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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>
</div>
<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
</div>
<div class="container" id="pg-produced-by">
<p class="noindent pfirst">Produced by Roger Frank, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at <a class="reference external" href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>.</p>
<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="margin-left: 22%; width: 55%" id="figure-3">
<img style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="images/cover.jpg" src="images/cover.jpg" width="100%"/>
</div>
<div class="center line-block noindent outermost x-large">
<div class="line">A Novel</div>
<div class="line">By</div>
<div class="line">Will N. Harben</div>
</div>
<div class="center line-block noindent outermost x-large">
<div class="line">Author of</div>
<div class="line">"Abner Daniel" "Pole Baker"</div>
<div class="line">"The Georgians" etc.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">New York and London</div>
<div class="line">Harper & Brothers Publishers</div>
<div class="line">1906</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">Copyright, 1906, by <span class="small-caps">Harper & Brothers</span>.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line"><em class="italics">All rights reserved.</em></div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">Published September, 1906.</div>
</div>
<hr class="docutils"/>
<div class="center line-block noindent outermost x-large">
<div class="line">To</div>
<div class="line">William Dean Howells</div>
</div>
<hr class="docutils"/>
<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="margin-left: 30%; width: 40%" id="figure-4">
<img style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="'I RECKON IT WAS THE DIVINE INTENTION FOR ME AND YOU TO HAVE THIS SECRET BETWEEN US'" src="images/illus1.jpg" width="100%"/>
<div class="caption italics">
'I RECKON IT WAS THE DIVINE INTENTION FOR ME AND YOU TO HAVE THIS SECRET BETWEEN US'</div>
</div>
<hr class="docutils"/>
<div class="contents level-2 section" id="id1">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title">CONTENTS</h2>
<ul class="compact simple toc-list">
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#i" id="id2">I</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#ii" id="id3">II</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#iii" id="id4">III</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#iv" id="id5">IV</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#v" id="id6">V</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#vi" id="id7">VI</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#vii" id="id8">VII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#viii" id="id9">VIII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#ix" id="id10">IX</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#x" id="id11">X</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xi" id="id12">XI</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xii" id="id13">XII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xiii" id="id14">XIII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xiv" id="id15">XIV</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xv" id="id16">XV</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xvi" id="id17">XVI</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xvii" id="id18">XVII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xviii" id="id19">XVIII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xix" id="id20">XIX</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xx" id="id21">XX</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxi" id="id22">XXI</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxii" id="id23">XXII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxiii" id="id24">XXIII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxiv" id="id25">XXIV</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxv" id="id26">XXV</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxvi" id="id27">XXVI</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxvii" id="id28">XXVII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxviii" id="id29">XXVIII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxix" id="id30">XXIX</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxx" id="id31">XXX</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxi" id="id32">XXXI</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxii" id="id33">XXXII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxiii" id="id34">XXXIII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxiv" id="id35">XXXIV</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxv" id="id36">XXXV</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxvi" id="id37">XXXVI</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxvii" id="id38">XXXVII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxviii" id="id39">XXXVIII</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xxxix" id="id40">XXXIX</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xl" id="id41">XL</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xli" id="id42">XLI</a></span></li>
<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><span class="first"><a class="reference internal pginternal" href="#xlii" id="id43">XLII</a></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<hr class="docutils"/>
<p class="center pfirst x-large">Ann Boyd</p>
<div class="level-2 section" id="i">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id2">I</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">would</em> stir up a quiet community like
this."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">is</em> His. I
didn't know you were there. I didn't know a
friendly soul was nigh."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"And to think you was rewarded that way!"
answered Mrs. Waycroft; "it's a shame! Ann
Boyd, it's a dirty shame!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You say you haven't seen anybody since Sunday,"
remarked the loitering woman, in restrained,
tentative tones.</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, I've been right here. Why did you ask
me that?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"What did he say?" she asked. "You might
as well tell me."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.'"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">that</em>! He
said that <em class="italics">about me</em>!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But they <em class="italics">did</em> let it pass," said Mrs. Boyd, bitterly;
"they did let it pass, one and all."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, they all know you are the only white
woman that ever comes near me. But what else
did he say?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh no, of course not!" said Mrs. Waycroft,
"nobody said a word. They wouldn't have dared,
Ann."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="ii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id3">II</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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'."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I understand what I'm about, Abe Longley,
if you don't!" retorted the owner of the land.
