has a way of causing his patients to look on the bright side. He told
-her she had nothing really serious to fear, and it took a big load off
-her mind."
-
-They were now in the house, and Virginia had lighted a candle and he had
-taken a seat near the open door.
-
-"Doctors have a way of pretending to be cheerful, even before very
-serious operations, haven't they?" she asked, as she sat down not far
-from him.
-
-She saw him hesitate, as if in consideration of her feelings, and then
-he said, "Yes, I believe that, too, Virginia; still, he is a wonderful
-man, and if any one can do your mother good he can."
-
-"If _anybody_ can?--yes," she sighed.
-
-"You mustn't get blue," he said, consolingly; "and yet how can you well
-help it, here almost by yourself, with your mother away under such sad
-circumstances?"
-
-"Your own mother was not quite well recently," Virginia said,
-considerately. "I hope she is no worse."
-
-"Oh, she's on her feet again," he laughed, "as lively as a cricket,
-moving about bossing that big place."
-
-"Why, I thought, seeing you back so--so soon," the girl stammered; "I
-thought that you had perhaps heard--"
-
-"That she was sick again? Oh no!" he exclaimed, and then he saw her
-drift and paused, and, flushed and embarrassed, sat staring at the
-floor.
-
-"You didn't--surely you didn't come all the way here to--to tell me
-about my mother!" Virginia cried, "when you have important work to do
-down there?"
-
-There was a moment's hesitation on his part; then he raised his head and
-looked frankly into her eyes.
-
-"What's the use of denying it?" he said. "I don't believe in deception,
-even in small things. It never does any good. I _did_ have work to do
-down there, but I couldn't go on with it, Virginia, while you were here
-brooding as you are over your mother's condition. So I stayed at my desk
-till the north-bound train was ready to pull out. Then I made a break
-for it, catching the last car as it whizzed past the crossing near the
-office. The train was delayed on the way up, and after I got to Darley I
-was afraid I couldn't get a horse at the stable and get here before you
-were in bed; but you see I made it. Sam Hicks will blow me up about the
-lather his mare is in. I haven't long to stay here, either, for I must
-get back to Darley to catch the ten-forty. I'll reach the office about
-four in the morning, if I can get the conductor to slow up in the
-Atlanta switch-yard for me to hop off at the crossing."
-
-"And you did all that simply to tell me about my mother?" Virginia said.
-"Why, she could have written."
-
-"Yes, but seeing some one right from the spot is more satisfying," he
-said, with embarrassed lightness. "I wanted to tell you how she was, and
-I'm glad, whether you are or not."
-
-"I'm glad to hear from her," said Virginia. "It is only because I did
-not want to put you to so much trouble."
-
-"Don't bother about that, Virginia. I'd gladly do it every night in the
-week to keep you from worrying. Do you remember the day, long ago, that
-I came to you down at the creek and told you I was dissatisfied with
-things here, and was going away off to begin the battle of life in
-earnest?"
-
-"Yes, I remember," Virginia answered, almost oblivious of the clinging,
-invisible current which seemed to be sweeping them together.
-
-He drew a deep breath, as if to take in courage for what he had to say,
-and then went on:
-
-"You were only a little girl then, hardly thirteen, and yet to me,
-Virginia, you were a woman capable of the deepest feeling. I never shall
-forget how you rebuked me about leaving my mother in anger. You looked
-at me as straight and frank as starbeams, and told me you'd not desert
-your mother in her old age for all the world. I never forgot what you
-said and just the way you said it, and through all my turbulent life out
-West your lecture was constantly before me. I was angry at my mother,
-but finally I got to looking at her marriage differently, and then I
-began to want to see her and to do my filial duty as you were doing
-yours. That was one reason I came back here. The other was
-because--Virginia, it was because I wanted to see _you_."
-
-"Oh, don't, don't begin--" but Virginia's protest died away in her
-pulsing throat. She lowered her head and covered her hot face with her
-hands.
-
-"But I have begun, and I must go on," he said. "Out West I met hundreds
-of attractive women, but I could never look upon them as other men did
-because of the--the picture of you stamped on my brain. I was not
-hearing a word about you, but you were becoming exactly what I knew you
-would become; and when I saw you out there in the barn-yard that first
-day after I got back, my whole being caught fire, and it's blazing
-yet--it will blaze as long as there is a breath of my life left to fan
-it. For me there can be but one wife, little girl, and if she fails me
-I'll go unmarried to my grave."
-
-"Oh, don't! don't!" Virginia sobbed, her tones muffled by her hands
-pressed tightly over her face. "You don't know me. I'm not what you
-think I am. I'm only a poor, helpless, troubled--"
-
-"Don't! don't!" he broke in, fearfully--"don't decide against me
-hastily! I know--God knows I am unworthy of you, and if you don't feel
-as I do you will never link your young life to mine. Sometimes I fear
-that your shrinking from me as you often do is evidence against my
-hopes. Oh, dear, little girl, am I a fool? Am I a crazy idiot asking you
-for what you can't possibly give?"
-
-A sob which she was trying to suppress shook her from head to foot, and
-she rose and stepped to the door and stood there looking out on the
-moonlit road, where his impatient horse was pawing the earth and
-neighing. There was silence. King leaned forward, his elbows on his
-knees, his strong fingers locked like prongs of steel in front of him,
-his face deep cut with the chisel of anxiety. For several minutes he
-stared thus at her white profile struck into sharp clearness by the
-combined light from without and within.
-
-"I see it all," he groaned. "I've lost. While I was away out there
-treasuring your memory and seeing your face night after night, day after
-day--holding you close, pulling these rugged old mountains about you for
-protection, you were not--you were not--I was simply not in your
-thoughts."
-
-Then she turned towards him. She seemed to have grown older and stronger
-since he began speaking so earnestly.
-
-"You must not think of me that way any longer," she sighed. "You mustn't
-neglect your work to come to see me, either."
-
-"You will never be my wife, then, Virginia?"
-
-"No, I could never be that, Luke--no, not that--never on earth."
-
-He shrank together as if in sudden, sharp physical pain, and then he
-rose to his full height and reached for his hat, which she had placed on
-the table. His heavy-soled boots creaked on the rough floor; he tipped
-his chair over, and it would have fallen had he not awkwardly caught it
-and restored it to its place.
-
-"You have a good reason, I am sure of that," he said, huskily.
-
-"Yes, yes, I--I have a reason." Her stiff lips made answer. "We are not
-for each other, Luke. If you've been thinking so, so long, as you say,
-it is because you were trying to make me fit your ideal, but I am not
-that in reality. I tell you I'm only a poor, suffering girl, full of
-faults and weaknesses, at times not knowing which way to turn."
-
-He had reached the door, and he stepped out into the moonlight, his
-massive head still bare. He shook back his heavy hair in a determined
-gesture of supreme faith and denial and said: "I know you better than
-you know yourself, because I know better than you do how to compare you
-to other women. I want you, Virginia, just as you are, with every sweet
-fault about you. I want you with a soul that actually bleeds for you,
-but you say it must not be, and you know best."
-
-"No, it can't possibly be," Virginia said, almost fiercely. "It can
-never be while life lasts. You and I are as wide apart as the farthest
-ends of the earth."
-
-He bowed his head and stood silent for a moment, then he sighed as he
-looked at her again. "I've thought about life a good deal, Virginia," he
-said, "and I've almost come to the conclusion that a great tragedy must
-tear the soul of every person destined for spiritual growth. This may be
-my tragedy, Virginia; I know something of the tragedy that lifted Ann
-Boyd to the skies, but her neighbors don't see it. They are still
-beating the material husk from which her big soul has risen."
-
-"I know what she is," Virginia declared. "I'm happy to be one who knows
-her as she is--the grandest woman in the world."
-
-"I'm glad to hear you say that," King said. "I knew if anybody did her
-justice it would be you."
-
-"If I don't know how to sympathize with her, no one does," said the
-girl, with a bitterness of tone he could not fathom. "She's wonderful;
-she's glorious. It would be worth while to suffer anything to reach what
-she has reached."
-
-"Well, I didn't come to talk of her, good as she has been to me," King
-said, gloomily. "I must get back to the grind and whir of that big
-building. I shall not come up again for some time. I have an idea I know
-what your reason is, but it would drive me crazy even to think about
-it."
-
-She started suddenly, and then stared steadily at him. In the white
-moonlight she looked like a drooping figure carved out of stone, even to
-every fold of her simple dress and wave of her glorious hair.
-
-"You think you know!" she whispered.
-
-"Yes, I think so, and the pronunciation of a single name would prove it,
-but I shall not let it pass my lips to-night. It's my tragedy,
-Virginia."
-
-"And mine," she said to herself, but to him it seemed that she made no
-response at all, and after a moment's pause he turned away.
-
-"Good-bye," he said, from the gate.
-
-"Good-bye, Luke," she said, impulsively.
-
-But at the sound of his name he whirled and came back, his brow dyed
-with red, his tender eyes flashing. "I'll tell you one other thing, and
-then I'll go," he said, tremulously. "Out West, one night, after a big
-ball which had bored the life out of me--in fact, I had only gone
-because it was a coming-out affair of the daughter of a wealthy friend
-of mine. In the smoking-room of the big hotel which had been rented for
-the occasion I had a long talk with a middle-aged bachelor, a man of the
-world, whom I knew well. He told me his story. In his younger days he
-had been in love with a girl back East, and his love was returned, but
-he wanted to see more of life and the world, and was not ready to settle
-down, and so he left her. After years spent in an exciting business and
-social life, and never meeting any one else that he could care for, a
-sudden longing came over him to hear from his old sweetheart. He had no
-sooner thought of it than his old desires came back like a storm, and he
-could not even wait to hear from her. He packed up hastily, took the
-train, and went back home. He got to the village only two days after she
-had married another man. The poor old chap almost cried when he told me
-about it. Then, in my sympathy for him, I told him of my feeling for a
-little girl back here, and he earnestly begged me not to wait another
-day. It was that talk with him that helped me to make up my mind to come
-home. But, you see, I am too late, as he was too late. Poor old Duncan!
-He'd dislike to hear of my failure. But I've lost out, too. Now, I'll go
-sure. Good-bye, Virginia. I hope you will be happy. I'm going to pray
-for that."
-
-Leaning against the door-jamb, she saw him pass through the gateway,
-unhitch his restive horse, and swing himself heavily into the saddle,
-still holding his hat in his hand. Then he galloped away--away in the
-still moonlight, the--to her--peaceful, mocking moonlight.
-
-"He thinks he knows," she muttered, "but he doesn't dream the _whole_
-truth. If he did he would no longer think that way of me. What am I,
-anyway? He was loving me with that great, infinite soul while I was
-listening to the idle simpering of a fool. Ah, Luke King shall never
-know the truth! I'd rather lie dead before him than to see that wondrous
-light die out of his great, trusting eyes."
-
-She heard Sam coming down the road, and through the silvery gauze of
-night she saw the red flare of his pipe. She turned into her own room
-and sat down on the bed, her little, high-instepped feet on the floor,
-her hands clasped between her knees.
-
-
-
-
-XXVII
-
-
-The events which took place at Chesters' that adventurous night had a
-remarkable effect on the young master of the place. After Ann Boyd had
-left him he restlessly paced the floor of the long veranda. Blind fury
-and unsatisfied passion held him in their clutch and drove him to and
-fro like a caged and angry lion. The vials of his first wrath were
-poured on the heads of his meddlesome guests, who had so unceremoniously
-thrust themselves upon him at such an inopportune moment, and from them
-his more poignant resentment was finally shifted to the woman whom for
-years he, with the rest of the community, had contemptuously regarded as
-the partner in his father's early indiscretions. That she--such a
-character--should suddenly rise to remind him of his duty to his
-manhood, and even enforce it under his own roof, was the most
-humiliating happening of his whole life.
-
-These hot reflections and secret plans for revenge finally died away and
-were followed by a state of mind that, at its lowest ebb, amounted to a
-racking despair he had never known. Something told him that Ann Boyd had
-spoken grim truth when she had said that Virginia would never again fall
-under his influence, and certainly no woman had ever before so
-completely absorbed him. Up to this moment it had been chiefly her rare
-beauty and sweetness of nature that had charmed him, but now he began to
-realize the grandeur of her character and the depths to which her
-troubles had stirred his sympathies. As he recalled, word by word, all
-that had passed between them in regard to her nocturnal visit, he was
-forced to acknowledge that it was only through her absorbing desire to
-save her mother that she, abetted by her very purity of mind, had been
-blindly led into danger. He flushed and shuddered under the lash of the
-thought that he, himself, had constituted that danger.
-
-He went to bed, but scarcely closed his eyes during the remainder of the
-night, and the next morning was up before the cook had made the fires in
-the kitchen range. He hardly knew what he would do, but he determined to
-see Virginia at the earliest opportunity and make an honest and
-respectful attempt to regain her confidence. He would give her the money
-she so badly needed--give it to her without restrictions, and trust to
-her gratitude to restore her faith in him. He spent all that morning,
-after eating a hasty breakfast, on a near-by wooded hill-side, from
-which elevation he had a fair view of Jane Hemingway's cottage. He saw
-Virginia come from the house in search of the cow, and with his heart in
-his mouth he was preparing to descend to meet her, when, to his
-consternation, he saw that she had joined Ann Boyd at the barn-yard of
-the latter, and then he saw the two go into Ann's house together. This
-augured ill for him, his fears whispered, and he remained at his post
-among the trees till the girl came out of the house and hastened
-homeward. For the next two days he hung about Jane Hemingway's cottage
-with no other thought in mind than seeing Virginia. Once from the
-hill-side he saw her as she was returning from Wilson's store, and he
-made all haste to descend, hoping to intercept her before she reached
-home, but he was just a moment too late. She was on the road a hundred
-yards ahead of him, and, seeing him, she quickened her step. He walked
-faster, calling out to her appealingly to stop, but she did not pause or
-look back again. Then he saw a wagon filled with men and women
-approaching on the way to market, and, knowing that such unseemly haste
-on his part and hers would excite comment, he paused at the roadside and
-allowed her to pursue her way unmolested. The next day being Sunday, he
-dressed himself with unusual care, keenly conscious, as he looked in the
-mirror, that his visage presented a haggard, careworn aspect that was
-anything but becoming. His eyes had the fixed, almost bloodshot stare of
-an habitual drunkard in the last nervous stages of downward progress.
-His usually pliant hair, as if surcharged with electricity, seemed to
-defy comb and brush, and stood awry; his clothes hung awkwardly; his
-quivering fingers refused to put the deft touch to his tie which had
-been his pride. At the last moment he discovered that his boots had not
-been blacked by the negro boy who waited on him every morning. He did
-this himself very badly, and then started out to church, not riding, for
-the reason that he hoped Virginia would be there, and that he might have
-the excuse of being afoot to join her and walk homeward with her. But
-she was not there, and he sat through Bazemore's long-winded discourse,
-hardly conscious that the minister, flattered by his unwonted presence,
-glanced at him proudly all through the service.
-
-So it was that one thing and another happened to prevent his seeing
-Virginia till one morning at Wilson's store he heard that Jane Hemingway
-had, in some mysterious way, gotten the money she needed and had already
-gone to Atlanta. He suffered a slight shock over the knowledge that
-Virginia would now not need the funds he had been keeping for her, but
-this was conquered by the thought that he could go straight to the
-cottage, now that the girl's grim-faced guardian was away. So he
-proceeded at once to do this. As he approached the gate, a thrill of
-gratification passed over him, for he observed that Sam Hemingway was
-out at the barn, some distance from the house. As he was entering the
-gate and softly closing it after him, Virginia appeared in the doorway.
-Their eyes met. He saw her turn pale and stand alert and undecided, her
-head up like that of a young deer startled in a quiet forest. It flashed
-upon him, to his satisfaction, that she would instinctively retreat into
-the house, and that he could follow and there, unmolested even by a
-chance passer-by, say all he wanted to say, and say it, too, in the old
-fashion which had once so potently--if only temporarily--influenced her.
-But with a flash of wisdom and precaution, for which he had not given
-her credit, she seemed to realize the barriers beyond her and quickly
-stepped out into the porch, where coldly and even sternly she waited for
-him to speak.
-
-"Virginia," he said, taking off his hat and humbly sweeping it towards
-the ground, "I have been moving heaven and earth to get to see you
-alone." He glanced furtively down the road, and then added: "Let's go
-into the house. I've got something important to say to you."
-
-Still staring straight at him, she moved forward till she leaned against
-the railing of the porch. "I sha'n't do it," she said, firmly. "If I've
-been silly once, that is no reason I'll be so always. There is nothing
-you can say to me that can't be spoken here in the open sunlight."
-
-Her words and tone struck him like a material missile well-aimed and
-deliberately hurled. There was a dignity and firm finality in her
-bearing which he felt could not be met with his old shallow suavity and
-seductive flattery. From credulous childhood she seemed, in that brief
-period, to have grown into wise maturity. If she had been beautiful in
-his eyes before, she was now, in her frigid remoteness, in her thorough
-detachment from their former intimacy, far more than that.
-
-"Well, I meant no harm," he found himself articulating, almost in utter
-bewilderment. "I only thought that somebody passing might--"
-
-"Might see me with you?" she flashed out, with sudden anger. "What do I
-care? I came out here just now and gave a tramp something to eat. If
-they see you here, I suppose it won't be the first time a girl has been
-seen talking to a man in front of her own home."
-
-"I didn't mean to offend you," he stammered, at the end of his
-resources; "but I've been utterly miserable, Virginia."
-
-"Oh! is that so?" she sneered.
-
-"Yes, I have. I feel awfully bad about what took place. I wanted to give
-you that money for your mother, and that night when I finally got rid of
-those meddlesome devils and--"
-
-"In the name of Heaven, stop!" Virginia cried. "I simply will not stand
-here and talk about that."
-
-"But I have the money still," he said, feebly. "You kept your word in
-coming for it, and I want to keep mine."
-
-"I wouldn't touch a cent of it to save my life," she hurled at him. "If
-my mother lay before my eyes dying in agony and your money would save
-her, I wouldn't have it. I wouldn't take it to save my soul from
-perdition."
-
-"You are making it very hard for me," he said, desperately; and then,
-with a frankness she could not have looked for even from his coarsest
-side, he went on passionately: "I'm only a man, Virginia--a human being,
-full of love, admiration, and--passion. Young as you are, I can't blame
-you, and, still you _did_ encourage me. You know you did. I'm nearly
-insane over it all. I want you, Virginia. These meetings with you, and
-the things you have let me say to you, if you have said nothing
-yourself, have lifted me to the very sky. I simply cannot bear up under
-your present actions, knowing that that old woman has been talking
-against me. I am willing to do anything on earth to set myself right. I
-admire you more than I ever dreamed I could admire a woman, and my love
-for you is like a torrent that nothing can dam. I must have you,
-Virginia. The whole thing has gone too far. You ought to have thought of
-this before you agreed to come to my house alone at night, when you knew
-I was--when you knew I had every reason to expect that you--"
-
-"Stop!" she cried, with white lips and eyes flashing. "You are a coward,
-as well as a scoundrel! You are daring to threaten me. You have made me
-hate myself. As for you, I despise you as I would a loathsome reptile. I
-hate you! I detest you! I wake up in the night screaming in terror,
-fancying that I'm again in that awful room, locked in like a slave, a
-prisoner subject to your will--waiting for you to bid good-night to your
-drunken friends--locked in by your hand to wait there in an agony of
-death. Love you? I hate you! I hate the very low-browed emptiness of
-your face. I hate my mother for the selfish fear of death which blinded
-me to my own rights as a woman. Oh, God, I want to die and be done with
-it!"
-
-She suddenly covered her impassioned face with her hands and shook
-convulsively from head to foot.
-
-"Oh, Virginia, don't, don't make a mountain out of a molehill," he
-began, with a leaning towards his old, seductive persuasiveness. "There
-is nothing to feel so badly about. You know that Ann Boyd got there
-before I--I--"
-
-"That's all _you_ know about it," she said, uncovering eyes that flashed
-like lightning. "When I went there, with no interest in you further than
-a silly love of your honeyed words and _to get your money_, I did what
-I'll never wipe from my memory."
-
-"Virginia"--he tried to assume a light laugh--"this whole thing has
-turned your head. You will feel differently about it later when your
-mother comes back sound and well. Ann Boyd is not going to tell what
-took place, and--"
-
-"And you and I will have a secret of that nature between us!" she broke
-in, furiously. "That's got to blacken my memory, and be always before
-me! You are going to know _that_ of me when--when, yes, I'll say
-it--when another man whose shoes you are unworthy to wipe believes me to
-be as free from contact with evil as a new-born baby."
-
-Chester drew his brows together in sudden suspicion.
-
-"You are referring to Luke King!" he snapped out. "Look here, Virginia,
-don't make this matter any more serious than it is. I will not have a
-man like that held up to me as a paragon. I have heard that he used to
-hang around you when you were little, before he went off and came back
-so puffed up with his accomplishments, and I understand he has been to
-see you recently, but I won't stand his meddling in my affairs."
-
-"You needn't be afraid," Virginia said, with a bitterness he could not
-fathom. "There is nothing between Luke King and myself--absolutely
-nothing. You may rest sure that I'd never receive the attentions of a
-man of his stamp after what has passed between me and a man of your--"
-She paused.
-
-He was now white with rage. His lower lip hung and twitched nervously.
-
-"You are a little devil!" he cried. "You know you are driving me crazy.
-But I will not be thrown over. Do you understand? I am not going to give
-you up."
-
-"I don't know how you will help yourself," she said, moving back towards
-the door. "I certainly shall never, of my own free will, see you alone
-again. What I've done, I've done, but I don't intend to have it thrown
-into my face day after day."
-
-"Look here, Virginia," he began, but she had walked erectly into the
-house and abruptly closed the door. He stood undecided for a moment, and
-then, crestfallen, he turned away.
-
-
-
-
-XXVIII
-
-
-One bright, crisp morning a few days later, after her uncle had ridden
-his old horse, in clanking, trace-chain harness, off to his field to do
-some ploughing, Virginia stole out unnoticed and went over to Ann
-Boyd's. The door of the farm-house stood open, and in the sitting-room
-the girl saw Ann seated near a window hemming a sheet.
-
-"I see from your face that you've had more news," the old woman said, as
-she smiled in greeting. "Sit down and tell me about it. I'm on this job
-and want to get through with it before I put it down."
-
-"I got a letter this morning," Virginia complied, "from a woman down
-there who said she was my mother's nurse. The operation was very
-successful, and she is doing remarkably well. The surgeon says she will
-have no more trouble with her affliction. It was only on the surface and
-was taken just in time."