"I <em class="italics">did</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">that</em>, 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">best</em> precepts."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">off</em>, are you?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, Mrs. Boyd," he broke in, "now don't go
and blame me for what Brother Bazemore said
when he was—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"<em class="italics">Brother</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="iii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id4">III</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, I see!" cried the drummer—"I understand
it now. I heard about that at Darley. So <em class="italics">she's</em>
the woman! Well, I'm glad <em class="italics">I</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But what was it all about?" the drummer inquired.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I've been wondering all along," the drummer
laughed. "I can see you're holding something up
your sleeve."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Did Colonel Chester's wife get onto it?" the
drummer wanted to know.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, go on with your story," urged the drummer.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Great goodness!" ejaculated the commercial
traveller.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Good gracious! that was tough, wasn't it?" exclaimed
the drummer.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"So she's really well off?" said the drummer.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"And has she had no associates at all?" Masters
wanted to know.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!'"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Lord, that was strong!" said Masters. "She
must be wonderful!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">own</em> child, and I understand she
hates the girl as much as she does her mother."</p>
<p class="pnext">A man had come into the store and stood leaning
against a show-case on the side devoted to groceries.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">The drummer had opened his sample-case on the
desk when Wilson came back.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You say the woman's husband took the child
away," remarked the drummer; "did he go far?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, so near as that! Then perhaps she has
seen her daughter and—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">me</em> 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.'"</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="iv">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id5">IV</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"See there!" she chuckled.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Pies?" he said, with an unctuous grin, as he
peered down into her pail.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I reckon folks are still talking about Ann Boyd
and her flouncing out of meeting like she did," the
widow remarked. "Well, that <em class="italics">was</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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
<em class="italics">one</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">that</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"<em class="italics">You</em> met her!" cried Mrs. Hemingway, aghast.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Virginia, what are you talking about?" cried
Mrs. Hemingway. "The idea of your standing up
for that woman, when—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Somehow, I think she knows where he is,"
Virginia said, thoughtfully, as she rose to put her
berries away.</p>
<p class="pnext">When she had gone, Sam laughed softly. "It's
a wonder to me that Virgie don't know whar Luke
is, <em class="italics">herself</em>," 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Sam laughed again as he knocked the ashes from
his pipe and cleaned the bowl with the tip of his
finger. "Well, '<em class="italics">that woman</em>,' 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"What's she done <em class="italics">now</em>?" asked the woman at the
churn, leaning forward eagerly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"She <em class="italics">did</em> slip up, as you say," remarked the
widow, "and she's been a raging devil ever since."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="v">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id6">V</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">then</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">know</em>?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"It's a mighty easy matter for <em class="italics">me</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You think you could tell if you—you looked at
it?" Jane asked, tremulously.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, if I didn't it would be the first case I
ever diagnosed improperly. Couldn't we go in the
house?"</p>
<p class="pnext">Jane hesitated. "I think I'd rather my folks
didn't know—that is, of course, if it <em class="italics">is</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I've seed a lots o' folks like you." The peddler
smiled. "But, if you don't mind tellin', where's
the thing located?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"So it really <em class="italics">is</em> one!" Jane breathed, despondently.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">Jane saw her error too late. It appeared to her
now in the bland twinkle of amused curiosity in the
stranger's face.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">Jane went into the house and sat down wearily.
Virginia was sewing at a western window, and
glanced at her in surprise.</p>
<p class="pnext">"What's the matter, mother?" she inquired, solicitously.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"He's not a graduated doctor," said Jane, gloomily.