-
-"Ah, just in time!" Ann held the sheet in her tense hands for a moment,
-and then crushed it into her capacious lap. "Then _she's_ all right."
-
-"Yes, she is all right, Mrs. Boyd. In fact, the doctor says she will
-soon be able to come home. The simple treatment can be continued here
-under their directions till she is thoroughly restored."
-
-There was silence. Ann's face looked as hard as stone. She seemed to be
-trying to conquer some rising emotion, for she coughed, cleared her
-throat, and swallowed. Her heavy brows were drawn together, and the
-muscles of her big neck stood up under her tanned skin like tent-cords
-drawn taut from pole to stake.
-
-"I may as well tell you one particular thing and be done with it," she
-suddenly gulped. "I don't believe in deception of any sort whatever. I
-hate your mother as much as I could hate anything or anybody. I want it
-understood between us now on the spot that I done what I did for _you_,
-not for her. It may be Old Nick in me that makes me feel this way at
-such a time, but, you see, I understand her well enough to know she will
-come back primed and cocked for the old battle. The fear of death didn't
-alter her in her feelings towards me, and, now that she's on her feet,
-she will be worse than ever. It's purty tough to have to think that I
-put her in such good fighting trim, but I did it."
-
-"I am afraid you are right about her future attitude," Virginia sighed,
-"and that was one reason I did not want help to come through you."
-
-"That makes no odds now," Ann said, stoically. "What's done is done. I'm
-in the hands of two powers--good and evil--and here lately I never know,
-when I get out of bed in the morning, whether I'm going to feel the cool
-breath of one or the hot blast of the other. For months I had but one
-desire, and that was to see you, you poor, innocent child, breathing the
-fumes of the hell I sunk into; and just as my hopes were about to be
-realized the other power caught me up like a swollen river and swept me
-right the other way. Luke King really caused it. Child, since God made
-the world He never put among human beings a man with a finer soul. That
-poor, barefoot mountain boy that I picked up and sent off to school has
-come back--like Joseph that was dropped in a pit--a king among men.
-Under the lash of his inspired tongue I had to rise from my mire of
-hatred and do my duty. I might not have been strong enough in the right
-way if--if I hadn't loved him so much, and if he hadn't told me, poor
-boy, with tears in his eyes and voice, that you were the only woman in
-the world for him, and that his career would be wrecked if he lost you.
-I let him leave me without making promises. I was mad and miserable
-because I was about to be thwarted. But when he was gone I got to
-thinking it over, and finally I couldn't help myself, and acted. I
-determined, if possible, to pull you back from the brink you stood on
-and give you to him, that you might live the life that I missed."
-
-Virginia sank into a chair. She was flushed from her white, rounded neck
-to the roots of her hair.
-
-"Oh, I didn't deserve it!" she cried. "I have remained silent when my
-mother was heaping abuse upon you. I made no effort to do you justice
-when your enemies were crying you down. Oh, Mrs. Boyd, you are the best
-and most unselfish woman that ever lived."
-
-"No, I am not that," Ann declared, firmly. "I'm just like the general
-run of women, weak and wishy-washy, with dry powder in my make-up that
-anybody can touch a match to. There is no counting on what I'll do next.
-Right now I feel like being your stanch friend, but I really don't know
-but what, if your mammy hemmed me in a corner, I'd even throw up to her
-what you did that night. I say I don't know what notion might strike me.
-She can, with one word or look of hers, start perdition's fire in me. I
-don't know any more than a cat what made me go contrary to my plans that
-night. It wasn't in a thousand miles of what I wanted to do, and having
-Jane Hemingway come back here with a sound body and tongue of fire isn't
-what I saved money to pay for. If forgiveness is to be the white garment
-of the next life, mine will be as black as logwood dye."
-
-"The pretty part of it all is that you don't know yourself as you really
-are," Virginia said, almost smiling in her enthusiasm. "Since I've seen
-the beautiful side of your character I've come almost to understand the
-eternal wisdom even in human ills. But for your hatred of my mother,
-your kindness to me would not be so wonderful. For a long time I had
-only my mother to love, but now, Mrs. Boyd, somehow, I have not had as
-great anxiety about her down there as I thought I would have. Really, my
-heart has been divided between you two. Mrs. Boyd, I love you. I can't
-help it--I love you."
-
-Ann suddenly raised her sheet and folded it in her lap. Her face had
-softened; there was a wonderful spiritual radiance in her eyes.
-
-"It's powerful good and sweet of you to--to talk that way to a poor,
-despised outcast like I am. I can't remember many good things being said
-about me, and when you say you feel that way towards me, why--well, it's
-sweet of you--that's all, it's sweet and kind of you."
-
-"You have _made_ me love you," Virginia said, simply. "I could not help
-myself."
-
-Ann looked straight at the girl from her moist, beaming eyes.
-
-"I'm a very odd woman, child, and I want to tell you what I regard as
-the oddest thing about me. You say you feel kind towards me, and,
-and--love me a little. Well, ever since that night in that young scamp's
-room, when I came on you, crouched down there in your misery and fear,
-looking so much like I must 'a' looked at one time away back when not a
-spark of hope flashed in my black sky--ever since I saw you that way,
-helpless as a fresh violet in the track of a grazing bull, I have felt a
-yearning to draw you up against this old storm-beaten breast of mine and
-rock you to sleep. That's odd, but that isn't the odd thing I was
-driving at, and it is this, Virginia--I don't care a snap of my finger
-about my _own_ child. Think of that. If I was to hear of her death
-to-night it wouldn't be any more to me than the news of the death of any
-stranger."
-
-"That _is_ queer," said Virginia, thoughtfully.
-
-"Well, it's only nature working, I reckon," Ann said. "I loved her as a
-baby--in a natural way, I suppose--but when she went off from me, and by
-her going helped--child though she was--to stamp the brand on me that
-has been like the mark of a convict on my brow ever since--when she went
-off, I say, I hardened my heart towards her, and day after day I kept it
-hard till now she couldn't soften it. Maybe if I was to see her in
-trouble like you were in, my heart would go out to her; but she's
-independent of me; the only thing I've ever heard of her is that she
-cries and shudders at the mention of my name. She shudders at it, and
-she'll go down to her grave shuddering at it. She'll teach her children
-not to mention me. No, I'll never love her, and that's why it seems odd
-for me to feel like I do about you. Heaven knows, it seems like a dream
-when I remember that you are Jane Hemingway's child and the chief pride
-of her hard life. As for my own girl, she's full grown now, and has her
-natural plans and aspirations, and is afraid my record will blight them.
-I don't even know how she looks, but I have in mind a tall,
-stiff-necked, bony girl inclined to awkwardness, selfish, grasping, and
-unusually proud. But I can love as well as hate, though I've done more
-hating in my life than loving. There was a time I thought the very seeds
-of love had dried up in me, but about that time I picked up Luke King.
-Even as a boy he seemed to look deep into the problems of life, and was
-sorry for me. Somehow me and him got to talking over my trouble as if
-he'd been a woman, and he always stood to me and pitied me and called me
-tender names. You see, nobody at his home understood him, and he had his
-troubles, too, so we naturally drifted together like a mother and son
-pulled towards one another by the oddest freak of circumstances that
-ever came in two lives. We used to sit here in this room and talk of the
-deepest questions that ever puzzled the human brain. Our reason told us
-the infinite plan of the universe must be good, but we couldn't make it
-tally with the heavy end of it we had to tote. He was rebellious against
-circumstances and his lazy old step-father's conduct towards him, and he
-finally kicked over the traces and went West. Well, he had his eyes open
-out there, and came back with the blaze of spiritual glory in his manly
-face. He started in to practise what he was preaching, too. He yanked
-out of his pocket the last dollar of his savings and forked it over to
-the last people on earth to deserve it. That made me so mad I couldn't
-speak to him for a while, but now I'm forced to admit that the sacrifice
-hasn't harmed him in the least. He's plunging ahead down there in the
-most wonderful way, and content--well, content but just for one thing. I
-reckon you know what that is?"
-
-Ann paused. Virginia was looking out through the open doorway, a flush
-creeping over her sensitive face. She started to speak, but the words
-hung in her throat, and she only coughed.
-
-"Yes, you know as well as I do," Ann went on, gently. "He come over here
-the other night after he left your house. He hitched his horse at the
-gate and come in and sat down. I saw something serious had happened, and
-as he was not due here, and was overwhelmed with business in Atlanta, I
-thought he had met with money trouble. I made up my mind then and there,
-too, that I'd back him to the extent of every thimbleful of land and
-every splinter of timber in my possession; but it wasn't money he
-wanted. It was something else. He sat there in the moonlight that was
-shining through the door, with his head on his breast plumb full of
-despair. I finally got it out of him. You'd refused him outright. You'd
-decided that you could get on without the love and life-devotion of the
-grandest man that ever lived. I was thoroughly mad at you then. I come
-in an inch of turning plumb against you, but I didn't. I fought for you
-as I'd have fought for myself away back in my girlhood. I did it,
-although I could have spanked you good for making him so miserable."
-
-"You know why I refused him," Virginia said, in a low voice. "You, of
-all persons, will know that."
-
-"I don't know as I do," Ann said, with a probing expression in her eyes.
-"I don't know, unless, after all, you have a leaning for that young
-scamp, who has no more real honor than a convict in his stripes. Women
-are that way, except in very rare cases. The bigger the scoundrel and
-the meaner he treats them the more they want him. If it's that, I am not
-going to upbraid you. Upbraiding folks for obeying the laws of nature is
-the greatest loss of wind possible. If you really love that scamp, no
-power under high heaven will turn you."
-
-"Love him? I loathe him!" burst passionately from Virginia's lips.
-
-"Then what under the sun made you treat Luke King as you did?" asked
-Ann, almost sternly.
-
-"Because I could not marry him," said the girl, firmly. "I'd rather die
-than accept the love and devotion of a man as noble as he is
-after--after--oh, you know what I mean!"
-
-"Oh, I see--I see," Ann said, her brows meeting. "There comes another
-law of nature. I reckon if you feel that way, any argument I'd put up
-would fall on deaf ears."
-
-"I could never accept his love and confidence without telling him all
-that took place that night, and I'd kill myself rather than have him
-know," declared the girl.
-
-"Oh, _that's_ the trouble!" Ann exclaimed. "Well, I hope all that will
-wear away in time. It's fortunate that you are not loved by a narrow
-fool, my child. Luke King has seen a lots of the world in his young
-life."
-
-"He has not seen enough of the world to make him overlook a thing of
-that kind, and you know it," Virginia sighed. "I really believe the
-higher a man becomes spiritually the higher his ideal of a woman is. I
-know what he thinks of me now, but I don't know what he would think if
-he knew the whole truth. He must never be told that, Mrs. Boyd. God
-knows I am grateful to you for all you have done, but you must not tell
-him that."
-
-Ann put down her sheet and went to the fireplace, and with the tip of
-her coarse, gaping shoe she pushed some burning embers under a
-three-legged pot on the stone hearth. With her tongs she lifted the iron
-lid and looked at a corn-pone browning within, and then she replaced it.
-Her brow was deeply wrinkled.
-
-"You told me everything that happened that night, if I remember right,"
-she said, tentatively. "In fact, I know you did."
-
-Virginia said nothing; her thoughts seemed elsewhere.
-
-Leaning the tongs against the fireplace, Ann came forward and bent over
-her almost excitedly.
-
-"Look here, child," she said, "you told me that--that I got there in
-time. You told me--"
-
-"I told you all I thought was necessary for you to understand the
-situation," said Virginia, her eyes downcast, "but I didn't tell you all
-I'd have to tell Luke King--to be his wife."
-
-"You say you didn't." Ann sat down heavily in her chair. "Then be plain
-with me; what under the sun did you leave out?"
-
-"I left out the fact that I was crazy that night," said Virginia. "I
-read in a book once that a woman is so constituted that she can't see
-reason in anything which does not coincide with her desires. I saw only
-one thing that night that was worth considering. I saw only the awful
-suffering of my mother and the chance to put an end to it by getting
-hold of that man's money. Do you understand now? I went there for that
-purpose. I'd have laid down my life for it. When those men came he urged
-me to run and hide in his room, as he and I stood on the veranda, and it
-was not fear of exposure that drove me up the stairs holding to his
-hand. It was the almost appalling fear that the promised money would
-slip through my fingers if I didn't obey him to the letter. And when he
-whispered, with his hot breath in my ear, there in his room, as his
-friends were loudly knocking at the door below, that he would rid
-himself of them and come back, and asked me if I'd wait, I said yes, as
-I would, have said it to God in heaven. Then he asked me if it was '_a
-promise_,' and I said yes again. Then he asked me, Mrs. Boyd, he asked
-me--"
-
-Virginia's voice died out. She fell to quivering from head to foot.
-
-"Well, well, go on!" Ann said, under her breath. "Go on. What did he ask
-you?"
-
-Virginia hesitated for another minute, then, with her face red with
-shame, she said: "He asked me to prove it by--kissing him--kissing him
-of my own free will. I hesitated, I think. Yes, I hesitated, but I heard
-the steps of the men in the hall below at the foot of the stairs. I
-thought of the money, Mrs. Boyd, and I kissed him."
-
-"You did?"
-
-"Yes. I did--there, _in his room_!"
-
-"Well, I'm glad you told me that," Ann breathed, deeply. "I think I
-understand it better now. I understand how you feel."
-
-"So you see, all that's what I'd have to tell Luke King," Virginia said;
-"and I'll never do it--never on this earth. I want him always to think
-of me as he does right now."
-
-Ann locked her big hands in her lap and bent forward.
-
-"I see my greatest trouble is going to lie with you," she said. "You are
-conscientious. Millions of women have kept worse things than that from
-their husbands and never lost a wink of sleep over them, but you seem to
-be of a different stripe. I think Luke King is too grand a man to hold
-that against you, under all the circumstances. I think so, but I don't
-know men any better than they know women, and I'm not going to urge you
-one way or the other. I thought my easy-going husband would do me
-justice, but he couldn't have done it to save his neck from the loop. In
-my opinion there never will be any happy unions between men and women
-till men quit thinking so much about the weakness of women's _bodies_
-and so little of the strength of their _souls_. The view you had that
-night of the dark valley of a living death, and your escape from it, has
-lifted you into a purity undreamt of by the average woman. If Luke
-King's able to comprehend that, he may get him a wife on the open
-mountain-top; if not, he can find her in the bushes at the foot. He'll
-obey his natural law, as you and I will ours."
-
-
-
-
-XXIX
-
-
-In dire dread of facing the anger of his father, who was expected back
-from Savannah, for having sold the horse which the Colonel himself was
-fond of riding, and being in the lowest dregs of despondency and chagrin
-over the humiliating turn his affair with Virginia had taken, Langdon
-Chester packed his travelling-bag and hurried off to Atlanta.
-
-There he had a middle-aged bachelor cousin, Chester Sively, who was as
-fair an example as one could well find of the antebellum Southern man of
-the world carried forward into a new generation and a more active and
-progressive environment. Fortunately for him, he had inherited a
-considerable fortune, and he was enabled to live in somewhat the same
-ease as had his aristocratic forebears. He had a luxurious suite of
-rooms in one of the old-fashioned houses in Peachtree Street, where he
-always welcomed Langdon as his guest, in return for the hospitality of
-the latter during the hunting season on the plantation.
-
-"Another row with the head of the house?" he smiled, as he rose from his
-easy-chair at a smoking-table to shake hands with the new arrival, who,
-hot and dusty, had alighted from a rickety cab, driven by a sleepy negro
-in a battered silk top-hat, and sauntered in, looking anything but
-cheerful.
-
-"Why did you think that?" Langdon asked, after the negro had put down
-his bag and gone.
-
-"Why? Oh, because it has been brewing for a long time, old chap," Sively
-smiled; "and because it is as natural for old people to want to curb the
-young as it is for them to forget their own youth. When I was up there
-last, Uncle Pres could scarcely talk of anything but your numerous
-escapades."
-
-"We didn't actually have the _row_," Langdon sighed, "but it would have
-come if I hadn't lit out before he got back from Savannah. The truth
-is"--the visitor dropped his eyes--"he has allowed me almost no
-pocket-money of late, and, getting in a tight place--debts, you know,
-and one thing and another--I let my best horse go at a sacrifice the
-other day. Father likes to ride him, and he's going to raise sand about
-it. Oh, I couldn't stand it, and so I came away. It will blow over, you
-know, but it will do so quicker if I'm here and he's there. Besides, he
-is always nagging me about having no profession or regular business, and
-if I see a fair opening down here, I'm really going to work."
-
-"You'll never do it in this world." Sively laughed, and his dark eyes
-flashed merrily as he pulled at his well-trained mustache. "You can no
-more do that sort of thing than a cat-fish can hop about in a bird-cage.
-In an office or bank you'd simply pine away and die. Your ancestors
-lived in the open air, with other people to work for them, and you are
-simply too near that period to do otherwise. I know, my boy, because
-I've tried to work. If I didn't have private interests that pin me down
-to a sort of routine, I'd be as helpless as you are."
-
-"You are right, I reckon." Langdon reached out to the copper bowl on the
-table and took a cigar. "I know, somehow, that the few business openings
-I have heard of now and then have simply sickened me. When I get as much
-city life as is good for me down here, I like to run back to the
-mountains. Up there I can take my pipe and gun and dog and--"
-
-"And enjoy life right; you bet you can," Sively said, enthusiastically.
-"Well, after all, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. My life
-isn't all it's cracked up to be by men who say they are yearning for it.
-Between you and me, I feel like a defunct something or other when I hear
-these thoroughly up-to-date chaps talking at the club about their big
-enterprises which they are making go by the very skin of their teeth.
-Why, I know one fellow under thirty who has got every electric car-line
-in the city tied to the tips of his fingers. I know another who is about
-to get Northern backing for a new railroad from here to Asheville, which
-he started on nothing but a scrap of club writing-paper one afternoon
-over a bottle of beer. Then there is that darned chap from up your way,
-Luke King. He's a corker. He had little education, I am told, and sprang
-from the lowest cracker stock, but he's the sensation of the hour down
-here."
-
-"He's doing well, then," Langdon said, a touch of anger in his tone as
-he recalled Virginia's reference to King on their last meeting.
-
-"Well? You'd think so. Half the capitalists in Atlanta are daft about
-him. They call him a great political, financial, and moral force, with a
-brain as big as Abraham Lincoln's. I was an idiot. I had a chance to get
-in on the ground-floor when that paper of his started, but I was wise--I
-was knowing. When I heard the manager of the thing was the son of one of
-your father's old tenants, I pulled down one corner of my eye and turned
-him over to my financial rivals. You bet I see my mistake now. The stock
-is worth two for one, and not a scrap on the market at that. Do you know
-what the directors did the other day? When folks do it for you or me we
-will feel flattered. They insured his life for one hundred thousand
-dollars, because if he were to die the enterprise wouldn't have a leg to
-stand on. You see, it's all in his big brain. I suppose you know
-something about his boyhood?"
-
-"Oh yes," Langdon said, testily; "we were near the same age, and met now
-and then, but, you know, at that time our house was so full of visitors
-that I had little chance to see much of people in the neighborhood, and
-then he went West."
-
-"Ah, yes," said Sively, "and that's where his boom started. They are
-circulating some odd stories on him down here, but I take them all with
-a grain of salt. They say he sold out his Western interests for a good
-sum and gave every red cent of it to his poor old mother and
-step-father."
-
-"That's a fact," said Langdon. "I happen to know that it is absolutely
-true. When he got back he found his folks in a pretty bad shape, and he
-bought a good farm for them."
-
-"Well, I call that a brave thing," said the older man--"a thing I
-couldn't do to save my neck from the halter. No wonder his editorials
-have stirred up the reading public; he means what he says. He's the most
-conspicuous man in Atlanta to-day. But, say, you want to go to your
-room, and I'm keeping you. Go in and make yourself comfortable. I may
-not get to see much of you for two or three days. I have to run out of
-town with some men from Boston who are with me in a deal for some coal
-and iron land, but I'll see you when I return."
-
-"Oh, I can get along all right, thanks," Langdon said, as Pomp, Sively's
-negro man-servant, came for his bag in obedience to his master's ring.
-
-Three days later, on his return to town from a trip to the country,
-Sively, not seeing anything of his guest, asked Pomp where he was.
-
-"Don't know whar he is now, boss," the negro said, dryly. "I haint seed
-'im since dis mawnin', when he got out o' bed an' had me shave 'im up
-an' bresh his clothes. I tell you, Marse Sively, dat man's doin'
-powerful funny. He's certainly gone wrong somehow."
-
-"Why, what do you mean?" the bachelor asked, in alarm. "He looked all
-right when he got here."
-
-"Huh, I don't know what ails 'im, suh," the negro grunted, "but I kin
-see he's actin' curious. Dat fust mawnin' when I went in his room to
-clean up an' make de baid I come in easy like to keep fum wakin' 'im,
-but, bless you, he was already up, standin' at de window lookin' out in
-de street an' actually groanin' to hisse'f like some'n' was wrong wid
-his insides. I axed 'im what was de matter, an' if he wants me to
-telephone fer de doctor, but he lit in to cussin' me at sech a rate dat
-I seed it wasn't any ailment o' de flesh, anyway. He ordered me to go to
-de cafe fer his breakfast, an' I fetched 'im what he always did
-fancy--fried chicken, eggs on toast, an' coffee wid whipped cream--but,
-bless you, he let 'em get stone cold on de table, an' wouldn't touch a
-thing but what was in yo' decanter."
-
-"You don't tell me," Sively said, anxiously. "What has he been doing of
-evenings? Did he go to the Kimball House dance? I had Colville send him
-tickets. The Williamsons asked him to their card-party, too. Did he go?"
-
-"Not a step," Pomp replied. "He had me lay out his claw-hammer coat an'
-get it pressed at de tailor-shop dat fust night, and stirred around
-considerable, wid several drinks in 'im. He even had me clean his
-patent-leather pumps and ordered a cab fum de stable. Said he wasn't
-goin' to ride in one o' dem rickety street hacks wid numbers on 'em an'
-disgrace you. But, suh, de cab come an' I had everything out clean on de
-baid even to a fresh tube-rose for his button-hole. He sat around
-smokin' and runnin' fer de decanter ever' now and den, but wouldn't take
-off a rag of his old clothes, an' kept walkin' de flo', fust to de
-winder an' den back to de lounge, whar he'd throw hisse'f down at full
-length an' roll an' toss like he had de cramps. I went to 'im, I did, at
-ten o'clock, an' told 'im he was gwine to miss de grand promenade an'
-let all de rest of 'em fill up de ladies' cards, but he stared at me,
-suh, like he didn't know what I was talkin' about, an' den he come to
-his senses, an' told me he wasn't goin' to no dance. He went to de
-window an' ordered de cab off. De next mawnin' he had all his nice
-dress-suit stuffed in a wad in his valise. It was a sight, I'm here to
-tell you, an' he was settin' on de baid smoking. He said he'd had enough
-o' dis town, an' believed he'd take de train home; but he didn't, suh.
-De next night I was sho' oneasy, an' I watched 'im de best I could
-widout makin' 'im mad. He et a bite o' de supper I fetched 'im, and den,
-atter dark, he started out on foot. I followed 'im, kase I 'lowed you'd
-want me to ef you was here."
-
-"Yes, of course," Sively said; "and where did he go?"
-
-"Nowhar, suh--dat is, he didn't stop a single place. He just walked and
-walked everywhar and anywhar. It didn't make no odds to him, jest so he
-was movin' his laigs. He must 'a' covered five good miles in de most
-zigzag travellin' you ever seed--went clean to de gate o' de Exposition
-grounds, an' den back, an' plumb round de Capitol and out Washington
-Street, wid me on his scent like a blood-hound after a runaway nigger;
-but dar wasn't much danger o' me bein' seen, fer he didn't look round.
-Well, he finally turned an' come home an' tumbled in baid about two in
-de mawnin'. Yesterday de Williamson ladies an' deir maw driv' up to de
-do' an' axed about 'im. Dey said he was down on de list fer dinner at
-dey house, an', as he didn't come or send no word, dey 'lowed he was
-laid up sick. De lawd knows, I didn't know what to tell 'em. I've got
-myse'f in trouble befo' now lyin' fer white men widout knowin' what I
-was lyin' about, an' I let dat chance slide, an' told 'em I didn't know
-a blessed thing about it. Dey driv' off in a big huff; all three dey
-backs was as straight as a ironin'-board."
-
-"Have you any idea where he is now?" Sively inquired, anxiously.
-
-"I think he's over at de club, suh. De waiters in de cafe told me dat he
-makes a habit o' loungin' round de back smokin'-room by hisse'f."
-
-"Drinking?"
-
-"No, suh--dat is, not any mo'n he kin tote. He walks straight enough, it
-jest seems like it's some'n' wrong in his mind, Marse Sively," and Pomp
-touched his black brow significantly.
-
-"Well," Sively said, after a moment's reflection, "order the horses and
-trap. If I can find him I'll take him out to the Driving Club. I'm glad
-I got back. I'll take him in hand. Between me and you, Pomp, I think
-he's had bad news from his father. I'm afraid my uncle has really laid
-down the law to him, cut off his spending-money, or something of the
-kind."
-
-
-
-
-XXX
-
-
-In the darkest corner of the quietest room in the club, Sively found his
-cousin gloomily smoking a cigar, a bottle of brandy on a table near him,
-and a copy of Luke King's paper on the floor at his feet. As he looked
-up his eyes had a shifting glare in them, and there was an air of utter
-dejection on him, though, on recognizing his cousin, he made a valiant
-effort to appear at ease.
-
-"Oh, you are back, are you?" he said, awkwardly, flicking the ashes of
-his cigar over a tray.
-
-"Yes, just in, old boy, and I've got my horses out for a spin to the
-Driving Club. Come along. The whole town is out on wheels; the afternoon
-is perfect. The idea of your sitting cooped up here, in smoke thick
-enough to cut with an axe, when you ought to be filling your lungs with
-ozone and enjoying life!"
-
-Langdon hesitated, but it was evident that he could formulate no
-reasonable excuse for declining the invitation, and so he reluctantly
-gave in. "Let me get my hat," he said, and together they strolled down
-the wide entrance-hall to the hat-rack.
-
-"I felt rather uneasy when I missed you at my rooms," Sively remarked,
-as they were approaching the trap at the door. "Pomp could give no
-account of you, and I didn't know but what you'd skipped out for home.
-Have a good time while I was away?"
-
-"Oh yes, yes," Chester answered, as he got into the vehicle and began to
-adjust the lap-robes about him. "I got along all right. You see, old
-man, I'm sort of getting on the social retired-list. Living in the
-country, where we have few formalities, has turned me somewhat against
-your teas, dinners, and dances. I never go without feeling out of it
-somehow. You Atlanta men seem to know how to combine business and
-society pretty well; but, having no business when I'm here, I get sick
-of doing the other thing exclusively."
-
-"Oh, I see," said Sively, who was too deeply versed in human nature to
-be misled.
-
-As they sped along the smooth asphalt pavement of Peachtree Street,
-dodging trolley-cars and passing or meeting open vehicles filled with
-pleasure-seekers, Sively's hat and arm were in continual motion bowing
-to friends and acquaintances. The conversation languished. Sively found
-it very difficult to keep it going as he noted the deep lines of care
-which marked his cousin's face. He was quite sure something of a very
-serious nature had happened to Langdon, and his sympathies were deeply
-stirred.
-
-After twenty minutes' brisk driving, they reached the club-house and
-entered the throng of fashionably dressed men and women distributed
-about at the numerous refreshment-tables under the trees. The club was
-on a slight elevation, and below them stretched the beautiful greensward
-of the extensive Exposition grounds. Several of the liveried servants,
-recognizing Sively, approached and offered chairs at their respective
-tables, but, sensing his cousin's desire not to be thrown with others,
-he led the way through the laughing and chattering assemblage to a quiet
-table in a little smoking-room quite in the rear of the building.
-
-"There," he smiled, "this will suit you better, I know."
-
-"Yes, I think it will, if it's all the same to you," Chester admitted,
-with a breath of relief. "The Lord only knows what I'd talk about out
-there in that chattering gang."
-
-Sively ordered cigars, and, when the waiter had gone for them, he said,
-lightly: "No more liquor for you to-day, my boy. You hold your own all
-right, but you are too nervous to take any more."
-
-"Nervous? Do you think so? Do I look it?" Chester asked.
-
-"Oh yes, a little," said Sively. He was taking a bunch of cigars from
-the waiter, and, when he had signed his name to the accompanying slip of
-paper, he said, "Harry, pull the door to after you, and see that we are
-not disturbed."
-
-"Certainly, sir."
-
-Langdon, with widening eyes, watched the negro as he went out and closed
-the door, then he glanced at his cousin inquiringly.
-
-"I want to be alone with you, my boy," Sively said, with ill-assumed
-ease. "You can trust me, you know, and--well, the truth is, my boy, I
-want to know what you are in trouble about."
-
-"Me? Good gracious!"
-
-"Oh, don't begin that!" Sively said, firmly, as he struck a match and
-held it to the end of his cigar. "I won't stand it. You can't keep your
-feelings from me. At first, when Pomp told me about your not going out
-to those affairs when I was away, I thought your father had thrown you
-over for good and all, but it isn't that. My uncle couldn't do it,
-anyway. You are in trouble, my boy; what is it?"
-
-Langdon flushed and stared defiantly across the table into the fixed
-eyes of his cousin for a moment, and then he looked down.
-
-"No, my father is all right," he said. "He's found out about the horse,
-but he didn't take it so very hard. In fact, he went to Darley and
-bought him back for only a slight advance on what I sold him for. He is
-worried about me, and writes for me to come on home."
-
-"Then, as I supposed, it is _not_ your father," said Sively.
-
-There was a pause. Langdon, with bloodless fingers, nervously broke his
-cigar half in two. He took another and listlessly struck a match, only
-to let its flame expire without using it.
-
-"What's the trouble, my boy?" pursued Sively. "I want to befriend you if
-I can. I'm older than you."
-
-"Well, I _am_ in trouble," Langdon said, simply. Then, in a low tone,
-and with frequent pauses, he told all about his acquaintance with
-Virginia. Once started, he left out no detail, extending his confidence
-till it had included a humble confession even of his humiliation by Ann
-Boyd and the girl's bitter words of contempt a few days later. "Then I
-had to come away," Langdon finished, with a sigh that was a whispered
-groan. "I couldn't stand it. I thought the change, the life and
-excitement down here, would make me forget, but it's worse than ever.
-I'm in hell, old man--a regular hell."
-
-Sively leaned back in his chair. There was an expression of supreme
-disgust about his sensitive nose and mouth, and his eyes burned with
-indignant, spirit-fed fires.
-
-"Great God!" he exclaimed; "and it was _that_ girl--that particular
-one--Jane Hemingway's daughter!"
-
-"You've seen her, then?" Langdon said, in awakening surprise.
-
-"Seen her? Great Heavens, of course, I've seen her, and, now that I know
-all this, her sweet, young face will never go out of my mind--never as
-long as life is in me."
-
-"I don't exactly see--I don't understand--" Langdon began, but his
-cousin interrupted him.
-
-"I had a talk with her one day," he said, feelingly. "I had been hunting
-with your gun and dogs, and stopped at her mother's house to get a drink
-of water. Virginia was the only one at home, and she brought it to me in
-the little porch. I've met thousands of women, Langdon, but her beauty,
-grace, intelligence, and dazzling purity affected me as I never was
-before. I am old enough to be her father, but do you know what I thought
-as I sat there and talked to her? I thought that I'd give every dollar I
-had for the love and faith of such a girl--to leave this rotten
-existence here and settle down there in the mountains to earn my living
-by the sweat of my brow. It was almost the only silly dream I ever had,
-but it was soon over. A thousand times since that day, in the midst of
-all this false show and glitter, my mind has gone back to that wonderful
-girl. She'd read books I'd never had time to open, and talked about them
-as freely and naturally as I would about things of everyday life. No
-doubt she was famished for what all women, good or bad, love--the
-admiration of men--and so she listened eagerly to your slick tongue. Oh,
-I know what you said, and exactly how you said it. You've inherited that
-gift, my boy, but you've inherited something--perhaps from your
-mother--something that your father never had in his make-up--you've
-inherited a capacity for remorse, self-contempt, the throes of an
-outraged conscience. I'm a man of the world--I don't go to church, I
-play cards, I race horses, I've gone all the gaits--but I know there is
-something in most men which turns their souls sick when they consciously
-commit crime. _Crime!_--yes, that's it--don't stop me. I used a strong
-word, but it must go. There are men who would ten thousand times rather
-shoot a strong, able-bodied man dead in his tracks than beguile a young
-girl to the brink of doom (of all ways) as you did--blinding her to her
-own danger by the holy desire to save her mother's life, pulling her as
-it were by her very torn and bleeding heart-strings. God!"
-
-"Oh, don't--don't make it any worse than it is!" Langdon groaned.
-"What's done's done, and, if I'm down in the blackest depths of despair
-over it, what's the use to kick me? I'm helpless. Do you know what I
-actually thought of doing this morning? I actually lay in bed and
-planned my escape. I wanted to turn on the gas, but I knew it would
-never do its work in that big, airy room."
-
-"Oh, don't be a fool, Langdon!" Sively said, suddenly pulled around.
-"Never think of such a thing again. When a man that _is_ a man does a
-wrong, there is only one thing for him to do, and that is to set it
-right."
-
-"Set it right? But how?" Langdon cried, almost eagerly.
-
-"Why, there are several ways to make a stab at it, anyway," Sively said;
-"and that is better than wiping your feet on a gentle creature and then
-going off and smoking a gas-pipe. What I want to know is this: do you
-_love_ that girl, really and genuinely _love_ her?"
-
-"Why, I think I do," said Langdon; "in fact, I now _know_ it; if I
-didn't, why should I be here miserable enough to die about what has
-happened and her later treatment of me?"
-
-"I couldn't take your diagnosis of your particular malady." Sively
-puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. "You'd be the last person, really,
-that could decide on that. There are some men in the world who can't
-tell the difference between love and passion, and they are led to the
-altar by one as often as the other. But the passion-led man has walked
-through the pink gates of hell. When his temporary desire has been fed,
-he'll look into the face of his bride with absolute loathing and
-contempt. She'll be too pure, as a rule, to understand the chasm between
-them, but she will know that for her, at least, marriage is a failure.
-Now, if I thought you really loved that pretty girl--if I thought you
-really were man enough to devote the rest of your days to blotting from
-her memory the black events of that night; if I thought you'd go to her
-with the hot blood of hell out of your veins, and devote yourself to
-winning her just as some young man on her own social level would do,
-paying her open and respectful attentions, declaring your honorable
-intentions to her relatives and friends--if I thought you were man
-enough to do that, in spite of the opposition of your father and mother,
-then I'd glory in your spunk, and I'd think more of you, my poor boy,
-than I ever have in all my life."
-
-Langdon leaned forward. He had felt his cousin's contemptuous words less
-for the hope they embodied. "Then you think if I did that, she might--"
-
-"I don't know what _she'd_ do," Sively broke in. "I only know that when
-you finally saw her after that night and made no declarations of
-honorable intentions, that you simply emphasized the cold-blooded insult
-of what had already happened. She saw in your following her up only a
-desire to repeat the conduct which had so nearly entrapped her. My boy,
-I am not a mean judge of women, and I am afraid you have simply lost
-that girl forever. She has lowered herself, as she perhaps looks at it,
-in the eyes of another woman--the one who saved her--and her young eyes
-have been torn open to things she was too pure and unsuspecting even to
-dream of. However, all her life she has heard of the misfortune of this
-Mrs. Boyd, and she now realizes only too vividly what she has escaped.
-It might take you years to restore her confidence--to prove to her that
-you love her for herself alone, but if I stood in your shoes I'd do it
-if it took me a lifetime. She is worth it, my boy. In fact, I'm afraid
-she is--now pardon me for being so blunt--but I'm afraid she is superior
-to you in intellect. She struck me as being a most wonderful woman for
-her age. Given opportunity, she'd perhaps out-strip you. It is strange
-that she has had so little attention paid to her. Has she never had an
-admirer before?"
-
-Langdon exhaled a deep breath before replying. "That is something I've
-been worried about," he admitted. "From little things she has dropped I
-imagine this same Luke King used to be very fond of her before he left
-for the West. They have met since he got back, and I'm afraid she--"
-
-"Good gracious! that puts another face on the business," said Sively. "I
-don't mean any disparagement to you, but if--if there ever was any
-understanding between them, and he has come back such a success, why, it
-isn't unlikely that you'd have a rival worth giving attention to. A man
-of that sort rarely ever makes a mistake in marrying. If he is after
-that girl, you've got an interesting fight ahead of you--that is, if you
-intend to buck against him. Now, I see, I've made you mad."
-
-"Do you think I'd let a man of his birth and rearing thwart me?" Langdon
-cried--"a mountain cracker, a clodhopper, an uncouth, unrefined--"
-
-"Stop! you are going too far," said Sively, quickly. "Our old idea that
-refinement can only come from silk-lined cradles is about exploded. It
-seems to me that refinement is as natural as a love of art, music, or
-poetry. And not only has that chap got refinement of a decided sort, but
-he's got a certain sort of pride that makes him step clean over a
-reverence for our defunct traditions. When he meets a scion of the old
-aristocracy his clear eye doesn't waver as he stares steadily into the
-face as if to see if the old regime has left a fragment of brains there
-worth inspecting. Oh, he gets along all right in society! The Holts had
-him at the club reception and dinner the other night, and our best women
-were actually _asking_ to be introduced to him, and--"
-
-"But why are you telling all this stuff to me?" Langdon thundered, as he
-rose angrily to signify that he was ready to go.
-
-"Why do I?" Sively said, pacifically. "Because you've simply got to know
-the genuine strength of your rival, if he _is_ that, and you have to
-cross swords with him. If the fellow really intends to win that girl, he
-will perhaps display a power in the undertaking that you never saw. I'd
-as soon fight a buzz-saw with bare hands as to tackle him in a fight for
-a woman's love. Oh, I've got started, my boy, and I'll have to reel it
-all off, and be done with it. There is one thing you may get mad and
-jealous enough to do--that is, in case you are this fellow King's
-rival--"
-
-"What do you mean? What did you start to say?" Langdon glared down at
-his cousin.
-
-"Why, you might--I say might--fall low enough to try to use the poor
-girl's little indiscretion against her. But if you do, my boy, I'll go
-back on you. I'll do it as sure as there is a God in heaven. I wish you
-luck with her, but it all depends on you. If you will be a man, you may
-be happy in the end, get a beautiful, trusting wife, and wipe the mire
-off your soul which is making you so miserable. Go straight home and set
-about it in the right way. Begin with a humble proposal of marriage.
-That will show your intentions at the outset. Now, let's get out in the
-open air."
-
-They walked through the gay throng again to the carriage, and as they
-were getting in Langdon said, almost cheerfully: "I'm going to take your
-advice. I know I love her, honestly and truly, for I want her with every
-nerve in my body. I haven't slept a single night through since the thing
-happened. I've simply been crazy."
-
-"Well, the whole thing lies with you," said Sively. "The girl must have
-cared _something_ for you at one time, and you must recover your lost
-place in her estimation. A humble proposal of marriage will, in my
-judgment, soften her more than anything else. It will be balm to her
-wounded pride, too, and you may win. You've got a fair chance. Most poor
-mountain girls would be flattered by the opportunity to marry a man
-above them in social position, and she may be that way. Be a man, and
-pay no attention to your father's objections. When the proper time
-comes, I'll talk to him."
-
-
-
-
-XXXI
-
-
-After leaving Atlanta, with only her normal strength and flesh to
-regain, Jane Hemingway returned to her mountain home in most excellent
-spirits. She had heartily enjoyed her stay, and was quite in her best
-mood before the eager group of neighbors who gathered at her cottage the
-afternoon of her return.
-
-"What _I_ can't understand," remarked old Mrs. Penuckle, "is why you
-don't say more about the cutting. Why, the knife wasn't going into _me_
-at all, and yet on the day I thought the doctors would be at work on you
-I couldn't eat my dinner. I went around shuddering, fancying I could
-feel the blade rake, rake through my vitals. Wasn't you awfully afraid?"
-
-"Bless your soul, no!" Jane laughed merrily. "There wasn't a bit more of
-a quiver on me than there is right now. We was all talking in a funny
-sort of way and passing jokes to the last minute before they gave me
-ether. They gave it to me in a tin thing full of cotton that they
-clapped over my mouth and nose. I had to laugh, I remember, for, just as
-he got ready, Dr. Putnam said, with his sly grin, 'Look here, I'm going
-to muzzle you, old lady, so you can't talk any more about your
-neighbors.'"
-
-"Well, he certainly give you a bliff there without knowing it," remarked
-Sam Hemingway, dryly. "But he's a fool if he thinks a tin thing full o'
-drugs would do that."
-
-"Oh, go on and tell us about the cutting," said Mrs. Penuckle, wholly
-oblivious of Sam's sarcasm. "That's what _I_ come to hear about."
-
-"Well, I reckon getting under that ether was the toughest part of the
-job," Jane smiled. "I took one deep whiff of it, and I give you my word
-I thought the pesky stuff had burnt the lining out of my windpipe. But
-Dr. Putnam told me he'd give it to me more gradual, and he did. It still
-burnt some, but it begun to get easy, and I drifted off into the
-pleasantest sleep, I reckon, I ever had. When I come to and found nobody
-in the room but a girl in a white apron and a granny's cap, I was afraid
-they had decided not to operate, and, when I asked her if there'd been
-any hitch, she smiled and said it was all over, and I wouldn't have
-nothing to do but lie still and pick up."
-
-"It's wonderful how fine they've got things down these days," commented
-Sam. "Ten years ago folks looked on an operation like that as next to a
-funeral, but it's been about the only picnic Jane's had since she was
-flying around with the boys."
-
-The subject of this jest joined the others in a good-natured laugh.
-"There was just one thing on my mind to bother me," she said, somewhat
-more seriously, "and that was wondering who gave that money to Virginia.
-Naturally a thing like that would pester a person, especially where it
-was such a big benefit. I've been at Virginia to tell me, or give me
-some hint so I could find out myself, but the poor child looks awfully
-embarrassed, and keeps reminding me of her promise. I reckon there isn't
-but one thing to do, and that is to let it rest."
-
-"There's only one person round here that's _got_ any spare money," said
-Sam Hemingway, quite with a straight face, "and it happens, too, that
-she'd like to have a thing like that done."
-
-"Why, who do you mean, Sam?" His sister-in-law fell into his trap, as
-she sat staring at him blandly.
-
-"Why, it's Ann Boyd--old Sister Ann. She'd pay for a job like that on
-the bare chance of the saw-bones making a miss-lick and cutting too
-deep, or blood-pizen settin' in."
-
-"Don't mention that woman's name to me!" Jane said, angrily. "You know
-it makes me mad, and that's why you do it. I tried to keep a humble and
-contrite heart in me down there; but, folks, I'm going to confess to you
-all that the chief joy I felt in getting my health back was on account
-of that woman's disappointment. I never mentioned it till now, but that
-meddlesome old hag actually knew about my ailment long before I let it
-out to a soul. Like a fool, I bought some fake medicine from a tramp
-peddler one day, and let him examine me. He went straight over to Ann
-Boyd's and told her. Oh, I know he did, for she met me at the wash-hole,
-during the hot spell, when water was scarce, and actually gloated over
-my coming misfortune. She wouldn't say what the ill-luck was, but I knew
-what she was talking about and where she got her information."
-
-"I never thought that old wench was as black as she was painted," Sam
-declared, with as much firmness as he could command in the presence of
-so much femininity. "If this had been a community of men, instead of
-three-fourths the other sort, she'd have been reinstated long before
-this. I'll bet, if the Scriptural injunction for the innocent to cast
-the first stone was obeyed, there wouldn't be no hail-storm o' rocks in
-this neighborhood."
-
-"Oh, she would just suit a lot of men!" Jane said, in a tone which
-indicated the very lowest estimation of her brother-in-law's opinion.
-"It takes women to size up women. I want to meet the old thing now, just
-to show her that I'm still alive and kicking."
-
-Jane had this opportunity sooner than she expected. Dr. Putnam had
-enjoined upon her a certain amount of physical exercise, and so one
-afternoon, shortly after getting back, she walked slowly down to
-Wilson's store. It was on her return homeward, while passing a portion
-of Ann's pasture, where the latter, with pencil and paper in hand, was
-laying out some ditches for drainage, that she saw her opportunity.
-
-"Now, if she don't turn and run, I'll get a whack at her," she chuckled.
-"It will literally kill the old thing to see me walking so spry."
-
-Thereupon, in advancing, Jane quickened her step, putting a sort of
-jaunty swing to her whole gaunt frame. With only the worm fence and its
-rough clothing of wild vines and briers between them, the women met face
-to face. There was a strange, unaggressive wavering in Ann's eyes, but
-her enemy did not heed it.