"He doesn't know everything."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="vi">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id7">VI</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You didn't come to inquire about your boy,
then?" Ann said, curiously, "and yet here you are."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">did</em>
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 <em class="italics">did</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But," and the eyes of Ann Boyd flashed ominously,
"what have <em class="italics">you</em> come for? Not, surely, to
stand in my door and preach to me."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, I see!" and Ann Boyd smiled impulsively.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"That's all you'll say, then?" said the woman at
the step.</p>
<p class="pnext">"That's all I'll say."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, it's a comfort to know <em class="italics">that</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">everybody</em>. Gus Willard is my enemy,
but he's open and above-board."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="vii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id8">VII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">one</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">some</em> 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.'"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Langdon laughed impulsively as he lighted the
drummer's cigar. "And what did the old man say
to that?" he inquired.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!'"</p>
<p class="pnext">"You were always fond of the girls," Chester remarked
as he smoked. "Well, out here in the
country is no place for them."</p>
<p class="pnext">"No place for them! Huh, that's <em class="italics">your</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Virginia Hemingway," Chester said, coldly.
"Yes, she's pretty. There's no doubt about that."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You know her, then?" said the drummer, eagerly.
"Say, old man, introduce a fellow."</p>
<p class="pnext">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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I reckon Wilson knows the girl, doesn't
he?" the drummer said.</p>
<p class="pnext">Chester hesitated, a cold, steady gleam of the
displeasure he was trying to hide flashed in his
eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't know that he knows her well enough for
<em class="italics">that</em>," 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">is</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Sixty-five—best golden drip," was Wilson's
reply. "Fill your jug yourself; I'll take your word
for it."</p>
<p class="pnext">"All right, you make a ticket of it—jug holds two
gallons," said the customer, and he turned away.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Say, Wilson, just a minute," cried the drummer;
"do you mean that she—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You mean she has her fancies, then," said Masters,
in a tone of disappointment.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Chester? Why, the rascal pretended to me just
now that he hardly knew her."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, what are you going to do about it—even
if there <em class="italics">is</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">Masters stood motionless in the doorway, his eyes
on the dusty road that stretched on towards Jane
Hemingway's house.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, she's in bad, <em class="italics">bad</em> hands," he said; "and
she is the first—I really believe she's the first that
ever hit me this hard."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="viii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id9">VIII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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!</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">that's</em> it, is it? The young
scamp has picked <em class="italics">her</em> 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; <em class="italics">he'll</em> 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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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. <em class="italics">Then</em>, 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 <em class="italics">I</em>
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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Introduce him!" Virginia snapped. "I don't
want to know him. And so you stood there talking
about me!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You don't really care much for me," said Langdon—"that
is the whole thing in a nutshell."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I won't thank my stars if I don't go on home."
And Virginia laughed sweetly for the first time.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">would</em> 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 <em class="italics">could</em> 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 <em class="italics">some</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">that woman's</em> child!"</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="ix">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id10">IX</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">The other woman smiled sheepishly under her
gingham bonnet.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, then, I've come to tell you that I'm going
over to Gilmer to-morrow to see my brother and his
wife."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Ah, you say you are!" Ann showed surprise
against her will. "Gilmer?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">The two women stood staring at each other in silence
for a moment, then Ann shrugged her powerful
shoulders and averted her eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"That wasn't <em class="italics">all</em> you come to say," she said, almost
tremulously.</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, it wasn't, Ann; I admit it wasn't <em class="italics">all</em>—not
quite all."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Huh! you needn't bother about <em class="italics">that</em>," said Ann,
her lips quivering. "I reckon I don't need sympathy
in that direction."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But I <em class="italics">did</em> 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 <em class="italics">had</em>
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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann Boyd's features were working, a soft flush
had come into her tanned cheeks, her hard mouth
had become more flexible.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Do you think that, Mary? Do you think she'd
take anything—a single thing from my hands?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I believe, Ann, that I could do it for you in such
a way that——"</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, nobody could do it; it isn't to be done!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann Boyd held her breath; her face became fixed
in suspense. She leaned forward, her great eyes
staring eagerly at her neighbor.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"She's no better nor no worse, I reckon," said
Ann, "than the general run of girls."</p>
<p class="pnext">"There goes Langdon Chester on his prancing
horse," said Mrs. Waycroft. "Oh, my! that <em class="italics">was</em>
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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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:</p>
<p class="pnext">"When did you say you'd be back?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Thursday, at twelve o'clock, or thereabouts,"
was the ready reply.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, take good care of yourself," said Ann.