-
-"Ah ha!" she cried. "I reckon this is some surprise to you, Ann Boyd! I
-reckon you won't brag about being such a wonderful health prophet now! I
-was told down in Atlanta--by _experts_, mind you--that my heart and
-lungs were as sound as a dollar, and that, counting on the long lives of
-my folks on both sides, I'm good for fifty years yet."
-
-"Huh! I never gave any opinion on how long you'd live, that I know of,"
-Ann said, sharply.
-
-"You didn't, heigh? You didn't, that day at the wash-place when you
-stood over me and shook your finger in my face and said you knew what my
-trouble was, and was waiting to see it get me down? Now, I reckon you
-remember!"
-
-"I don't remember saying one word about your cancer, if that's what you
-are talking about," Ann sniffed. "I couldn't 'a' said anything about it,
-for I didn't know you had it."
-
-"Now, I know _that's_ not so; you are just trying to take backwater,
-because you are beat. That peddler that examined me and sold me a bottle
-of medicine went right to your house, and you pumped him dry as to my
-condition."
-
-"Huh! he said you just had a stiff arm," said Ann. "I wasn't alluding to
-that at all."
-
-"You say you wasn't, then what was you talking about? I'd like to know."
-
-"Well, that's for me to know and you to find out," Ann said, goaded to
-anger. "I don't have to tell you all I know and think. Now, you go on
-about your business, Jane Hemingway, and let me alone."
-
-"I'll never let you alone as long as there's a breath left in my body,"
-Jane snarled. "You know what you are; you are a disgrace to the county.
-You are a close-fisted, bad woman--as bad as they make them. You ought
-to be drummed out of the community, and you would be, too, if you didn't
-have so much ill-gotten gains laid up."
-
-There was a pause, for Jane was out of breath. Ann leaned over the
-fence, crushing her sheet of paper in her tense fingers. "I'll tell you
-something," she said, her face white, her eyes flashing like those of a
-powerful beast goaded to desperation by an animal too small and agile to
-reach--"I'll tell you one thing. For reasons of my own I've tried to
-listen to certain spiritual advice about loving enemies. Jesus Christ
-laid the law down, but He lived before you was born, Jane Hemingway.
-There isn't an angel at God's throne to-day that could love you. I'd as
-soon try to love a hissing rattlesnake, standing coiled in my path, as
-such a dried-up bundle of devilment as you are. Could I hit back at you
-now? _Could_ I? Huh! I could tell you something, you old fool, that
-would humble you in the dust at my feet and make you crawl home with
-your nose to the earth like a whipped dog. And I reckon I'm a fool not
-to do it, when you are pushing me this way. You come to gloat over me
-because your rotten body feels a little bit stronger than it did. I
-could make you forget your dirty carcass. I could make you so sick at
-the soul you'd vomit a prayer for mercy every minute the rest of your
-life. But I won't do it, as mad as I am. I'll not do it. You go your
-way, and I'll go mine."
-
-Jane Hemingway stared wildly. The light of triumph had died out in her
-thin, superstitious face. She leaned, as if for needed support, on the
-fence only a few feet from her enemy. Superstition was her weakest
-point, and it was only natural now for her to fall under its spell. She
-recalled Ann's fierce words prophesying some mysterious calamity which
-was to overtake her, and placed them beside the words she had just had
-hurled at her, and their combined effect was deadening.
-
-"You think you know lots," she found herself saying, mechanically.
-
-"Well, I know what I _know_!" Ann retorted, still furious. "You go on
-about your business. You'd better let me alone, woman. Some day I may
-fasten these two hands around that scrawny neck of yours and shake some
-decency into you."
-
-Jane shrank back instinctively. She was less influenced, however, by the
-threat of bodily harm than by the sinister hint, now looming large in
-her imagination, that had preceded it. Ann was moving away, and she soon
-found herself left alone with thoughts which made any but agreeable
-companions.
-
-"What can the woman mean?" she muttered, as she slowly pursued her way.
-"Maybe she's just doing that to worry me. But no, she was in
-earnest--dead in earnest--both times. She never says things haphazard;
-she's no fool, either. It must be something simply awful or she wouldn't
-mention it just that way. Now, I'm going to let _this_ take hold of me
-and worry me night and day like the cancer did."
-
-She paused and stood in the road panting, her hand, by force of habit,
-resting on her breast. Looking across the meadow, she saw Ann Boyd
-sturdily trudging homeward through the waist-high bulrushes. The
-slanting rays of the sun struck the broad back of the hardy outcast and
-illumined the brown cotton-land which stretched on beyond her to the
-foot of the mountain. Jane Hemingway caught her breath and moved on
-homeward, pondering over the mystery which was now running rife in her
-throbbing brain. Yes, it was undoubtedly something terrible--but what?
-That was the question--what?
-
-Reaching home, she was met at the door by Virginia, who came forward
-solicitously to take her shawl. A big log-fire, burning in the wide
-chimney of the sitting-room, lighted it up with a red glow. Jane sank
-into her favorite chair, listlessly holding in her hands the small
-parcel of green coffee she had bought at the store.
-
-"Let me have it," Virginia said. "I must parch it and grind it for
-supper. The coffee is all out."
-
-As the girl moved away with the parcel, Jane's eyes followed her.
-"Should she tell her daughter what had taken place?" she asked herself.
-Perhaps a younger, fresher mind could unravel the grave puzzle. But how
-could she bring up the matter without betraying the fact that she had
-been the aggressor? No, she must simply nurse her new fears in secret
-for a while and hope for--well, what could she hope for, anyway? She
-lowered her head, her sharp elbows on her knees, and stared into the
-fire. Surely fate was against her, and it was never intended for her to
-get the best of Ann Boyd in any encounter. Through all her illness she
-had been buoyed up by the triumphant picture of Ann Boyd's chagrin at
-seeing her sound of body again, and this had been the result. Instead of
-humiliating Ann, Ann had filled her quaking soul with a thousand
-intangible, rapidly augmenting fears. The cloud of impending disaster
-stretched black and lowering across Jane Hemingway's horizon.
-
-Sam came in with a bundle of roots in his arms, and laid them carefully
-on a shelf. "I've dug me some sassafras of the good, red variety," he
-said, over his shoulder, to her. "You folks that want to can spend money
-at drug stores, but in the fall of the year, if I drink plenty of
-sassafras tea instead of coffee, it thins my blood and puts me in
-apple-pie order. But I reckon you don't want _your_ blood any thinner
-than them doctors left it. Right now you look as flabby and limber as a
-wet rag. What ails you, _anyway_?"
-
-"I reckon I walked too far, right at the start," Jane managed to fish
-from her confused mind. "I'm going to be more careful in the future."
-
-"Well, you'd better," Sam opined. "You may not find folks as ready to
-invest in your burial outfit as they was to prevent you from needing
-one."
-
-
-
-
-XXXII
-
-
-The following morning, in her neatest dress and white sun-bonnet,
-Virginia walked to Wilson's store to buy some sewing-thread. She was on
-her way back, and was traversing the most sequestered part of the road,
-where a brook of clear mountain water ran rippling by, and an abundance
-of willows and reeds hid the spot from view of any one approaching, when
-she was startled by Langdon Chester suddenly appearing before her from
-behind a big, moss-grown bowlder.
-
-"Don't run, Virginia--for God's sake don't run!" he said, humbly. "I
-simply _must_ speak to you."
-
-"But I told you I didn't want to meet you again," Virginia answered,
-sternly. "Why won't you leave me alone? If I've acted the fool and
-lowered myself in my estimation for all the rest of my life, that ought
-to be enough. It is as much as I can stand. You've simply got to stop
-following me up."
-
-"You don't understand, Virginia," he pleaded. "You admit you feel
-different since that night; grant the same to me. I've passed through
-absolute torment. I thought, after you talked to me so angrily the last
-time I saw you, that I could forget it if I left. I went to Atlanta, but
-I suffered worse than ever down there. I was on the verge of suicide.
-You see, I learned how dear you had become to me."
-
-"Bosh! I don't believe a word of it!" Virginia retorted, her eyes
-flashing, though her face was deathly pale. "I don't believe any man
-could really care for a girl and treat her as you did me that night. God
-knows I did wrong--a wrong that will never be undone, but I did it for
-the sake of my suffering mother. That's the only thing I have to lessen
-my self-contempt, and that is little; but you--you--oh, I don't want to
-talk to you! I want to blot it all--everything about it--from my mind."
-
-"But you haven't heard me through," he said, advancing a step nearer to
-her, his face ablaze with admiration and unsatisfied passion. "I find
-that I simply can't live without you, and as for what happened that
-awful night, I've come to wipe it out in the most substantial way a
-self-respecting man can. I've come to ask you to marry me, Virginia--to
-be my wife."
-
-"To be your wife!" she gasped. "Me--you--_we_ marry--you and I? Live
-together, as--"
-
-"Yes, dear, that's what I mean. I know you are a good, pure girl, and I
-am simply miserable without you. No human being could imagine the depth
-of my love. It has simply driven me crazy, along with the way you have
-acted lately. My father and mother may object, but it's got to be done,
-and it will all blow over. Now, Virginia, what will you say? I leave it
-all to you. You may name the place and time--I'm your slave from now on.
-Your wonderful grace and beauty have simply captured me. I'll do the
-best I can to hold up my end of the thing. My cousin, Chester Sively, is
-a good sort of chap, and, to be frank, when he saw how miserable I was
-down there, he drew it out of me. I told him my folks would object and
-make it hot for me, but that I could not live without you, and he
-advised me to come straight home and propose to you. You see, he thought
-perhaps I had offended you in not making my intentions plainer at the
-start, and that when you knew how I felt you would not be so hard on me.
-Now, you are not going to be, are you, little girl? After all those
-delicious walks we used to have, and the things you have at least let me
-believe, I know you won't go back on me. Oh, we'll have a glorious time!
-Chester will advance me some money, I am sure, and we'll take a trip.
-We'll sail from Savannah to New York and stay away, by George, till the
-old folks come to their senses. I admit I was wrong in all that
-miserable business. I ought to have given you that money and not made
-you come for it, but being a mad fool like that once doesn't prove I
-can't turn over a new leaf. Now, you try me."
-
-He advanced towards her, his hand extended to clasp hers, but she
-suddenly drew back.
-
-"I couldn't think of marrying you," she said, almost under her breath.
-"I couldn't under any possible circumstances."
-
-"Oh, Virginia, you don't mean that!" he cried, crestfallen. "You are
-still mad about being--being frightened that night, and that old hag
-finding out about it. No woman would relish having another come up at
-just such an awkward moment and get her vile old head full of all sorts
-of unfair notions. But this, you see--you are old enough to see that
-marriage actually puts everything straight, even to the bare possibility
-of anything ever leaking out. That's why I think you will act sensibly."
-
-To his surprise, Virginia, without looking at him, covered her face with
-her hands. He saw her pretty shoulders rise as if she had smothered a
-sob. Hoping that she was moved by the humility and earnestness of his
-appeal, he caught one of her hands gently and started to pull it from
-her face. But, to his surprise, she shrank back and stared straight and
-defiantly in his eyes.
-
-"That's the way _you_ look at it!" she cried, indignantly. "You think I
-hopelessly compromised myself by what I did, and that I'll have to tie
-myself to you for life in consequence; but I won't. I'd rather die. I
-couldn't live with you. I hate you! I detest you! I hate and detest you
-because you've made me detest myself. To think that I have to stand here
-listening to a proposal in--in the humiliating way you make it."
-
-"Look here, Virginia, you are going too far!" he cried, white with the
-dawning realization of defeat and quivering in every limb. "You are no
-fool, if you _are_ only a girl, and you know that a man in--well, in my
-position, will not take a thing like this calmly. I've been desperate,
-and I hardly knew what I was about, but this--I can't stand this,
-Virginia."
-
-"Well, I couldn't marry you," she answered. "If you were a king and I a
-poor beggar, I wouldn't agree to be your wife. I'd never marry a man I
-did not thoroughly respect, and I don't respect you a bit. In fact,
-knowing you has only shown me how fine and noble, by contrast, other men
-are. Since this thing happened, one man--" She suddenly paused. Her
-impulse had led her too far. He glared at her for an instant, and then
-suddenly grasped her hand and held it in such a tight, brutal clasp that
-she writhed in pain, but he held onto it, twisting it in his unconscious
-fury.
-
-"I know who you mean," he said. "I see it all now. You have seen Luke
-King, and he has been saying sweet things to you. Ann Boyd is his
-friend, too, and she hates me. But look here, if you think I will stand
-having a man of that stamp defeat me, you don't know me. You don't know
-the lengths a Chester will go to gain a point. I see it all. You've been
-different of late. You used to like him, and he has been talking to you
-since he got back. It will certainly be a dark day for him when he dares
-to step between me and my plans."
-
-"You are going entirely too fast," Virginia said, grown suddenly
-cautious. "There's nothing, absolutely nothing, between Luke King and
-myself, and, moreover, there never will be."
-
-"You may tell that to a bigger fool than I am," Chester fumed. "I know
-there is something between you two, and, frankly, trouble is brewing for
-him. He may write his long-winded sermons about loving mankind, and bask
-in the praise of the sentimental idiots who dote on him, but I'll draw
-him back to practical things. I'll bring him down to the good,
-old-fashioned way of settling matters between men."
-
-"Well, it's cowardly of you to keep me here by brute force," Virginia
-said, finally wresting her hand from his clasp and beginning to walk
-onward. "I've said there is nothing between him and me, and I shall not
-repeat it. If you want to raise a fuss over it, you will only make
-yourself ridiculous."
-
-"Well, I'll look after _that_ part of it," he cried, beside himself with
-rage. "No mountain razor-back stripe of man like he is can lord it over
-me, simply because the scum of creation is backing up his shallow ideas
-with money. _I'll_ open his eyes."
-
-And Langdon Chester, too angry and disappointed to be ashamed of
-himself, stood still and allowed her to go on her way. A boy driving a
-drove of mules turned the bend of the road, and Chester stepped aside,
-but when they had passed he stood still and watched Virginia as she
-slowly pursued her way.
-
-"Great God, how am I to stand it?" he groaned. "I want her! I want her!
-I'd work for her. I'd slave for her. I'd do anything under high heaven
-to be able to call her my own--all my own! My God, isn't she beautiful?
-That mouth, that proud poise of head, that neck and breast and form!
-Were there ever such eyes set in a human head before--such a maddening
-lip, such a--oh, I can't stand it! I wasn't made for defeat like this.
-Marry her? I'd marry her if it impoverished every member of my family.
-I'd marry her if the honeymoon ended in my death. At any rate, I would
-have lived awhile. Does Luke King intend to marry her? Of course he
-does--he has _seen_ her; but _shall_ he? No, there is one thing certain,
-and that is that I could never live and know that she was receiving
-another man's embraces. I'd kill him if it damned me eternally. And yet
-I've played my last and biggest card. She won't marry me. She would
-_once_, but she won't _now_. Yes, I'm facing a big, serious thing, but
-I'll face it. If he tries to get her, the world will simply be too small
-for both of us to live in together."
-
-
-
-
-XXXIII
-
-
-The following morning, after spending a restless, troublous night in
-reflecting over the protestations and threats of Langdon Chester,
-Virginia went frequently to the rear door of the house and looked out
-towards Ann Boyd's domicile in the hope of seeing her new friend. It was
-a cool, bleak day. The skies were veiled in thin, low-hanging, gray
-clouds which seemed burdened with snow, and sharp gusts of wind bore the
-smoke from the chimney down to the earth and around the house in
-lingering, bluish wisps. Finally her fitful watch met its reward, and
-she saw Ann emerge from her house and trudge down towards the
-cotton-field between the two farms. Hastily looking into the kitchen,
-and seeing that her mother was busily engaged mashing some boiled
-sweet-potatoes into a pulpy mixture of sugar, butter, and spices, with
-which to make some pies, Virginia slipped out of the house and into the
-cow-lot. Here she paused for a moment, her glance on the doorway through
-which she had passed, and then, seeing that her leaving had not
-attracted her mother's attention, she climbed over the rail-fence and
-entered the dense thicket near by. Through this tangle of vines, bushes,
-and briers she slowly made her way, until, suddenly, the long, regular
-rows of Ann's dead cotton-stalks, with their empty boles and withered
-leaves, stretched out before her. And there stood Ann, crumbling a
-sample of the gray soil in her big, red hand. She heard Virginia's
-approach over the dry twigs of the wood, and looked up.
-
-"Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know but what it was another
-catamount that had got out of its beat up in the mountains and strayed
-down into civilization."
-
-"I happened to see you leave your house and come this way," Virginia
-said, somewhat embarrassed, "and so I--"
-
-"Yes, I came down here to take one more look at this field and make up
-my mind whether to have it turned under for wheat or try its strength on
-cotton again. There was a lots of fertilizer put on this crop, child. I
-can always tell by the feel of the dirt. That's the ruination of farming
-interests in the South. It's the get-a-crop-quick plan that has no solid
-foundation. An industrious German or Irishman can make more off of an
-acre than we can off of ten, and be adding value to the property each
-year. But did you want to see me about--anything particular?"
-
-"It seems like I'm born to have trouble," Virginia answered, with
-heightening color and a studious avoidance of the old woman's keen
-glance.
-
-"I see; I reckon your mother--"
-
-"No, it's not about her," Virginia interrupted. "In fact, it's something
-that I could not confide in her."
-
-"Well, you go ahead and tell me about it," Ann said, consolingly, as she
-threw the sample of soil down and wiped her hand on her apron. "I think
-it's powerful odd the way things have turned around, anyway. Only a few
-days ago if anybody had told me I'd ever be half-way friendly with a
-daughter of Jane Hemingway, I'd have thought they was clean off their
-base. I'm trying to act the impartial friend to you, child, but I don't
-know that I can. The trouble is, my flesh is too weak. It's only fair to
-tell you that I come in the breadth of a hair the other day of betraying
-you outright to your mammy. She met me down the road and drove me too
-far. She caught me off my guard and came at me in her old, catlike way,
-spitting and snarling--a thing I'm not proof against. She was gloating
-over me. I'm ashamed to say it to a sweet, trusting face like yours, but
-she came charging on me at such a rate that she drove away my best
-intentions and made me plumb forget what I was trying to do for you."
-
-Ann hung her head for a moment, almost sheepishly kicking a cotton-stalk
-from its mellow hill with the toe of her shoe.
-
-"Don't bother about that," Virginia said, sweetly. "I know how she can
-exasperate any one."
-
-"Well, I'm satisfied I won't do to trust in the capacity of a friend,
-anyway," Ann said, frankly. "I reckon I would be safe with anybody but
-that woman. There is no use telling you what I said, but I come in an
-inch of giving you plumb away. I come that nigh injuring a pure,
-helpless little thing like you are to hit her one sousing lick. As it
-was, I think I cowed her considerable. She's superstitious, and she
-broods as much over an imaginary trouble as a real one. The Lord knows
-I've been busy enough in my life tackling the genuine thing."
-
-"I wanted to tell you," Virginia said, "that ever since Langdon Chester
-got back from Atlanta he has been trying to meet me, and--"
-
-"The dirty scamp!" Ann broke in, angrily. "I told him if he ever dared
-to--"
-
-"Wait a minute, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia put out her hand and touched the
-old woman's arm. "He seems awfully upset over what has happened. I never
-saw any one change so completely. He looked very thin, his eyes were
-bloodshot, and he shook all over like a man who has been on a long
-spree. Mrs. Boyd, he came--and I'm sure he was serious--to ask me to
-marry him."
-
-"Marry him? Why, child, you don't mean _that_--surely you don't mean--"
-
-"I only know what he said," Virginia declared. "He says he is absolutely
-miserable over it all and wants me to marry him. His cousin, Chester
-Sively, advised him to propose to me, and he did. He says he loves me,
-and that nothing else will satisfy him."
-
-"Well, well, well!" Ann exclaimed, as her great, astonished eyes bore
-down on Virginia's face. "I thought he was a chip off of the old block,
-but maybe he's got a little streak of good in him, and yet, let me study
-a minute. Let's walk on down to the spring. I want to see if it doesn't
-need a new gum--the old one is about rotted out. Well, well, well!"
-
-They strolled along the fence, side by side, neither speaking till the
-spring was reached. There was a rustic bench near by, and Ann sat down
-on it, putting out her hand and drawing the girl to a seat at her side.
-
-"Yes, there may be a streak of good," she went on. "And yet that may be
-just another phase of bad. You must be very careful, child. You have no
-idea how beautiful you are. He may mean what he says, all right enough,
-but maybe he isn't being led by the best motive. I know men, I reckon,
-about as well as any other woman of my age. Now, you see, it may be like
-this: Langdon Chester brought to his aid all the _foul_ means he could
-command to carry his point and failed. Maybe, now, he's just reckless
-enough and his pride is cut deep enough to make him resort to fair means
-rather than be plumb beat to a finish. If that's so, marrying him would
-be a very risky thing, for as soon as his evil fires smouldered he'd
-leave you high and dry. He'd convince himself he'd married below his
-standard, and go to the dogs--or some other woman. Sometimes I think
-there isn't no real love, like we read about in story-books. I believe a
-man or a woman will love their own offspring in a solid,
-self-sacrificing way, but the sort of love that makes a continuous happy
-dream of marriage is powerful rare. It's generally one-sided and like a
-damp fire that takes a lot of fanning and fresh kindling-wood to keep
-going. But what did you tell him, I wonder?"
-
-"Why, I refused him," Virginia answered.
-
-"You did? You don't tell me! And how did his high and mighty lordship
-take that, I wonder?"
-
-"It made him awfully mad. He almost swore at me, and took hold of my
-hand roughly. Then, from something I happened to say, he imagined that I
-was in love with--with some one else, and he made awful threats of what
-he might do."
-
-"Ah, I see, I see, I see!" Ann muttered, as if to herself, her slow,
-thoughtful glance on her broad lands, which stretched out through the
-murky atmosphere. "It's wonderful how much your life is like mine used
-to be. The other night, lying in bed, I got to studying over it all, and
-it suddenly flashed on me that maybe it is the divine intention that I
-was to travel that rough road so I'd know how to lead you, that was to
-come on later, over the pits I stumbled in. And with that thought I felt
-a strange sort of peaceful contentment come over me. You see, I'm nearly
-always in a struggle against my inclination to treat Jane Hemingway's
-daughter half decent, and such thoughts as those kind o' ease my pride.
-If the Lord is making me pity you and like you, maybe it's the devil
-that is trying to pull me the other way. That's why I'm afraid I won't
-do to trust, wavering about like I am. In this fight I haven't the
-slightest idea which influence is going to win in the end. In a tight
-pinch I may be tempted to use our very friendship to get even with your
-mammy. When she faces me with that confident look in her eye and that
-hateful curl to her lip, I loose my grip on all that's worth a red cent
-in me."
-
-"You couldn't do a wrong thing to save your life," said Virginia,
-putting out her hand and taking that of her companion.
-
-"Don't you bet too high stakes on that," Ann replied, deeply touched.
-"I'm no saint. Right now I'm at daggers' points with nearly every
-neighbor I've got, and even my own child over the mountain. How I ever
-got this way with you is a mystery to me. You certainly were the last
-one I'd 'a' lifted a finger to help, but now--well, well--I reckon I'd
-worry a lots if you met with any further misfortune. But you are keeping
-back something, child. Did Langdon Chester seem to think that other
-'_somebody_' could possibly be Luke King?"
-
-Virginia flushed and nodded. "He seemed to think so, Mrs. Boyd."
-
-Ann sighed. She was still holding Virginia's hand, and she now began
-timidly to caress it as it lay on her knee.
-
-"I don't like the way it's turned out a bit," she said. "The Chester
-stock can't stand being balked in anything; they couldn't bear to be
-beat in love by a poor, self-made man like Luke, and great, big trouble
-may be brewing. Langdon might push a row on him. Luke is writing all
-sorts of things against the evil of war and fighting and the like, but
-under pressure he'd resent an insult. I'd hate to see him plumb mad.
-Then, again, Langdon might sink low enough to actually throw that
-imprudence of yours at him. If he did, that would be a match to powder.
-If Luke was a preacher and stood in the pulpit calling up mourners, he'd
-step down and act on that sort of an invitation. Virginia, if ever a man
-loved a woman, he loves you. His love is one of the exceptions to the
-rule I was talking about just now, and it seems to me that, no matter
-how you treat a man like that other scamp, you won't have a right to
-refuse Luke King. The truth is, I'm afraid he never could stand it. He's
-set his great, big, gentle soul on having you for his helpmeet, and I
-don't believe you will let any silly notion ruin it all. He's got brain
-enough to tackle the biggest human problems and settle them, but he'll
-never give his heart out but once."
-
-Virginia withdrew her hand and swept it across her face, as if to brush
-away the flush upon it.
-
-"I can never be his wife," she faltered. She paused, turned her face
-away, and said, in a low tone: "I am not good enough. I deliberately
-flirted with Langdon Chester. I used to love to have him say sweet
-things to me, and I led him on. I've no excuse to make. If I had been
-good enough to be the wife of a man like Luke King, I'd never have been
-caught in that trap, even to save my mother, for if I'd acted
-differently he'd never have done what he did. It's all my fault. If
-Langdon Chester is upset and bent on trouble, I'm the cause of it. If it
-results in unhappiness to the--to the noblest and best man I ever knew,
-it will all be my fault. You needn't try to comfort me, Mrs. Boyd. I
-tell you I'd rather die than have Luke King know all that has happened,
-and God knows I'd never be his wife otherwise. So that is the end of
-it."
-
-Ann was silent for several minutes, then she said: "I feel like you are
-wrong somehow, and yet I don't exactly know how to make you see it my
-way. We must both study over it. It's a problem, and no little one.
-There is one thing certain: I'll never advise you to start married life
-on deception of any kind. I tried that, with the best intentions, and it
-was the worst investment I ever made."
-
-
-
-
-XXXIV
-
-
-During this conversation Sam Hemingway had returned to the house from
-his field. He had an armful of white, silky, inside leaves of cornhusks
-closely packed together, and these he submerged in a washtub full of
-water, in the back-yard, placing stones on them to hold them down.
-
-"What are you about now?" his sister-in-law asked, as she appeared in
-the doorway of the kitchen.
-
-"Now, what could a body be about when he's wetting a passle of shucks?"
-he answered, dryly. "I'm going to make me some stout horse-collars for
-spring ploughing. There ain't but one other thing a body could make out
-of wet shucks, and that's foot-mats for town folks to wipe their feet
-on. Foot-mats are a dead waste of money, for if fewer mats was used,
-women would have to do more sweeping and not get time to stand around
-the post-office watching men as much as they do. I reckon it's the way
-old daddy Time has of shifting women's work onto men's shoulders. I'll
-bet my hat that new-fangled churn that fellow passed with yesterday was
-invented by a man out o' pure pity for his sex."
-
-"I was wondering where Virginia went to," Jane said, as if she had not
-heard his philosophical utterances. "I've been all round the house
-looking for her, even to the barn, but she's disappeared entirely."
-
-Sam shrugged his shoulders significantly. He placed the last stone on
-the submerged husks and drew himself up erect. "I was just studying," he
-drawled out, "whether it ud actually do to tell you where she is at this
-minute. I'd decided I'd better not, and go on and finish this work. From
-what I know about your odd disposition, I'd expect one of two solitary
-things: I'd expect to see you keel over in a dead faint or stand
-stock-still in your tracks and burn to a cinder from internal fires."
-
-"Sam, what do you mean?" The widow, in no little alarm, came towards
-him, her eyes fixed steadily on his.
-
-"Well, I reckon you might as well know and be done with it," he said,
-"though you'll be sure to let them pies burn afterwards. Jane, your only
-child is right now a-sitting on the bench at the gum spring, side by
-side with Ann Boyd. In fact, as well as I could see from the rise I was
-on in my potato-patch, I'd 'a' took my oath that they was holding hands
-like two sweethearts."
-
-"I don't believe a word of it," Jane gasped, turning pale. "It might
-have been Virginia with somebody else, but not _that_ woman."
-
-"I wouldn't mistake Ann Boyd's solid shape and blue linsey frock ten
-miles off," was the cold comfort Sam dispensed in his next remark. "If
-you doubt what I say, and will agree not to jump on Ann and get yourself
-drawed up at court for assault and battery, with intent to _get killed_,
-you may go look for yourself. If you'll slip through the thicket, you
-can come up on 'em unbeknownst."
-
-With a very grave look on her emaciated face, Jane Hemingway, without
-wrap for her thin shoulders or covering for her gray head, strode across
-the yard and into the bushes. Almost holding her breath in dire suspense
-and with a superstitious fear of she knew not what, she sped through the
-wood, briers and thorn-bushes clutching at her skirt and wild
-grape-vines striking her abreast and detaining her. Presently she was
-near enough to the spring to hear voices, but was, as yet, unable to see
-who was speaking. Then she became fearful lest the dry twigs with which
-the ground was strewn, in breaking under her feet, would betray her
-presence, and she began, with the desperate caution of a convict
-escaping from prison, to select her way, carefully stepping from one
-patch of green moss to another. A few paces ahead of her there was a
-group of tall pines, and the earth beneath their skeleton boughs was a
-veritable bed of soft, brown needles. She soon gained this favorable
-point of progress, and sped onward as noiselessly as the gentle breeze
-overhead. Suddenly, through the bushes, she caught a gleam of color, and
-recognized the dark-blue skirt Ann Boyd wore so constantly, and--her
-heart stood still, for, massed against it, was the light gray of
-Virginia's dress. Ah, there could be no shadow of a doubt now. Sam was
-right, and with bowed head and crouching form Jane gave bewildered ear
-to words which caused her blood to stand still in her veins.
-
-"Yes, I've thought a lots about it, child," she heard Ann saying. "I
-can't make it out at all, but I really love you more than I do my own
-daughter. I reckon it was the divine intention for me and you to have
-this secret between us, and pity one another like we do. I can't help
-it, but when you tell me you love me and think I'm good and the best
-friend you've got on earth, why, it is the sweetest sound that ever fell
-on human ear."
-
-There was a pause. Jane Hemingway held her breath; her very soul hung on
-the silence. Then, as if from the dun skies above the shaft descended,
-as if dropped from the lips of the Avenging Angel. It was the child of
-her own breast uttering sounds as inexplicable, as damning to her hopes,
-as if the gentle, tractable girl had approached her bed in the dead
-hours of night and said: "Mother, I've come to kill you. There is no way
-out of it. I must take your life. I am stronger than you. You must
-submit. Ann Boyd has willed it so. Mother, I am Retribution!"
-
-"Yes, I do love you, with all my heart," were the words Jane heard. "I
-can't help it. You have been kinder to me, more considerate of my
-feelings, than my own mother. But I will make amends for all her cruelty
-towards you. I'll love you always. I'll go to my grave loving you. You
-are the best woman that ever lived. Suffering has raised you to the
-skies. I have never kissed you. Let me now--_do, do_ let me!"
-
-As if in a horrible dream, Jane Hemingway turned back homeward. Without
-knowing why, she still moved with the same breathless caution. Hers was
-a dead soul dragging a body vitalized only by sheer animal instinct to
-escape torture. To escape it? No, it was there ahead--it was here,
-encompassing her like a net, yonder, behind, everywhere, and it would
-stretch out to the end of time. She told her benumbed consciousness that
-she saw it all now. It was not the cancer and its deadly effect that Ann
-had held over her that hot day at the wash-place. No wonder that Ann had
-not told her all, for that would have marred her comprehensive and
-relentless plans. Ann's subtle plot had been to rob her enemy of the
-respect and love of her only child. Jane had succeeded in tearing from
-Ann Boyd's arms her only offspring, and Ann, with the cunning of her
-great, indefatigable brain, had devised this subtle revenge and carried
-it through. She had won over to herself the love and respect, even
-reverence, of her enemy's child. It had been going on in secret for a
-long time, and even now the truth was out only by sheer accident. Jane
-Hemingway groaned aloud in agony and self-pity as, with her gray head
-down, she groped homeward. What was there to do now? Nothing! She was
-learning her final grim lesson in the realization that she was no
-possible match for her rival. How well she now recalled the fierce words
-Ann had hurled at her only a few days since: "Could I hit back at you
-now? Could I? Huh! I could tell you something, Jane Hemingway, that
-would humble you to the dust and make you crawl home with your nose to
-the earth like a whipped dog." Ah, it was true, only too true! Humbled?
-It was more than that. Pride, hope, even resentment, was gone. She now
-cowered before her enemy as she had so recently before death itself. For
-once she keenly felt her own supreme littleness and stood in absolute
-awe of the mighty personality she had been so long and audaciously
-combating.
-
-Reaching the fence which bounded her own property, Jane got over it with
-difficulty. She seemed to have lost all physical strength. She saw Sam
-behind the house, under the spreading, leafless boughs of an apple-tree,
-repairing a break in the ash-hopper. She could not have explained what
-impulse prompted it, but she paused in front of him, speaking in a tone
-he had never heard from her before. "Sam," she said, a stare like the
-glaze of death in her eyes, "don't you mention this to my child; do you
-hear me? Don't you tell Virginia what we've found out. If you do you'll
-get your foot into something you'll be sorry for. Do you hear me, man?
-This is my business--_mine_, and not a thing for you to treat lightly.
-If you know what's good for you, you'll take my hint and not meddle."
-
-"Well, I never!" Sam exclaimed. "Good Lord, woman, what have them two
-folks done to you down there. I never saw you look so plumb
-flabbergasted in my life."
-
-"Never you mind about that," Jane said. "You remember what I said and
-don't meddle with what doesn't concern you."
-
-"Well, she kin bet I won't," Sam mused, as he stood looking after her,
-as she disappeared through the doorway into the kitchen. "This is one of
-the times, I reckon, that I'll take her advice. Some'n' big has taken
-place, or is about to take place, if I'm any judge."
-
-Jane sank into a chair in the kitchen and softly groaned as she cast her
-slow eyes about her. Here all seemed sheer mockery. Every mute object in
-the room uttered a cry against her. The big, open fireplace, with its
-pots and kettles, the cupboard, the cleanly polished table, with the row
-of hot pies Sam had rescued from the coals and placed there to cool, the
-churn, the milk and butter-jars and pans, the pepper-pods hanging to the
-smoked rafters overhead--all these things, which had to do with mere
-subsistence, seemed suddenly out of place among the things which really
-counted. Suddenly Jane had a faint thrill of hope, as a thought, like a
-stray gleam of light penetrating a dark chamber, came to her. Perhaps,
-when Virginia was told that Ann Boyd had only used her as a tool in a
-gigantic and subtle scheme of revenge against her own flesh and blood,
-the girl would turn back to her own. Perhaps, but it was not likely. Ann
-Boyd had never failed in any deliberate undertaking. She would not now,
-and, for aught Jane knew to the contrary, Virginia might be as confirmed
-already in her enmity as the older woman, and had long been a dutiful
-and observant spy. It was horrible, but--yes, Jane was willing to admit
-that it was fair. The worm had turned, and its sting was equal to the
-concentrated pain of all Ann Boyd's years of isolated sufferings.
-
-
-
-
-XXXV
-
-
-In about half an hour Virginia returned home. She passed Sam under the
-apple-tree, where he now had a big pot full of shelled corn and lye over
-an incipient fire preparing to make whole-grained hominy, and hastened
-into the kitchen, where Jane sat bowed before the fire.
-
-"Is there anything I can do, mother?" she inquired.
-
-There was a pause. Mrs. Hemingway did not look up. In some surprise,
-Virginia repeated her question, and then Jane said, calmly and
-deliberately:
-
-"Yes; there is something you can do. You can get out of my sight, and
-_keep_ out of it. When I want anything from you, I'll call on you."
-
-Virginia paused, dumfounded, and then passed out into the yard and
-approached her uncle.
-
-"Can you tell me," she asked, "if anything has gone wrong with mother?"
-
-Sam gave her one swift glance from beneath his tattered, tent-shaped
-wool-hat, and then, with his paddle, he began to stir the corn and lye
-in the pot.
-
-"I reckon," he said, after a momentary struggle over a desire to tell
-the plain truth instead of prevaricating, "if you don't know that woman
-by this time, Virgie, it's your own fault. I'm sure I don't try to keep
-up with her tantrums and sudden notions. That woman's died forty-seven
-times in her life, and been laid out and buried ten. Maybe she's been
-tasting them pies she was cooking, and got crooked. You let a body's
-liver be at all sluggish and get a wad o' sweet-potato dough lodged
-inside of 'em, and they'll have a sort of jim-jams not brought on by
-liquor. I reckon she'll cough it down after a while. If I was you,
-though, I'd let her alone."
-
-Jane was, indeed, acting strangely. Refusing to sit down to the mid-day
-meal with them, as was her invariable custom, she put on her bonnet and
-shawl and, without a word of explanation, set off in the direction of
-Wilson's store. She was gone till dusk, and then came in with a slow
-step, passed through the sitting-room, where Sam had made a cheerful
-fire, and went on to her own room in the rear of the house. Virginia
-rose to follow her solicitously, but Sam put out a detaining hand,
-shifting his pipe into the corner of his mouth.
-
-"I'd let her alone if I was in your place," he said. "Let her go to bed
-and sleep. She'll get up all right in the morning."
-
-"I only wanted to see if there was anything I could do for her,"
-Virginia said, in a troubled tone. "Do you suppose it is a relapse she
-is having? Perhaps she has discovered that the cancer is coming back.
-The fear of that would kill her, actually kill her."
-
-"I don't think that's it," said Sam, impulsively; "the truth is,
-Virginia, she--" He pulled himself up. "But maybe that _is_ it. Anyway,
-I'd let her alone."
-
-Darkness came down. Virginia spread the cloth in the big kitchen and put
-the plates and dishes in their places, and then slipped to the door of
-her mother's room. It was dark and still.
-
-"Supper is on the table, mother," she said; "do you want anything?"
-
-There was a sudden creaking of the bed-slats, a pause, then, in a
-sullen, husky voice, Jane answered, "No, I _don't_; you leave me alone!"
-
-"All right, mother; I'm sorry to have disturbed you. Good-night."
-
-Sam and his niece ate alone in the big room by the wavering light of the
-fire. The wind had risen on the mountain-top, and roared across the
-fields. It sang dolefully in the pines near by, whistled shrilly under
-the eaves of the house, and scurried through the open passage outside.
-After the meal was over, Sam smoked a pipe and thumped off to bed,
-carrying his shoes in his hand. Virginia buried the remains of the big
-back-log in the hot ashes, and in the darkness crept into her own room,
-adjoining that of her mother, and went to bed.
-
-Jane Hemingway was not sleeping; she had no hope of a respite of that
-sort. She would have doubted that she ever could close her eyes in
-tranquillity till some settlement of the life-crushing matter was
-reached. What was to be done? Only one expedient had offered itself
-during her aimless walk to the store, where she purchased a spool of
-cotton thread she did not need, and during her slow return along the
-road and the further hours of solitude in her darkened chamber, and that
-expedient offered no balm for her gashed and torn pride. She could
-appeal to the law to protect her innocent daughter from the designing
-wiles of a woman of such a reputation as Ann Boyd bore, but, alas! even
-Ann might have foreseen that ruse and counted on its more deeply
-stirring Virginia's sympathies and adding to her faith. Why she had not
-at once denounced her child for her filial faithlessness she could not
-have explained, unless it was the superstitious dread of having
-Virginia's infidelity reconfirmed. Of course, she must fight. Yes, she'd
-have to do that to the end, although her shrewd enemy had already beaten
-her life-pulse dead in her veins and left her without a hope of adequate
-retaliation. Going to law meant also that it was her first public
-acknowledgment of her enemy's prowess, and it meant, too, the
-wide-spread and humiliating advertisement of the fact that Virginia had
-died to her and been born to the breast of her rival; but even that must
-be borne.
-
-These morose reflections were broken, near midnight, by a step in the
-passage outside. The door was opened softly, and Virginia, in her
-night-robe, came in quietly and approached the bed.
-
-"I know you are not asleep, mother," she said, tremulously. "I've heard
-you rolling and tossing ever since I went to bed."
-
-Jane stared from her hot pillow for an instant, and then slowly propped
-herself up on her gaunt, quivering elbow. "You are not asleep either, it
-seems," she said, hollowly.
-
-"No, I couldn't for thinking about you," Virginia replied, gently, as
-she sat down on the foot of the bed.
-
-"You couldn't, huh! I say!" Jane sneered. "Huh, _you_! It's a pity about
-you!"
-
-"I have reason to worry," Virginia said. "You know the doctors told you
-particularly not to get depressed and downhearted while you are
-recovering your strength."
-
-"Huh! what do they mean by prescribing things that can't be reached
-under the sun? They are idiots to think I could have peace of mind after
-finding out what I did this morning. I once had a cancer in the flesh;
-I've got one now in my heart, where no knife on earth can reach it."
-
-There was a pause. The eyes of the mother and daughter met in the
-half-darkness of the room. There was a lull in the whistling of the wind
-outside. Under the floor a hen with a brood of chickens was clucking
-uneasily and flapping her wings in the effort to keep her brood warm.
-Across the passage came the rasping sound of Sam's snoring, as
-unconscious of tragedy as he had been in his cradle, and yet its
-creeping shadow lay over his placid features, its bated breath filled
-the air he was breathing. Virginia leaned forward wonderingly, her lips
-parted and set in anxiety.
-
-"You are thinking about the debt on the farm?" she ventured. "If that's
-it, mother, remember--"
-
-"The debt on this paltry shack and few acres of rocky land? Huh! if that
-was all I had to complain about I'd bounce out of this bed and shout for
-joy. Oh, Lord, have mercy on me!"
-
-"Then, mother, what--" Virginia drew herself up with a start. Her
-mother, it now struck her, had said her trouble was due to a discovery
-she had made that morning. What else could it be than that her mother
-had accidentally seen her in company with Ann Boyd? Yes, that was it,
-and Virginia hastily told herself that some satisfying explanation must
-be made, some plausible and pacifying reason must be forthcoming that
-would allay her mother's anger, but it was hard to lie, in open words,
-as she had been doing in act. The gentle girl shuddered before the
-impending ordeal and clinched her hands in her lap. Yes, it was hard to
-lie, and yet the truth--the _whole_ truth--was impossible.
-
-"Mother," she began, "you see--I suppose I'll have to confess to you
-that Mrs. Boyd and I--"
-
-"Don't blacken your soul with lies!" her mother hurled at her,
-furiously. "I slipped up in a few feet of you both at the spring and saw
-you kissing her, and heard you tell her you loved her more than anybody
-in the world, and that she'd treated you better than I ever did, and
-that she was the best woman that ever lived. Explain all that, if you
-can, but don't set there and lie to me who gave you what life you've
-got, and toiled and stinted and worked my hands to the bone to raise,
-you and let you hold your own with others. If there's a speck of truth
-in you, don't deny what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my two
-ears."
-
-"I'll not deny it, then," Virginia said. She rose and moved to the
-small-paned window and stood with her face turned away. "I have met Mrs.
-Boyd several times and talked to her. I don't think she has ever had
-justice done her by you and her neighbors; she is not rightly
-understood, and, feeling that you have been all along the chief
-influence against her, and have always kept her early trouble stirred
-up, I felt like being her friend as well as I could, and at the same
-time remain true to you."
-
-"Oh, you poor, poor little sniffling idiot!" Jane said, as she drew her
-thin legs out from the coverings and rested her feet on the floor and
-leaned forward. "All this time you've been thinking, in your grand way,
-that you were doing a kindness to her, when she was just using you as a
-tool, to devil me. Huh! didn't she throw it up to me once at the
-wash-place where she and I met? She told me to my teeth that something
-was coming that would bring my face to the earth in shame. I thought she
-knew about the cancer, and was gloating over it; but she wasn't speaking
-of that, for when I came back from Atlanta, sound and whole, she hurled
-her hints at me again. She said she knew nothing about the cancer at
-that time, but that she still knew something that would make me slink
-from the faces of men and women like a whipped hound. I discovered what
-she meant to-day. She meant that because my testimony had something to
-do with Joe Boyd's leaving with _her_ child, she had won over _mine_ to
-herself. That's been her mean and sneaking plot all this time, in which
-she has been decoying you from a respectable roof and making you her
-easy tool--the tool with which she expected to stab at my pride and
-humble me in the eyes of everybody."
-
-"Mother, stop!" Virginia turned and sat down again on the bed. "That
-woman shall not have another--not one other--_false_ charge piled up
-around her. God knows I don't see how I can tell you _all_ the truth,
-but it is due to her now. It will more than justify her, and that's my
-duty. Listen, and don't interrupt me. I want to go straight through
-this, and when I have finished you may turn from me and force me to go
-to her for a home. You have never dreamed that I could do what I am
-about to confess I did. I am not going to excuse myself, either. What I
-did, I did. The shame of it, now that I see clearly, is killing me. No,
-stop! Let me go on. I have been receiving the attentions of Langdon
-Chester in secret. After the first time you saw us together and objected
-so strongly, I told him not to come to the house again; but, like many
-another silly girl, I was hungry for admiration, and met him elsewhere.