"That will be a long, hot ride over a rough road
there and back."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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
<em class="italics">maybe</em>—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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="x">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id11">X</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">The pedestrian paused and then turned in her
course and came closer.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You've heard from my boy?" she said, eagerly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">you</em> say so, why—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I <em class="italics">do</em> say so," said Ann, in a tone which
sounded strange and compromising even to herself.
"I <em class="italics">do</em> say so; I don't want your husband to lose his
job. Luke wouldn't like for you to suffer, either,
Mrs. Bruce."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Tell him what you want to," Ann answered,
and she returned to her house.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Even if she <em class="italics">did</em> 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 <em class="italics">does</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You might as well let me out here," the widow
said. "I'll walk back with Mrs. Boyd."</p>
<p class="pnext">The wagon was lumbering on its way when Ann
turned her set face, down which drops of perspiration
were rolling, towards her approaching friend.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Me? Oh no, but I reckon I'm about pegged out
with all I've done this morning. Don't I look tired?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"It's going to be <em class="italics">hard</em> for you, then?" Ann's
impulsive voice sounded hollow; her face had suddenly
grown pale. "I know what <em class="italics">that</em> means. It
means that Joe set his foot down against me and—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You go ahead, do you hear me? You blaze
away. I can stand under fire. I'm no kitten. Go
ahead, I tell you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">every word the girl said</em>, every look, every
bat of the eye, every sneer. I'm prepared. You
talk plain—<em class="italics">plain</em>, I tell you!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I see I'll <em class="italics">have</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"On account of me?" said Ann, under her breath.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Underhand?" Ann exclaimed. "What did she
mean by that, pray? What could the old she-cat
mean by—"</p>
<p class="pnext">Mrs. Waycroft drew her sun-bonnet down over
her eyes. She took a deep breath. "Ann, she's a
<em class="italics">terrible</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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
<em class="italics">maybe</em>—you understand, <em class="italics">maybe</em>—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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"What is it you say you see?" the visitor asked,
curiously.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, nothing!" Ann said, and she sat down
heavily in her chair and tightly locked her calloused
hands in front of her.</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xi">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id12">XI</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"This land isn't yours," Jane Hemingway asserted,
almost frothing at the mouth. "It belongs
to Jim Sansom."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't want to talk to you," she managed to
say, almost in a tone of appeal.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">listening</em>?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, I'm listening," faltered Jane Hemingway,
her face hidden under her bonnet.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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
<em class="italics">thought</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id13">XII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Hush, for God's sake, hush!" Jane groaned.
"Don't you see I'm unable to stand?"</p>
<p class="pnext">In sheer astonishment Virginia turned her head
and noticed her mother's pale, long-drawn face.
"What is it, mother, are you sick?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You think, then, that it really <em class="italics">is</em> a cancer?"
gasped the girl, and she turned pale.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Do you feel that?" he asked.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, and it hurts some when you do that."</p>
<p class="pnext">"How long have you had it thar?" he paused
in his examination to ask, peering over the rims of
his spectacles.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I noticed it first about a year ago, but thought
nothing much about it," she answered.</p>
<p class="pnext">"And never showed it to nobody?" he said, reprovingly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">me</em> by law, and kicking <em class="italics">me</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Then—then that's what it is?" faltered Mrs.