-I loved to hear the nice things he said, although I didn't always
-believe them. He--he tried to induce me to do a number of imprudent
-things, which, somehow, I was able to refuse, as they concerned my own
-pleasure alone; but then you began to worry about the money to go to
-Atlanta on. Day by day you grew more and more despondent and desperate
-as every effort failed, and one day, when you were down at the lowest
-ebb of hope, he told me that he--do you understand, mother?--Langdon
-Chester told me that he thought he could get up the money, but that no
-one must know that he--"
-
-"Oh, my God, don't, don't, don't!" Jane groaned. "Don't tell me that
-you--"
-
-"Stop! let me go on," Virginia said, in a low, desperate tone. "I'm
-going to tell the whole horrible thing and be done with it forever. He
-said he had sent his best horse to Darley to sell it, and that the man
-would be back about ten o'clock at night with the money. He told me,
-mother, that he wanted me to slip away from home after you went to sleep
-and come there for the money. I didn't hesitate long. I wanted to save
-your life. I agreed. I might have failed to go after I parted with him
-if I'd had time to reflect, but when I came in to supper you were more
-desperate than ever. You went to your room praying and moaning, and kept
-it up till you dropped asleep only a few minutes before the appointed
-time. Well, I slipped away and--_went_."
-
-"Oh, God have mercy on me--mercy, mercy, mercy!" Jane groaned. "You went
-there to that man!"
-
-Virginia nodded mutely and then continued her recital. Jane Hemingway's
-knees bent under her as she stood holding to the bedpost, and she slowly
-sank to the floor a few feet away. With a low, moaning sound like a
-suffering dumb brute, she crawled on her hands and knees to her daughter
-and mutely clutched the girl's cold, bare ankles. "You say he locked you
-in his _bedroom_!" she said, in a rasping whisper. "_Locked_
-you--actually _locked_ you in! Oh, Lord have mercy!"
-
-"Then, after a long wait," the girl went on, "in which I was praying
-only for the money, mother--the money to save your life and put you out
-of agony--I heard steps, first on the stairs and then at the door.
-Somebody touched the latch. The door held fast. Then the key was turned,
-and as I sat there with covered face, now with the dread of death upon
-me for the first time, somebody came in and stood over me."
-
-"The scoundrel! The beast!" Jane's hands slipped from their hold on the
-girl's ankles and fell; her head and shoulders sank till her brow
-touched the floor.
-
-"A hand was laid on my head," Virginia went on. "I heard a voice--"
-
-"The fiend from hell!" Jane raised her haggard face and glaring eyes.
-"Don't, don't tell me that he dared to--"
-
-"It was Mrs. Boyd, mother--Ann Boyd," said Virginia.
-
-"Ann Boyd!" Jane groaned. "I see it now; _she_ was at the bottom of it;
-it was all _her_ doing. _That_ was her plot. Ah, God, I see it now!"
-
-"You are mistaken," the girl said. "She had accidentally overheard my
-agreement to go there, and came for no other reason than to save me,
-mother--to save me."
-
-"To save you?" Jane raised herself on her two hands like a four-footed
-animal looking up from its food. "Save your" she repeated, with the
-helpless glare of insanity in her blearing eyes.
-
-"Yes, to save me. She was acting on impulse, an impulse for good that
-she was even then fighting against. When she heard of that appointment
-she actually gloated over it, but, mother, she found herself unequal to
-it. As the time which had been set drew near, she plunged out into the
-night and got there only a few minutes before--"
-
-"In time--oh, my God, did you say _in time_?" Jane gasped, again
-clutching her daughter's ankles and holding desperately to them.
-
-"Yes, in time to save me from all but the life-long consciousness of my
-awful indiscretion. She brought me away, and after that how could I be
-other than a grateful friend to such a noble creature?"
-
-"In time--oh, my God, in _time_!" Jane exclaimed, as she sat erect on
-the floor and tossed her scant hair, which, like a wisp of tow, hung
-down her cheek. Then she got up stiffly and moved back to the bed as
-aimlessly as if she were wandering in her sleep.
-
-"There is no use in my saying more, mother." Virginia rose and turned to
-the door. "I'm going back to my room. You can think it all over and do
-as you please with me. I deserve punishment, and I'm willing to take
-it."
-
-Jane stared at her from her hollow eyes for a moment, then she said:
-"Yes, go! I never want to see you again; Ann Boyd saved you, but she is
-now gloating over _me_. She'll call it heaping coals of fire on my head;
-she'll brag to me and others of what she's done, and of what I owe her.
-Oh, I know that woman! You've escaped one thing, but have made me face
-another worse than death. Go on away--get clear out of my sight. If you
-don't I'll say something to you that you will remember all your life."
-
-"Very well, mother." Virginia moved to the door. Her hand was on the
-latch, when, with a startled gasp, her mother called out:
-
-"Stop!--stop! For God's sake don't you dare to tell me that I went to
-Atlanta and bought back my life with that young scoundrel's money; if
-you do, as God is my Judge, I'll strike you dead where you stand."
-
-"No, I refused to take it," Virginia said. "He came to me afterwards and
-begged me to accept it, but I refused."
-
-"Then how under the sun--" Jane began, but went no further.
-
-Virginia turned in the doorway and stood still; a look of resigned
-despair was on her. "You may as well know _all_ the truth," she said. "I
-promised not to tell, but you really ought to know this, too. Mother,
-Ann Boyd, gave me the money. The woman you are still hounding and hating
-earned the money by the sweat of her brow that saved your life."
-
-"Ann Boyd! Oh, my God, and to think you can stand there and tell me
-that! Get out of my sight. You have acted the fool all along, and
-humiliated me in the dust by your conduct. You are no child of mine. It
-was all a plot--a dirty, low plot. She has used you. She has used me.
-She is laughing at us both right now. Oh, I know her! Get out of my
-sight or I'll forget myself and--go, I tell you!"
-
-
-
-
-XXXVI
-
-
-The next morning Jane did not come out to breakfast. Virginia had it
-ready on the table and went to her mother's room to call her. There was
-no response. Opening the door, she saw Jane, fully dressed, standing at
-the window looking out, but she refused to speak when gently informed
-that breakfast was ready. Then Virginia went back to the kitchen, and,
-arranging some delicacies, a cup of coffee, and other things on a tray,
-she took it in and left it on her mother's table and retired, closing
-the door after her.
-
-For a week Jane refused to leave her room or speak to her daughter.
-Three times a day Virginia took her mother's food to her, always finding
-the window-shade drawn and the chamber dark.
-
-One morning, about this time, Virginia happened to see Ann in her
-peanut-patch, a rich spot of ground below the old woman's barn-yard,
-and, seeing that she would be quite unobserved, she put on her bonnet
-and shawl and joined Ann, who, with a long, narrow hoe, was carefully
-digging the peanuts from the hills, and pulling them out by the brown,
-frost-bitten vines, and shaking the earth from their roots and leaving
-them to dry and season in the open air.
-
-"I never saw goobers to beat these," Ann said, proudly, as she held up a
-weighty bunch. "I reckon this patch will turn out a good hundred bushel.
-I hit it just right; they tell me in town that they are bringing a fine
-price. I've been wondering what was the matter with you, child. You've
-been keeping powerful close in-doors."
-
-Then, as Ann leaned on her smooth hoe-handle, Virginia told her frankly
-all that had taken place, leaving out nothing, and ending with her
-mother's self-incarceration and sullen mood.
-
-"Well," Ann exclaimed, her brow ruffled with pained perplexity, "I
-hardly know what to say in the matter. I don't blame you for letting out
-the whole business after you once got started. That was just natural.
-But don't worry about her. She'll pull through; she's tough as
-whitleather; her trouble's not of the body, but the mind. I know; I've
-been through enough of it. Mark my prophecy, she'll come out one of
-these days feeling better. She'll crawl out of her darkness like a
-butterfly from its dead and useless husk. She'll see clearer out in the
-open light when once she strikes it. Look here, child. I don't want to
-look like a sniffling fool after all the hard rubs I've had in this life
-to toughen me, but I'm a changed woman. Reading Luke's wonderful
-articles every week, and remembering the things the boy has said to me
-off and on, had something to do with it, I reckon, and then this
-experience of yours on top of it all helped. Yes, I'm altered; I'm
-altered and against my natural inclination. That very woman is _the_ one
-particular human thorn in my flesh, and yet, yet, child, as the Lord is
-my Master, I mighty nigh feel sorry for her. I mighty nigh pity the
-poor, old, sin-slashed creature housed up there in solitary darkness
-with her bleeding pride and envy and hate. I pity her now, I reckon,
-because the way this has turned out hurts her more than any open fight
-she could have with me. I'd 'a' died long ago under all the slush and
-mire that was dabbed on me if I hadn't amused myself making money. I
-didn't have the social standing of some of these folks, but I had the
-hard cash, and the clink of my coin has been almost as loud as their
-taunts. But your ma--she's had very little substance all along, and that
-little has been dwindling day by day, till she finds herself without a
-dollar and owing her very life to a woman she hates. Yes, her lot is a
-hard one, and I'm sorry for her. I pity your mammy, child."
-
-
-
-
-XXXVII
-
-
-For two weeks longer Jane Hemingway, to the inexplicable sorrow of her
-gentle and mystified daughter, kept the seclusion of her room. The
-curtains of the single window looking out on the yard in the rear were
-constantly drawn, and, though the girl sometimes listened attentively
-with her ear to the wall, she heard no sound to indicate that her mother
-ever moved from her bed or her chair at the fireplace, where she sat
-enveloped in blankets. She had allowed Virginia to push a plate
-containing her meals three times a day through the door, but the things
-were promptly received into the darkness and only sullen silence was the
-invariable response to the frequent inquiries the girl made.
-
-One morning Sam stopped his niece in the yard near the well, a droll,
-half-amused expression on his face. "Do you know," he said, "that I
-believe I'd 'a' made a bang-up detective if I'd given time to it."
-
-"Do you think so?" Virginia said, absently.
-
-"Yes, I do," he replied. "Now, I'm going to give you an instance of what
-a body can discover by sticking two and two together and nosing around
-till you are plumb sure you know what a certain thing means. Now, you
-are a woman--not an old one, but a woman all the same--and they are
-supposed to see what's at the ends of their noses and a heap beyond, but
-when it comes to detective work they are not in it. I reckon it's
-because they won't look for what they don't want to see, and to make a
-good detective a body must pry into everything that is in sight. Well,
-to come down to the case in hand, you've been sticking grub through that
-crack in the door to your mammy, who put herself in limbo several weeks
-ago, but in all that time you haven't seen the color of her cheeks to
-know whether the fare is fattening her or thinning her down to the bone.
-In fact, you nor me, on the outside, hain't supposed to know a blasted
-thing about what's going on in there. But--and there's where detective
-work comes in--one morning--it was day before yesterday, to be
-accurate--I took notice that all the stray cats and ducks and chickens
-had quit basking on the sunny side of the house and was staying around
-your mammy's window. Now, thinks I, that's odd; that's not according to
-the general run; so I set in to watching, and what do you reckon? I
-found out that all them Noah's Ark passengers, of the two and four
-footed sort, had assembled there to get their meals. Your mammy was
-regularly throwing out the dainty grub you fixed for her. I laid in wait
-nigh the window this morning and saw her empty the plate. I went close
-and took a look. She had just nibbled a bit or two, like the pecking of
-a sparrow, out of the centre of the bread-slices, but she hadn't touched
-the eggs nor the streak-o'-lean-streak-o'-fat you thought she set such
-store by. Good Lord, Virgie, don't you think the thing's gone far
-enough--having a drove of cats fed on the fat o' the land, when me and
-you are living on scraps?"
-
-"Uncle"--Virginia's startled eyes bore down on him suddenly--"what does
-it mean?"
-
-"Mean? Why, that there'll be a passle of cats on this place too fat to
-walk, while me 'n' you'll be too lean to cast a shadow if we stood side
-by side in the sun."
-
-"Oh, uncle, do you suppose she is worse?" Virginia asked, in deep
-concern.
-
-"I don't know," Sam said, seriously, "my Pinkerton job ended with the
-discovery of them cat banquets, but I've about reached _one_ opinion."
-
-"And what is that?" the girl asked, anxiously, as she bent towards her
-uncle.
-
-"Why, I think maybe she's so mad and set back by all that's happened
-that she's trying to starve herself to death to get even."
-
-"Oh, uncle, don't say that!" Virginia cried--"don't! don't!"
-
-"Well, then, you study it out," he said. "It's too much for me."
-
-That morning Virginia quietly slipped over to Ann Boyd's and confided
-the new phase of the situation to her sympathetic friend, but Ann could
-not account for Jane's strange conduct, and Virginia returned home no
-wiser than she had left. However, at the fence she met Sam. His face was
-aglow with excitement.
-
-"What you reckon?" he said. "The bird has flown."
-
-"Mother, you mean?"
-
-"Yes, she's skipped clean out. It was this way: Pete Denslow drove past
-about twenty minutes ago in his empty two-horse wagon, and I hollered
-out to him and asked him where-away. He pulled up at the gate and said
-he was going over the mountain to Gilmer after a load of ginseng to
-fetch back to Darley. Well, sir, no sooner had he said that than your
-mammy piped up from her dungeon, where she stood listening at a crack,
-and said, said she, sorter sheepish-like: 'Sam, ask him if he will let
-me go with him; I promised to go see Sally Maud Pincher over there the
-first time any wagon was passing, and I want to go.' Well, I told Pete,
-and he looked at the sun and wanted to know how long it would take her
-to get ready. She heard him, and yelled out from the door that she'd be
-out in five minutes, and, bless you, she was on the seat beside him in
-less time in her best clothes and carpet-bag in hand. She was as white
-in the face as a convict out taking a sunning, and her gingham looked
-like it was hanging from a hook on her neck, she was that thin. She
-never said a word to me as she went by. At first I thought she was plumb
-crazy, but she had the clearest eye in her head I ever saw, and she was
-chattering away to Pete about the weather as if he was an unmarried man
-and she was on the carpet."
-
-"Oh, uncle, what do you think it means?" Virginia sighed, deeply
-worried.
-
-"Why, I think it's a fine sign, myself," said Sam. "I'm not as good a
-judge of women as I am of mules--though a body ought to know as much of
-one as the other--but I think she's perhaps been wanting to get a breath
-of fresh air for some time and didn't like to acknowledge she was tired
-of cave-life. Over there at Pincher's, you see, she can slide back into
-her old ways without attracting attention by it."
-
-"And she didn't leave a word of directions to me?" the girl said, sadly.
-
-"Not a word," was the droll reply. "I didn't say good-bye to her myself.
-To tell the truth, I had noticed that she'd forgot to put up a snack for
-her and Pete to eat on the way, and I was afraid she might remember it
-at the last minute and take what little there was left for you and me."
-
-But Jane evidently had something to attend to before paying her promised
-visit to Sally Maud Pincher, for on their arrival at the village of
-Ellijay, the seat of the adjoining county, she asked her obliging
-conveyer to put her down at the hotel, where she intended to spend the
-night. It was then about five o'clock in the afternoon, and she went
-into the little office, which looked like a parlor in a farm-house, and
-registered her name and was given a room with a sky-blue door and
-ceiling and whitewashed walls, at the head of the stairs. She sat after
-that at the window, looking out upon the dreary street and the lonely,
-red-clay road leading up the mountain, till it grew dark. She went down
-to the dining-room when the great brass bell was rung by a negro boy who
-shook it vigorously as he walked through the hall and around the house,
-but she had no appetite--the long, jolting journey over the rough road
-had weakened rather than stimulated her faint physical needs, and so she
-took only a glass of milk, into which she had dropped a few morsels of
-bread, eating the mixture with a spoon like a child.
-
-"If I'm going to do this thing," she mused, as she sat on her bed in her
-night-dress and twisted her hair in a knot, "the quicker it's over the
-better. When I left home it seemed easy enough, but now it's
-awful--simply awful!"
-
-She slept soundly from sheer fatigue, and was up the next morning and
-dressed before the hotel cook, an old woman, had made a fire in the
-range. She walked down-stairs into the empty hall and out on the front
-veranda, but saw no one. The ground was white with frost and the
-mountain air was crisp and cutting, but it seemed to have put color into
-her cheeks. Going through the office, where she saw no one, she went
-into the dining-room just as the cook was coming in from the adjoining
-kitchen.
-
-"Good-morning," Jane said. "I've got about four miles to walk, and, as
-I've lately been down sick in bed, I want to sorter take it slow and get
-an early start. I paid my bill before I went to bed last night,
-including breakfast, and if you could give me a slice of
-bread-and-butter and a cup of coffee that will be all I want."
-
-"Well, I can get them ready in a minute," said the woman, "but I'd hate
-to do a four-mile walk on as little as that."
-
-"I've been sort of dieting myself," Jane said, perhaps recalling her
-past bounty to the cats and chickens at the window of her room, "and I
-don't need much."
-
-"Well, all right," said the cook, spreading a napkin at one end of a
-long table; "you set down here and I'll supply you in a few minutes. The
-landlord leaves me in charge here till he gets up. He's a late sleeper;
-he was out last night at the trial of the moonshiners. You say you paid
-for breakfast in your bill. I think it's a shame. If he wasn't so easy
-to make mad, I'd go shake him up and get some of your money back. I
-don't happen to tote the key to the cash-drawer. I reckon you paid
-seventy-five cents for supper, bed, and breakfast--'s., b., and b.,' we
-call it for short--and you are entitled to a full round--meat, eggs,
-fish (in season), batter-cakes or waffles, whichever it is. Our
-waffle-irons are split right half in two, and we just give batter-cakes
-now; but folks know the brand clean to Darley. You ought to see the
-judge tackle 'em during court week; him and the district-attorney had a
-race the other night to see which could eat the most. I had three pans
-running, and such a smoke of burning lard in the kitchen you couldn't
-have seen a white cat in an inch of your nose. The whole jury and a lots
-of witnesses under guard of the sheriff was allowed to look on. The
-judge beat. The lawyer got so full he couldn't talk, and that was the
-signal to call a halt. I was glad, for old Mrs. Macklin was waiting in
-the kitchen to try to hear if there was any chance to save her son, who
-was being tried for killing that feller in the brick-yard last summer.
-Ever' time I'd come in for fresh cakes she'd look up sorter pitiful-like
-to see if I'd heard anything. They'd already agreed to send 'im up for
-life, but I didn't know it. Yes, you ought to have a quarter of that
-money back, _anyway_. Unless a knife and fork is used, I make a habit,
-when it's left to me, not to charge a cent, and you don't look like you
-are overly flush."
-
-"No, but I'm satisfied as it is," Jane said, as she finished her bread
-and milk. "I didn't expect to get it for any less."
-
-
-
-
-XXXVIII
-
-
-A few minutes later, with her flabby carpet-bag on her sharp hip, Jane
-fared forth on the mountain road, which led farther eastward. She walked
-slowly and with increased effort, for the high altitude seemed to affect
-her respiration, and, light as it was, the carpet-bag became cumbersome
-and she had to pause frequently to rest.
-
-"Yes, if I'm going to do it, I'll have to plunge in and do it, and be
-done with the matter," she kept saying. "I reckon it isn't the first
-time such a thing has been heard of." She passed several humble mountain
-houses, built of logs, on the way, but stopped at none of them. The sun
-was near the zenith when she came to a double log-cabin standing back on
-a plot of newly cleared land a hundred yards from the rocky road. A
-tall, plain-looking girl, with a hard, unsympathetic face, stood in the
-doorway, and she stepped down to the ground and quieted a snarling dog
-which was chained to a stake driven into the earth.
-
-"I reckon you are Nettie Boyd, ain't you?" Jane said.
-
-"I used to be," the young woman answered. "I married a Lawson--Sam
-Lawson--awhile back."
-
-"Oh yes, I forgot that. I'd heard it, too, of course, but it slipped my
-memory. I'm a Hemingway, from over in Murray County--Jane Hemingway. I
-used to be acquainted with your pa. Is he handy?"
-
-"Yes, he was here just a minute ago," Ann Boyd's daughter answered.
-"He's around at his hay-stack pulling down some roughness for the cow.
-Go in and take a seat and I'll call him. Lay your bonnet on the bed and
-make yourself at home."
-
-Jane went into the cabin, the walls of which were unlined, being only
-the bare logs with the bark on them. The cracks where the logs failed to
-fit closely together were filled with the red clay from the hills
-around. There was not a picture in sight, not an ornament on the crude
-board shelf over the rugged mud-and-stone fireplace. From wooden pegs
-driven in auger-holes in the walls hung the young bride's meagre finery,
-in company with what was evidently her husband's best suit of clothes
-and hat. Beneath them, on the floor, stood a pair of new woman's shoes,
-dwarfed by contrast to a heavier and larger masculine pair. Jane sat
-down, rolling her bonnet in her stiff fingers. The chair she sat on was
-evidently of home make, for the rockers were unevenly sawed, and, on the
-unplaned boards of the floor, it had a joggling, noisy motion when in
-use. There were two beds in the room, made of rough, pine planks. The
-coverings of the beds were not in order and the pillows were soiled.
-
-"If she'd 'a' stayed on with Ann she would 'a' made a better
-house-keeper than that," Jane mused. "She's a sight, too, with her hair
-uncombed and dress so untidy so soon after the honeymoon. I can see now
-that her and Ann never would get on together. Anybody could take one
-look at that girl and see she's selfish. I wonder what that fellow ever
-saw in her?"
-
-There was a sound of voices outside. With a start, Jane drew herself
-erect. The carpet-bag on her knees threatened to fall, and she lowered
-it to the floor. Her ordeal was before her.
-
-"Why, howdy do?"
-
-Joe Boyd, in tattered shirt, trousers patched upon patches, and gaping
-shoes through which his bare toes showed, stood in the doorway. That the
-old beau and the once most popular young man of the country-side could
-stand looking like that before her, even after the lapse of all those
-trying years, and not feel abashed, was one of the inexplicable things
-that rushed through Jane Hemingway's benumbed brain. That she, herself,
-could be looking at the very husk of the ideal of manhood she had held
-all those years and not cry out in actual pain over the pitiful
-evidences of his collapse from his high estate was another thing she
-marvelled over. Joe Boyd! Could it actually be he? Could those gaunt,
-talon-nailed members, with their parchment-like skin, be the hands she
-used to think so shapely? Could those splaying feet be the feet that had
-tripped more lightly in the Virginia Reel than those of any other man
-for miles around? Could those furtive, harsh-glancing eyes be the deep,
-dreamy ones in which she had once seen the mirage of her every girlish
-hope? Could that rasping tone come from the voice whose never
-diminishing echo had rung in her ears through all those years of hiding
-her secret from the man she had married out of "spite," through all her
-long tooth-in-flesh fight with the rival who had temporarily won and
-held him?
-
-She rose and gave him her hand, and the two stood facing each other, she
-speechless, he thoroughly at his indolent ease.
-
-"Well, I reckon, Jane, old girl," he laughed, as he wiped a trickling
-stream of tobacco-juice from the corner of his sagging mouth, "that you
-are the very last human being I ever expected to lay eyes on again. I
-swear I wouldn't 'a' known you from Adam's cat if Nettie hadn't told me
-who it was. My, how thin you look, and all bent over!"
-
-"Yes, I'm changed, and you are too, Joe," she said, as, with a stiff
-hand beneath her, she sought the chair again.
-
-"Yes"--he went to the doorway and spat voluminously out into the yard,
-and came back swinging a chair as lightly in his hand as if it had been
-a baseball bat with which he was playing--"yes, I reckon I am altered
-considerable; a body's more apt to see changes in others than in
-himself. I was just thinking the other day about them old times. La me!
-how much fun we all did have, but it didn't last--it didn't last."
-
-He sat down, leaning forward and clasping his dry-palmed hands with a
-sound like the rubbing together of two pieces of paper. There was an
-awkward silence. Nettie Lawson came to the door and glanced in
-inquiringly, and then went away. They heard her calling her chickens
-some distance from the cabin.
-
-"No, I wouldn't have recognized you if I'd met you alone in the big
-road," he said, "nor you wouldn't me, I reckon."
-
-"Joe"--she was looking about the room--"somehow I had an idea that you
-were in--in a little better circumstances than--than you seem to be in
-now."
-
-"Well, that wouldn't be hard to imagine, anyway," he said, with an
-intonation like a sigh, if it wasn't one. "If a body couldn't imagine a
-better fix for a man to be in than I am in, they'd better quit. Lord,
-Lord, I reckon I ought to be dead ashamed to meet you in this condition
-when you knew me away back in them palmy days, but, Jane, I really
-believe I've sunk below that sort of a feeling. You know I used to cut a
-wide swath when I had plenty of money and friends, but what's the use of
-crying over spilt milk? This is all there is left of me. I managed to
-marry Nettie off to a feller good enough in his way. I thought he was a
-fine catch, but I don't know. I was under the impression that his folks
-had some money to give him to sorter start the two out, but it seems
-they didn't have, and was looking for a stake themselves. Since they
-married he just stays round here, contented and about as shiftless as
-anybody could be. I thought, for instance, that he never got in debt,
-but a store-keeper in town told me the other day that he owed him for
-the very duds he was married in."
-
-"That's bad, that's powerful bad," Jane said, sympathetically. Then a
-fixed look took possession of her eyes, and her fingers tightened on her
-bonnet in her lap, as she plunged towards the thing with which she was
-burdened. "Joe," she continued, "I've come all the way over the mountain
-in my delicate health to see you about a particular matter. God knows
-it's the hardest thing I ever contemplated, but there is no other way
-out of it."
-
-"Well, I think I know what you are going to say," he answered, avoiding
-her eyes.
-
-"You do, Joe?" she exclaimed. "Oh no, surely, you can't know that."
-
-"Well, I think I can make a good guess," he said, awkwardly twirling his
-fingers round and round. "You see, I always make a habit, when I happen
-to meet anybody from over your way, of asking about old acquaintances,
-and I heard some time back that you was in deep trouble. They said you
-had some high-priced doctoring to do in Atlanta, and that you was going
-from old friend to old friend for what little help they could give. I'm
-going to see what I can do towards it myself, since you've taken such a
-long trip, though, Jane, to tell you the truth, I haven't actually seen
-a ten-cent piece in a month. I've gone without tobacco when I thought
-the desire for it would run me distracted. So--"
-
-"I didn't come for help--Lord, Lord, I only wish it was that, Joe. I've
-already had the operation, and I'm recovering. I've come over here, Joe,
-to make an awful confession."
-
-"A--a--what?" he said.
-
-There was a pause. Jane Hemingway unrolled her bonnet and put it on,
-pulling the hood down over her line of vision.
-
-"Joe, I've come to tell you that I've been a bad woman; I've been a bad,
-sinning woman since away back there when you married Ann. Things you
-used to say to me, I reckon, turned my silly head. You remember when you
-took me to camp-meeting that night, and we sat through meeting out in
-the buggy under the trees. I reckon, if it was all to do over you
-wouldn't have said so much. I reckon you wouldn't if you'd known you
-were planting a seed that was going to fructify and bear the fruit of
-hate and enmity that would never rot; but, for all I know, you may have
-been saying the same things to other girls who knew better how to take
-them than I did."
-
-"Oh, Jane, I was a fool them days," Joe Boyd broke in, with an actual
-flush of shame in his tanned face.
-
-"Well, never mind about that," Jane went on, with a fresher
-determination under his own admission. "I reckon I let it take too
-strong a hold on me. I never could give up easy, and when you got to
-going with Ann, and she was so much prettier and more sprightly than me,
-it worked against my nature. It hardened me, I reckon. I married soon
-after you did, but I won't tell about that; he's dead and gone. I had my
-child--that was all, except--except my hate for Ann. I couldn't stand to
-see you and her so happy together, and you both were making money and I
-was losing what I had. Then, Joe, we all heard about--we all learned
-Ann's secret."
-
-"Don't--for the love of mercy--don't fetch that up!" Boyd groaned.
-
-"But I _have_ to, Joe," Jane persisted, softly. "At first I was the
-happiest woman that the devil ever delighted by flashing a lying promise
-with his fire on a wall. I thought you were going to scorn her, but I
-saw that day I met you at the meeting-house that you were inclined to
-condone the past, and that drove me wild; so I--" Jane choked up and
-paused.
-
-"I remember that day," Joe Boyd said, with a deep breath. "I'll never
-forget it as long as I live, for what you said dropped me back into the
-bottomless pit of despair. I'd been trying to think she'd been straight
-with me _since_ we married, but when you--"
-
-"What I told you that morning, Joe, was a cold, deliberate lie!"
-
-"A--a--" he stammered. "No, no, you don't mean that--you can't mean--"
-
-"Every--single--thing--I--told--you--that--day--was--a--lie!" Jane said,
-with an emphatic pause between each word.
-
-"I can't understand. I don't see--really, Jane, you can't mean that what
-you said about Chester's going there day after day when my back was
-turned, and that you saw them together in the woods below your house
-that day when I was--"
-
-"Everything I told you was a lie from the devil, out of the very fumes
-of hell," Jane said, pulling off her bonnet and looking him squarely in
-the face. "A lie--a lie, Joe."
-
-"Oh, my God!" Boyd cried. "And I, all these years I have--"
-
-"You've been believing what I said. But I'm not through yet. I've been
-in a dark room fasting and praying for a month to overcome my evil
-inclination not to speak the truth, and I finally conquered, so I'm
-going to tell the whole thing. Joe, Ann Boyd is the best woman God ever
-let live. She was as true as steel to you from the day she married till
-now. I have been after her day and night, never giving her a moment's
-rest from my persecutions, and how do you reckon she retaliated? She
-paid me back by actually saving my worthless life and trying to keep me
-from knowing who did it. She did something else. She did me the greatest
-favor one woman could possibly do another. I don't intend to say what
-that particular thing was, but she must have the credit. Now I'm
-through. I'm going back home."
-
-Boyd drew his ill-clad feet towards him. He spread out his two arms wide
-and held them so, steadily. "Look at me--just look at me," he said.
-"Woman, before you go back, take one good look at me. You come to me--a
-mere frazil of what I once was--when there is no hope of ever regaining
-my youth and self-respect--and tell me--oh, my God!--tell me that I
-believed _you_ instead of _her_! She said, with tears in her eyes, on
-her knees before me, that that first mistake was all, and I told her she
-lied _in her throat_, and left her, dragging from her clinging arms the
-child of her breast, bringing it up and raising it to what you see she
-is. And now you come literally peeping into my open coffin and telling
-_this_ to my dead face. Great God, woman, before Heaven I feel like
-striking you where you set, soaked in repentance though you are. All
-these misspent years I've been your cowardly tool, and her--her--"
-
-"I deserve it--talk on!" Jane Hemingway said, as she rose and clutched
-her carpet-bag and held it tremblingly.
-
-But Joe Boyd's innate gentleness had been one of the qualities many
-women loved, and even before the cowering creature who had wrecked his
-life he melted in manly pity.
-
-"No," he said, stretching out his hand with something like one of his
-old gestures--"no, I'm going too far, Jane. We are all obedient to
-natural laws, as Ann used to say. Your laws have made you do just as you
-have, and so have mine. Away back there in the joy-time of youth my laws
-made me say too much to you. As you say, I planted the seed. I did; I
-planted the seed that bore all the fruit; I planted it when I kissed
-you, Jane, and said them things to you that night which I forgot the
-next day. Ann could have made something out of me better than this. As
-long as I had her to manage me, I did well. You see what I am now."
-
-"Yes, I see; and I'm as sorry as I know how to be." Jane sighed as she
-passed out into the open sunlight. "I'm going home, Joe. I may never lay
-eyes on you again in this life. If you can say anything to make me feel
-better, I'd be thankful."
-
-"There isn't anything, except what I said just now about our natural
-laws, Jane," he said, as he stood shading his eyes from the glare of the
-sun. "Sometimes I think that nobody hain't to blame for nothing they do,
-and that all of this temporary muddle is just the different ways human
-beings have of struggling on to a better world beyond this."
-
-"I thought maybe you might, in so many words, say plain out that you'd
-forgive me, Joe." She had turned her face towards the road she was to
-travel, and her once harsh lip was quivering like that of a weeping
-child.
-
-"The natural law would come in there, too," Boyd sighed. "Forgiveness,
-of the right sort, don't spring to the heart in such a case as this like
-a flash of powder in the pan. If I'm to forgive, I will in due time, I
-reckon; but right now, Jane, I feel too weak and tired, even for
-that--too weak and heartsick and undone."
-
-"Well, I'm going to pray for it, Joe," she said, as she started away.
-"Good-bye. May the Lord above bless you."
-
-"Good-bye, Jane; do the best you can," he said, "and I'll try to do the
-same."
-
-
-
-
-XXXIX
-
-
-The following Sunday afternoon Mrs. Waycroft hastened over to Ann
-Boyd's. She walked very rapidly across the fields and through the woods
-rather than by the longer main road. She found Ann in her best dress
-seated in her dining-room reading Luke King's paper, which had come the
-day before. She looked up and smiled and nodded to the visitor.
-
-"I just wish you'd listen to this," she said, enthusiastically. "And
-when you've heard it, if you don't think that boy is a genius you'll
-miss it by a big jump. On my word, such editorials as this will do more
-good than all the preaching in Christendom. I've read it four times. Sit
-down and listen."
-
-"No, you've got to listen to me," said the visitor. "That can wait; it's
-down in black and white, while mine is fairly busting me wide open. Ann,
-do you know what took place at meeting this morning?"
-
-"Why, no, how could I? You know I said I'd never darken that door again,
-after that low-lived coward--"
-
-"Stop, Ann, and listen!" Mrs. Waycroft panted, as she sank into a chair
-and leaned forward. "You know I go seldom myself, but by some chance I
-went this morning. I always feel like doing the best I can towards the
-end of a year. Well, I had hardly got my seat and Brother Bazemore had
-just got up to make some announcements, when who should come in but Jane
-Hemingway. Instead of stopping at her usual place, nigh the stove, she
-walked clean up to the altar-railing and stood as stiff as a post,
-gazing at the preacher. He was busy with his notes and didn't see her at
-first, though every eye in the house was fixed on her in wonder, for she
-was as white as a sheet, and so thin and weak that it looked like the
-lightest wind would blow her away. 'Brother Bazemore,' she said, loud
-enough to be heard, in her shrill voice, clean out to the horse-rack, 'I
-want to say something, and I want to say it out before all of you.'"
-
-"Huh!" Ann grunted--"huh!"
-
-"Well, he looked good surprised," Mrs. Waycroft went on, "but you know
-he's kind o' resentful if folks don't show consideration for his
-convenience, so he looked down at her over his specks and said:
-
-"'Well, sister, I reckon the best time for that will be after preaching,
-and then them that want to stay can do so and feel that they got what
-they waited for.'
-
-"'But I can't wait,' said she. 'What I've got to say must be said now,
-while I'm plumb in the notion. If I waited I might back out, and I don't
-want to do it.'
-
-"Well, he give in; and, Ann, she turned around facing us all and took
-off her bonnet and swung it about like a flag. She was as nigh dead in
-looks as any corpse I ever saw. And since you was born, Ann, you never
-heard the like. Folks was so interested that they stared as if their
-eyes was popping out of their sockets. She said she'd come to confess to
-crime--that's the way she put it--_crime!_ She said she'd been passing
-for half a lifetime in this community as a Christian woman, when in
-actuality she had been linked body and soul to the devil. Right there
-she gulped and stood with her old head down; then she looked at us like
-a crazy person and went on. She said away back when she was a girl she'd
-been jealous of a certain girl, and that she'd hounded that girl through
-a long life. She had made it her particular business to stir up strife
-against that woman by toting lies from one person to another. She turned
-sort o' sideways to the preacher and said: 'Brother Bazemore, what I
-told you Ann Boyd said about you that time was all made up--a lie out of
-whole cloth. I told you that to make you denounce her in public, and you
-did. I kept telling her neighbors things to make 'em hate her, and they
-did. I told her husband a whole string of deliberate lies that made him
-leave her and take her child away. I spent half my life at this thing,
-to have it end like this: Men and women, the woman that I was doing all
-that against was the one who came up with the money that saved my
-worthless life and tried to hide it from me and the rest of the world.
-She not only done that, but she done me even a greater favor. I won't
-say what that was, but nobody but an angel from heaven, robed in the
-flesh of earth, could have done that, for it was the very thing she had
-every right to want to see visited on me. That act would have paid me
-back in my own coin, and she wanted to count out the money, but she was
-too much of heaven to go through it. Instead of striking at me, she
-saved me suffering that would have dragged me to the dust in shame. I've
-come here to say all this because I want to do her justice, if I can,
-while the breath of life is in me. I've just got back from Gilmer, where
-I went and met the man whose life I wrecked--her husband. I told him the
-truth, hoping that I could do him some good in atonement, but the poor,
-worn-out man seemed too utterly crushed to forgive me.'"
-
-"Joe--she went to Joe!" Ann gasped, finding her voice. "Now, I reckon,
-he believes me. And to think that Jane Hemingway would say all that--do
-all that! It don't seem reasonable. But you say she actually--"
-
-"Of course she did," broke in the narrator. "And when she was through
-she marched straight down the middle aisle and stalked outside. Half the
-folks got up and went to the windows and watched her tottering along the
-road; and then Brother Bazemore called 'em back and made 'em sit down.
-He said, in his cold-blooded way, hemming and hawing, that the whole
-community had been too severe, and that the best way to get the thing
-settled and smooth-running again was to agree on some sort of public
-testimonial. Ann, I reckon fully ten men yelled out that they would
-second the motion. I never in all my life saw such excitement. Folks was
-actually crying, and this one and that one was telling kind things you
-had done to them. Then they all got around me, Ann, and they made a lots
-over me, saying I was the only one who had acted right, and that I must
-ask you to forgive them. That was the motion Bazemore put and carried by
-a vote of rising. Half of them was so anxious to have their votes
-counted that they climbed up on the benches and waved their hats and
-bonnets and shawls, and yelled out, 'Here! here!' Bazemore dismissed
-without preaching; it looked like he thought nothing he could say, in
-any regular line, would count in such a tumult. And after meeting dozens
-of 'em slid up to me and snatched my hands and told me to speak a good
-word for them; they kept it up even after I'd got outside, some of 'em
-walking part of the way with me and sending messages. Wait till I catch
-my breath, and I'll tell you who spoke and what each one said, as well
-as I can."
-
-"Never mind," said Ann, an absent look in her strong face. "I believe
-I'd rather not hear any more of it; it don't make one bit of difference
-one way or another."
-
-"Why, Ann, surely you won't entertain hard feelings, now that they all
-feel so bad. If you could only 'a' been there, you would--"
-
-"Oh, it isn't that," Ann sighed, and with her closed hand she pounded
-her heavy knee restlessly. "You see, Mary--oh, I don't know--but, well,
-I can't possibly be any way but the way the Lord made me, and to save my
-life I can't feel grateful. They all just seem to me like a lot of
-spoilt children that laugh or cry over whatever comes up. Somehow a
-testimonial from a congregation like that, after a lifetime of beating
-me and covering me with slime, seems more like an insult than a
-compliment. They think they can besmirch the best part of my life, and
-then rub it off in a minute with good intentions and a few words. Why,
-it was the same sort of whim that made them all follow Jane Hemingway
-like sheep after a leader. I don't hate 'em, you understand, but what
-they do or say simply don't alter my feelings a speck. I have known all
-along that I had the right kind of--character, and to listen to their
-sniffling testimony on the subject would seem to me like--well, like
-insulting my own womanhood."
-
-"You are a powerful strange creature, Ann," Mrs. Waycroft said,
-reflectively, "but, I reckon, if you hadn't been that way you wouldn't
-be such a wonderful woman in so many ways. I was holding something back
-for the last, but I reckon you'll sniff at that more than what I've
-already told you. Ann, when I got home, and had just set down to eat a
-snack before running over to you, who should come to my back gate and
-call me out except Jane herself. She stood leaning against the fence
-like the walk had nearly done her up, and she refused to come in and set
-down. She said she wanted me to do her a favor. She said she knew I was
-at meeting and heard what she said, but that she wanted me to come to
-you for her. As God is my final Judge, I never felt such pity for a poor
-rotten shred of humanity in all my life. She looked like she was trying
-to cry, but was too dry inside to do anything but wheeze; her very eyes
-seemed to be literally on fire; she looked like a crazy person talking
-rationally. She said she wanted me to tell you how sorry and broke up
-she was, that she'd pay back that hundred dollars if she had to deed
-away her dead body to some medical college. She said she could do
-anything on earth to make amends _except_ go to you face to face and
-apologize--she'd walk from door to door all over the country, she said,
-and tell her tale of shame, but she couldn't say it to you. She said she
-had tried for weeks to do it, but she knew she'd never have the moral
-strength."
-
-"She talked that way?" Ann said, looking steadily out into the sunshine
-through the open doorway.
-
-"Yes; and I reckon you have as little patience with her message as you
-have with the balance," said the visitor.
-
-"No, she's different, Mary," Ann declared. "Jane Hemingway is another
-proposition altogether. She's fought a long, fierce fight, and God
-Almighty's forces have whipped her clean out. She was a worthy foe, and
-I respect her more now than I ever did. She was different from the rest.
-_She_ had a cause. _She_ had something to fight about. She loved Joe
-Boyd with all the heart she ever had, and when I married him she
-couldn't--simply couldn't--let it rest. She held on like a bull-dog with
-his teeth clamped to bone. She's beat; I won't wait for her to come to
-me; I may take a notion and go to her."
-
-
-
-
-XL
-
-
-It was a crisp, clear day in December. Langdon Chester had gone to
-Darley to attend to the banking of a considerable amount of money which
-his father had received for cotton on the market. It happened to be the
-one day in the year in which the town was visited by a mammoth circus,
-and the streets were overflowing with mountain people eager to witness
-the grand street-parade, the balloon ascension, the side-shows, and,
-lastly, the chief performance under the big tent. From the quaint old
-Johnston House, along Main Street to the grain warehouses and the
-throbbing and wheezing cotton compress, half a mile distant, the street
-was filled with people afoot, in carts, wagons, and buggies, or on
-horseback. All this joy and activity made little impression on Langdon
-Chester. His face was thin and sallow, and he was extremely nervous. His
-last conversation with Virginia and her positive refusal to consider his
-proposal of marriage had left him without a hope and more desperate than
-his best friend could have imagined possible to a man of his supposedly
-callous temperament. And a strange fatality seemed to be dogging his
-footsteps and linking him to the matter which he had valiantly attempted
-to lay aside, for everywhere he went he heard laudatory remarks about
-Luke King and his marvellous success and strength of character. In the
-group of lawyers seated in the warm sunshine in front of Trabue's little
-one-storied brick office on the street leading to the court-house, it
-was a topic of more interest than any gossip about the circus. It was
-Squire Tomlinson's opinion, and he had been to the legislature in
-Atlanta, and associated intimately with politicians from all sections of
-the state, that King was a man who, if he wished it, could become the
-governor of Georgia as easy as falling off a log, or even a senator of
-the United States. The common people wanted him, the squire declared;
-they had worshipped him ever since his first editorial war-whoop against
-the oppression of the political ring, the all-devouring trusts, and the
-corrupt Northern money-power. The squire, blunt man that he was, caught
-sight of Langdon among his listeners and playfully made an illustration
-out of him. "There's a chap, gentlemen, the son of a good old friend of
-mine. Now, what did money, aristocratic parentage, family brains, and
-military honors do for him? He was sent to the best college in the
-state, with plenty of spending-money at his command, and is still
-hanging onto the strap of his daddy's pocket-book--satisfied like we all
-were in the good old days when each of us had a little nigger to come
-and put on our shoes for us and bring hot coffee and waffles to the bed
-after we'd tripped the merry toe on somebody's farm all night. Oh, you
-needn't frown, Langdon; you know it's the truth. He's still a chip off
-the old block, gentlemen, while his barefoot neighbor, a scion of po'
-white stock, cooked his brain before a cabin pine-knot fire in studying,
-like Abe Lincoln did, and finally went forth to conquer the world, and
-_is_ conquering it as fast as a dog can trot. It's enough, gentlemen, to
-make us all take our boys from school, give 'em a good paddling, and put
-'em at hard toil in the field."
-
-"Thank you for the implied compliment, Squire," Langdon said, angrily.
-"You are frank enough about it, anyway."
-
-"Now, there, you see," the squire exclaimed, regretfully. "I've gone and
-rubbed him the wrong way, and I meant nothing in the world by it."
-
-Langdon bowed and smiled his acceptance of the apology, though a scowl
-was on his face as he turned to walk down the street. From the
-conversation he had learned that King was expected up that day to visit
-his family, and a sickening shock came to him with the thought that it
-really was to see Virginia that he was coming. Yes, he was now sure that
-it had been King's attentions to the girl which had turned her against
-him--that and the powerful influence of Ann Boyd.
-
-These thoughts were too much for him. He went into Asque's bar, at the
-hotel, called for whiskey, and remained there for hours.
-
-Langdon was in the spacious office of the Johnston House when the
-evening train from Atlanta came into the old-fashioned brick car-shed at
-the door, and King alighted. His hand-bag was at once snatched by an
-admiring negro porter, and the by-standers crowded around him to shake
-hands. Langdon stood in the office a moment later, his brain benumbed
-with drink and jealous fury, and saw his rival literally received into
-the open arms of another eager group. Smothering an oath, the young
-planter leaned against the cigar-case quite near the register, over
-which the clerk stood triumphantly calling to King to honor the house by
-writing the name of the state's future governor. King had the pen in his
-hand, when, glancing up, he recognized Langdon, whom he had not seen
-since his return from the West.
-
-"Why, how are you, Chester?" he said, cordially.
-
-Langdon stared. His brain seemed pressed downward by some weight. The
-by-standers saw a strange, half-insane glare in his unsteady eyes, but
-he said nothing.
-
-"Why, surely you remember me," Luke exclaimed, in honest surprise.
-"King's my name--Luke King. It's true I have not met you for several
-years, but--"
-
-"Oh, it's King, is it?" Langdon said, calmly and with the edge of a
-sneer on his white, determined lip. "I didn't know if you were sure
-_what_ it was. So many of your sort spring up like flies in hot weather
-that one can't tell much about your parentage, except on the maternal
-side."
-
-There was momentous silence. The crowded room held its breath in sheer
-astonishment. King stared at his antagonist for an instant, hoping
-against hope that he had misunderstood. Then he took a deep breath.
-"That's a queer thing for one man to say to another," he said, fixing
-Chester with a steady stare. "Are you aware that a remark like that
-might reflect on the honor of my mother?"
-
-"I don't care who it reflects on," retorted Chester. "You can take it
-any way you wish, if you have got enough backbone."
-
-As quick as a flash King's right arm went out and his massive fist
-landed squarely between Chester's eyes. The blow was so strong that the
-young planter reeled back into the crowd, instinctively pressing his
-hands to his face. King was ready to strike again, but some of his
-friends stopped him and pushed him back against the counter. Others in
-the crowd forcibly drew his maddened antagonist away, and further
-trouble was averted.
-
-With a hand that was strangely steady, King registered his name with the
-pen the clerk was extending to him.
-
-"Let it drop, King," the clerk said. "He's so drunk he hardly knows what
-he's doing. He seems to have it in for you, for some reason or other. It
-looks like jealousy to me. They were devilling him over at Trabue's
-office awhile ago about his failure and your big success. Let it pass
-this time. He'll be ashamed of himself as soon as his liquor dies out."
-
-"Thank you, Jim," King replied. "I'll let it rest, if he is satisfied
-with what he's already had."
-
-"Going out home to-night?" the clerk asked.
-
-"If I can get a turnout at the stable," King answered.
-
-"You will have to take a room here, then," the clerk smiled, "for
-everything is out at the livery. I know, because two travelling men who
-had a date with George Wilson over there are tied up here."
-
-"Then I'll stay and go out in the morning," said King. "I'm tired,
-anyway, and that is a hard ride at night."
-
-"Well, take the advice of a friend and steer clear of Chester right
-now," said the clerk. "He's a devil when he's worked up and drinking.
-Really, he's dangerous."
-
-"I know that, but I'll not run from him," said King. "I thought my
-fighting day was over, but there are some things I can't take."
-
-
-
-
-XLI
-
-
-It was dusk the following evening. Virginia was at the cow-lot when her
-uncle came lazily up the road from the store and joined her. "Well," he
-drawled out, as he thrust his hands into his pocket for his pipe, "I
-reckon I'm onto a piece o' news that you and your mother, nor nobody
-else this side o' Wilson's shebang, knows about. Mrs. Snodgrass has just
-arrived by hack from Darley, where she attended the circus and tried to
-get a job to beat that talking-machine they had in the side-show. It
-seems that this neighborhood has furnished the material for more
-excitement over there than the whole exhibition, animals and all."
-
-"How is that, uncle?" Virginia asked, absent-mindedly.
-
-"Why, it seems that a row has been on tap between Langdon Chester and
-Luke King for, lo, these many months, anyway, and yesterday, when the
-population of Darley turned out in as full force to meet Luke King as
-they did the circus parade, why it was too much for Chester's blood. He
-kept drinking and drinking till he hardly knew which end of him was up,
-and then he met Luke at the Johnston House face to face. Mrs. Snod says
-Langdon evidently laid his plans so there would have to be a fight in
-any case, so he up and slandered that good old mammy of King's."
-
-"Oh, uncle, and they fought?" Virginia, pale and trembling, gasped as
-she leaned for support on the fence.
-
-"You bet they did. Mrs. Snod says the vile slander had no sooner left
-Chester's lips than King let drive at him right between the eyes. That
-knocked Langdon out of the ring for a while, and his friends took him to
-a room to wash him off, for he was bleeding like a stuck pig. King was
-to come out here last night, but Mrs. Snod says he was afraid Chester
-would think he was running from the field, and so he stayed on at the
-hotel. Then, this morning early, the two of them come together on the
-street in front of the bank building. Mrs. Snod says Chester drawed
-first and got Luke covered before he could say Jack Robinson, and then
-fired. Several shots were exchanged, but the third brought King to his
-knees. They say he's done for, Virginia. He wasn't dead to-day at
-twelve, but the doctors said he couldn't live an hour. They say he was
-bleeding so terrible inside that they was afraid to move him. I'm here
-to tell you, Virgie, that I used to like that chap; and when he got to
-coming to see you, and I could see that he meant business, I was in
-hopes you and him would make a deal, but then you up and bluffed him off
-so positive that I never could see what it meant. Why, he was about the
-most promising young man I ever--But look here, child, what's ailing
-you?"
-
-"Nothing, uncle," Virginia said; and, with her head down, she turned
-away. Looking after her for a moment in slow wonder, Sam went on into
-the farm-house, bent on telling the startling news to his sister-in-law.
-As for Virginia, she walked on through the gathering dusk towards Ann
-Boyd's house. "Dead, dying!" she said, with a low moan. "It has come at
-last."
-
-Farther across the meadow she trudged, unconscious of the existence of
-her physical self. At a little stream which she had to cross on
-stepping-stones she paused and moaned again. Dead--actually dead! Luke
-King, the young man whom the whole of his state was praising, had been
-shot down like a dog. No matter what might be the current report as to
-the cause of the meeting, young as she was she knew it to be the outcome
-of Langdon Chester's passion--the fruition of his mad threat to her.
-Yes, he had made good his word.
-
-Approaching Ann's house, she entered the gate just as Mrs. Boyd came to
-the door and stood smiling knowingly at her.
-
-"Virginia," she called out, cheerily, "what you reckon I've got here?
-You could make a million guesses and then be wide of the mark."
-
-"Oh, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia groaned, as she tottered to the step and
-raised her eyes to the old woman's face, "you haven't heard the news.
-Luke is dead!"
-
-"Dead?" Ann laughed out impulsively. "Oh no, I reckon not. Come in and
-take a chair by the fire; you've got your feet wet with the dew."
-
-"He's dead, he's dead, I tell you!" Virginia stood still, her white and
-rigid face upturned. "Langdon Chester, the contemptible coward, shot him
-at Darley this morning."
-
-"Oh, _that's_ it, is it?" A knowing look came into Ann Boyd's face. She
-stroked an impulsive smile from her facile lips, but Virginia still saw
-its light in the twinkling eyes above the broad, red hand. "You say he's
-dead? Well, well, that accounts for something I was wondering about just
-now. You know I am not much of a hand to believe in spiritual
-manifestations like table-raising folks do, but I'll give you my word,
-Virginia, that for the last hour and a half I'd 'a' sworn Luke King
-_himself_ was right here in the house. Just now I heard something like
-him walking across the floor. It seemed to me he went out to the shelf
-and took a drink of water. I'll bet it's Luke's spirit hanging about
-trying to tell me good-bye--that is, if he really _was_ shot, as you
-say." Ann smiled again and turned her face towards the inside of the
-room, and called out: "Say, Ghost of Luke King, if you are in my house
-right now you'd better lie low and listen. This silly girl is talking so
-wild the first thing you know she will be saying she don't love Langdon
-Chester."
-
-"Love him? what's the matter with you?" Virginia panted. "I hate him.
-You know I detest him. I'll kill him. Do you hear me? I'll kill him as
-sure as I ever meet him face to face."
-
-Ann stared at the girl for a moment, her face oddly beaming, then she
-looked back into the room again. "Do you hear that, Mr. Ghost? She now
-says she'll kill Langdon Chester on sight. She says that after sending
-_you_ about your business for no reason in the world. You listen good.
-Maybe she'll be saying after a while that she loved you."
-
-"I _did_ love him. God knows I loved him!" Virginia cried. "I loved him
-with every bit of my soul and body. I've loved him, worshipped him,
-adored him ever since I was a child and he was so good to me. He was the
-noblest man that ever lived, and now a dirty, sneaking coward has
-slipped up on him and shot him down in cold blood. If I ever meet that
-man, as God is my Judge, I'll--" With a sob that was almost a shriek
-Virginia sank to the door-step and lay there, quivering convulsively.
-
-A vast change swept over Ann Boyd. Her big face filled with the still
-blood of deep emotion. She heaved a sigh, and, turning towards the
-interior of the room, she said, huskily:
-
-"Come on, Luke; don't tease the poor little thing. I wouldn't have
-carried it so far if I could have got it out of her any other way. She's
-yours, dear boy--heart, soul, and body."
-
-Hearing these words, Virginia raised her head in wonder, just as Luke
-King emerged from the house. He bent over her, and tenderly raised her
-up. He was drawing her closer to him, his fine face aflame with tender
-passion, when Virginia held him firmly from her.
-
-"Don't! don't!" she said. "If you knew--"
-
-"I've told him everything, Virginia," Ann broke in. "I had to. I
-couldn't see my dear boy suffering like he was, when--"
-
-"You know--" Virginia began, aghast, "you know--"
-
-"About you and Chester?" King said, with a light laugh. "Yes, I know all
-about it, and it made me think you the grandest, most self-sacrificing
-little girl in all the world. So you thought I was dead? That was all
-gossip. It was only a quarrel that amounted to nothing. I understand,
-now that he is sober, that Chester is heartily ashamed of himself."
-
-Half an hour afterwards Ann stood at the gate and saw them walking
-together towards Virginia's home. She watched them till they were lost
-from her sight in the dusk, then she went back into the house. She stood
-over the low fire for a moment, then said: "I won't get any supper
-ready. I couldn't eat a bite. Meat and bread couldn't shove this lump
-out of my throat. It's pretty, pretty, pretty to see those two together
-that way. I believe they have got the sort of thing the Almighty really
-meant love to be. I know _I_ never got that kind, though, as a girl, I
-dreamt of nothing else--nothing from morning till night but that one
-thing, and yet here I am this way--_this way_!"
-
-
-
-
-XLII
-
-
-The next morning the weather was as balmy as spring. Ann had taken all
-the coverings from her beds and hung them along the fence to catch the
-purifying rays of the sun. Her rag-carpet was stretched out on the
-ground ready to be beaten. She was occupied in sweeping the bare floor
-of her sitting-room when a shadow fell across the threshold. Looking up,
-she saw a tall, lean man, very ill-clad, his tattered hat in hand, his
-shoes broken at the toes and showing the wearer's bare feet.
-
-"It's me, Ann," Boyd said. "I couldn't stay away any longer. I hope you
-won't drive me off, anyway, before I've got out what I come to say."
-
-She turned pale as she leaned her broom against the wall and began to
-roll her sleeves down her fat arms towards her wrists. "Well, I wasn't
-looking for you," she managed to say.
-
-"I reckon not, Ann," he returned, a certain wistful expression in his
-voice and strangely softened face; "but I had to come. As I say--I had
-to come and speak to you, anyway."
-
-"Well, take a chair," she said, awkwardly. "I've got the windows up to
-let the dust drive out, and I'll close them. It's powerful draughty. I
-don't feel it, working like I am, but you might, coming in from the
-outside."
-
-He advanced to one of the straight-backed chairs which he remembered so
-well, and laid an unsteady hand on it, but he did not draw it towards
-him nor sit down. Instead, his great, hungry eyes followed her
-movements, as she bustled from one window to another, like those of a
-patient, offending dog.
-
-"Well, why don't you sit down?" She had turned back to him, and stood
-eying his poor aspect with strange misgivings and pity. In her comfort
-and luxury, he, with his evidences of poverty and despair, struck a
-strangely discordant note.
-
-He drew the chair nearer, and with quivering knees she saw him sink into
-it, with firmness at the beginning and then with the sudden collapse of
-an invalid. She went to a window and looked out. Not seeing his horse
-hitched near by, she came back to him.
-
-"Where did you hitch?" she asked, her voice losing firmness.
-
-"I didn't have no horse," he said; "I walked, Ann. Lawson was hauling
-wood with the horse. He wouldn't have let me take it, anyway. He's got
-awfully contrary here lately. Me 'n' him don't get along at all."
-
-"Do you mean to tell me--do you mean to tell me you walked all that way,
-in them shoes without bottoms, and--and you looking like you've just got
-up from a long sick spell?"
-
-"I made it all right, Ann, stopping to rest on the way." A touch of
-color seemed to have risen into his wan cheeks. "I had to come
-to-day--as I did awhile back--to do my duty, as I saw it. In fact, this
-seems even more my duty. Ann, Jane Hemingway came over to Gilmer awhile
-back. She come straight to my house, and, my God, Ann, she come and told
-me she'd been at the bottom of all our trouble. She set right in and
-acknowledged that she lied; she said she'd been lying all along for
-spite, because she hated you."
-
-"And loved you," Ann interposed, quickly. "Yes, she came back here, so
-I've been told, and stood up in meeting and said she'd been to see you,
-and she confessed it all in public. I can't find it in my heart to be
-hard with her, Joe. She was only obeying her laws of nature, as you have
-obeyed yours and I have mine, and--and as our offspring is now obeying
-hers. Tell me the straight truth, Joe. I reckon Nettie still feels
-strange towards me."
-
-Joe Boyd's mild eyes wavered and sought the fire beyond the toes of his
-ragged shoes.
-
-"Tell me the truth, Joe," Ann demanded. "I'm entitled to that, anyway."
-
-"She's always been a queer creature," Boyd faltered, evasively, without
-looking up, and she saw him nervously laving his bony hands in the
-sheer, unsuggestive emptiness about him. "But you mustn't think it's
-just _you_ she's against, Ann. She's plumb gone back on me, too. The
-money you furnished cleared the place of debt and bought her wedding
-outfit, and she got her man; but not long back she found out where the
-means come from, and--"
-
-Ann's lips tightened in the pause that ensued. Her face was set like a
-grotesque mask of stone. She leaned over the fire and pushed a fallen
-ember back under the steaming logs with a poker.
-
-"She couldn't stomach that, I reckon?" Ann said, in assumed calmness.
-
-"Well, it made her mad at me. I won't tell you all she done or said,
-Ann. It wouldn't do no good. I'm responsible for what she is, I reckon.
-She might have growed up different if she'd had the watchful care of--of
-a mother. What she is, is what any female will become under the care of
-a shiftless man like I am."
-
-"No, you are wrong, Joe," Ann said. "Why it is so I don't intend to
-explain, but Nettie would have been like she is under all circumstances.
-Money and plenty of everything might have glazed her character over, but
-down at bottom she'd have been what she is. Adversity generally brings
-out all the good that's in a person; the reason it hasn't fetched it out
-in her is because it isn't there, nor never has been. You say you and
-her don't get on well?"
-
-"Not now," he said. "She just as good as driv me from home yesterday.
-She told me point-blank that there wasn't room for me, and that when the
-baby comes they would be more crowded and pinched than ever. She
-actually sent Lawson to the Ordinary at Springtown to see if there was a
-place on the poor-farm vacant. When I dropped onto that, Ann, I come
-off. For all I know, they may have some paper for vagrancy ready to
-serve on me. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm not going back to
-them two, never while there is a lingering breath left in my body."
-
-"The poor-farm!" Ann said, half to herself. "To think that she would
-consent to that, and you her father."
-
-"I think his folks is behind it, Ann. They've got a reason for wanting
-to get rid of me."
-
-"A reason, you say?" Ann was staring at him steadily.
-
-Joe Boyd's embarrassment of a moment before returned. He twisted his
-hands together again. "Yes; it's like this, Ann," he went on, awkwardly:
-"a short time back Lawson's mother and father got onto the fact that you
-were in good circumstances, and it made the biggest change in them you
-ever heard of. They talked it all over the settlement. They are hard up,
-and they couldn't talk of anything but how much you was worth, and what
-you had your money invested in, and the like. After they got onto that,
-they never--never paid no attention to what had been--been
-circulated--your money covered all that as completely as a ten-foot
-snow. Instead of turning up their noses, as Nettie was afraid they would
-do, it only made them brag about how well their boy had done, and what a
-fool I was. They tried all sorts of ways to get Nettie interested in
-some scheme to attract your attention, but Nettie would just cry and
-take on and refuse to come over here or to write to you."
-
-"I understand"--Ann stroked her compressed lips with an unsteady
-hand--"I understand. I've never been a natural mother to her; she
-couldn't come to me like that. But you say they turned against you."
-
-"Yes. You see, the Lawsons got an idea--the old woman did, in
-particular, from something she'd picked up--that it was _me_ that stood
-between you and Nettie. They thought you and me had had such a serious
-falling-out that a proud woman like you never would have anything to do
-with Nettie as long as I was about, and that the best thing was to shove
-me off so the reconciliation would work faster. The truth is, they said
-that would please you."
-
-"I see, I see," Ann said. "And they set about putting you at the
-poor-farm."
-
-"Yes; they seemed to think that was as good a place as any. And they
-could get all the proof necessary to put me there, for I hadn't a cent
-to my name nor a whole rag to my back; and, Ann, for the last three
-months I haven't been able to do a lick o' work. I've had a strange sort
-of hurting all down my left side, and my right ankle seems affected in
-the same way."
-
-Ann Boyd suddenly turned away. Through the window she had seen the wind
-blowing one of her sheets from the fence, and she went out and put it in
-place. He limped out into the sunlight and stood at the little, sagging
-gate a few yards from her. Something of his old dignity and gallantry of
-manner was on him: he still held his hat in his hand, his thin,
-iron-gray hair exposed to the warm rays of the sun.
-
-"Well, I'd better be going, Ann," he said. "There is no telling when
-somebody might come along and see me here, and start the talk you hate
-so much. I come all the way here to tell you how low and mean I feel for
-taking Jane Hemingway's word instead of yours, and how plumb sorry I am.
-You and me may never meet again this side of the Seat of Judgment, and
-I'll say this if I never speak again. Ann, the only days of perfect
-happiness I ever had was here with you, and, if all of it was to do over
-again, I'd suffer torture by fire rather than believe you anything but
-an angel from heaven. Oh, Ann, it was just my poor, weak inferiority to
-you that made me misjudge you. If I'd ever been a _real_ man--a man
-worthy of a woman like you--I'd have snapped my fingers at all that was
-said, but I was obeying my laws, as you say. I simply wasn't deep enough
-nor high enough to do you justice."
-
-He drew the little gate ajar and dragged his tired feet through the
-opening. The fence was now between them. She looked down the road. A
-woman under a sun-bonnet and little shawl was coming towards them. By a
-strange fatality it was Jane Hemingway, but she was not to pass directly
-by them, as her path homeward turned sharply to the left a hundred yards
-below. They both recognized her.
-
-"I don't know fully what you mean, Joe," Ann said, softly, "but if you
-mean by what you just said that you'd be willing now to--to come
-back--if _that's_ what you mean, I'd have something to say that maybe,
-in justice to myself, I ought to say."
-
-"_Would_ I come back? Would I? Oh, Ann, how could you doubt that, when
-you see how miserable and sorry I feel. God knows I'd never feel worthy
-of you; but if you would--if you only could--let me stay, I--"
-
-"I couldn't consent to _that_, Joe--that's the point," Ann answered,
-firmly. "Anything else on earth but _that_. I expect to provide for
-Nettie in a substantial way, and I expect to have a lawyer make it one
-of the main conditions that her income depends on her good treatment of
-you as long as you and she live. I expect to do that, but the other
-matter is different. A woman of my stamp has her pride and her rights,
-Joe. I've been through a lot, but I can endure just so much and no more.
-If--if you _did_ come back, and we was married over again, it would go
-out to the world that you had taken _me_ back, and I couldn't stand
-that. My very womanhood rises up and cries out against that in a voice
-that rings clear to the end of truth and justice and woman's eternal
-rights. Joe, I'm too big and pure in _myself_ to let the world say a man
-who was--was--I'm going to say it--was little enough to doubt my word
-for the best part of my days had at last taken _me_ back--taken me back
-when my lonely life's sun was on the decline. No, no, never; for the
-sake of unborn girl infants who may have to meet what I fell under when
-I was too young to know the difference between the smile of hell and the
-smile of heaven, I say No! We'd better live out our days in loneliness
-apart--you frail and uncared for, and me on here without a friend or
-companion--than to sanction such a baleful thing as that."
-
-"Then I'll tell you what you let _me_ do," Boyd said, with a flare of
-his old youthful adoration in his face. "Let me get down on my knees,
-Ann, and crawl with my nose in the dust to everybody that we ever knew
-and tell them that I'd begged and begged for mercy, and at last Ann had
-taken _me_ back, weak and broken as I am--weak, ashamed, and unworthy,
-but back with her in the place I lost through my own narrowness and
-cowardice. Let me do that, Ann--oh, let me do that! I can't go away. I'd
-die without you. I've loved you all, all these years and had you in my
-mind night and day."
-
-Ann was looking at the ground. The blood had mounted red and warm into
-her face. Suddenly she glanced down the road. Jane Hemingway was just
-turning into the path leading to her home; her eyes were fastened on
-them. She paused and stood staring.
-
-"Poor thing!" Ann said, her moist, glad eyes fixed upon Jane. "She is as
-sorry and repentant as she can be. Her only hope right now, Joe, is that
-we'll make it up. She used to love you, too, Joe. You are the only man
-she ever did love. Let's wave our hands to her so she will understand
-that--we have come to an understanding."
-
-"Oh, Ann, do you mean--" But Ann, with a flushed, happy face, was waving
-her hand at her old enemy. As for Boyd, he lowered his head to the fence
-and sobbed.
-
-                                THE END
-
-
-
-
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