Hemingway.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh yes, that's what you've got, all right
enough," said Evans, "and the thing now is to
uproot it."</p>
<p class="pnext">"How—how much would it be likely to cost?"
the widow asked, her troubled glance on Virginia's
horror-stricken face.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But where am I to get that much money?" Jane
said, despondently.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">When he had left, Virginia, horror-stricken, sat
staring at her mother, a terrible fear in her face and
eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Then it really <em class="italics">is</em> a cancer?" she gasped.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xiii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id14">XIII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Luke King!" she exclaimed. "You, of all people
on the face of the earth!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, Aunt Ann"—he had always addressed
her in that way—"here I am, like a bad coin, always
turning up."</p>
<p class="pnext">The yellow bunches of wool fell to the floor as
she rose up and held out her hand.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Homesickness, for <em class="italics">this</em>?" 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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, it's really not so bad as that," King hastened
to say. "The truth is—though I really <em class="italics">was</em>
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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Ah, they did, eh?" Ann's eye for business was
gleaming. "They offered you as good as you had?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">are</em> going
to see your mother?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">have</em> to, but don't let them
wheedle your justly earned money out of you. They
don't deserve it, Luke."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">be</em> the best."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Ah, you <em class="italics">were</em> in a fix!" Ann said. "That is, it
was awkward for you, who I know to be almost too
sincere for your own good."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, hush, Luke," Ann said, huskily—"hush
up!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Hush, Luke, hush—you are a good boy, but
you mustn't—" Ann's voice broke, and she placed
her hand to her eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.'"</p>
<p class="pnext">There was a pause. Ann seemed to be trying to
crush out some obstruction to deliberate utterance
in her big, throbbing throat.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">that</em>, 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You think not, my boy?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">real</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"That's it, Aunt Ann," Luke King said, seriously—"it
won't be anything earthly. It will be <em class="italics">heavenly</em>,
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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"The price of what, Aunt Ann?" he asked, wonderingly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">me</em>,
Aunt Ann, your barefoot, adopted son."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann's head was hanging low as she walked back
to the cottage door.</p>
<p class="pnext">"'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 <em class="italics">all</em>-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 <em class="italics">is</em> odd."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xiv">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id15">XIV</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"By Jacks, it's Luke King!" After that ejaculation
of the old man he and the others stared speechlessly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Pretty well." King removed his valise from
the bench and took its place wearily.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Is that so? Things is worse than ever here.
Whar have you been hangin' out?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Seattle was the last place," King answered.
"I've worked in several towns since I left here."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"That's about all."</p>
<p class="pnext">"What you been followin'?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Doing newspaper work," replied the young man,
coloring.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I 'lowed you might keep at that. You used to
git a dollar a day at Canton, I remember. Married?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"No."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">At this juncture Mary returned. She flushed as
she caught King's expectant glance. She spoke to
her father.</p>
<p class="pnext">"She said tell 'im to come in thar."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, Luke!" she said, quickly, "what on earth
do you mean? Have you gone plumb crazy?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"What you want, ma?" The nearness of the
speaker in the adjoining room betrayed the fact
that she had been listening.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">have</em> heard of printin'-men that went off owin'
accounts here an' yan."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Mary," she asked, "have you put on the supper?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xv">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id16">XV</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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!</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">A figure appeared in the doorway. It was his
mother, and she was coming to search for him.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Here I am, mother!" he cried out, gently, as
she advanced through the darkness; "look out and
don't get your feet wet."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">King looked past her at the full moon rising above
the trees on the mountain-top.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You think they could, mother?" His heart
bounded suddenly, and he stood staring thoughtfully
into her eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I remember the farm and the old house very
well," King remarked, reflectively, the queer light
still in his earnest eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"The <em class="italics">old</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"We'd better go in, mother," he said, abruptly.
"You'll catch your death of cold out here in the
dew."</p>
<p class="pnext">She laughed as they walked back to the cabin,
side by side. A thick smoke and its unpleasant odor
met them at the door.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Whar you going?" Mrs. Bruce asked, as she followed
Luke to the door.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xvi">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id17">XVI</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Have you entirely forgotten me, Virginia?" he
asked, advancing almost with instinctive caution
towards her.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"She <em class="italics">wanted</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, mother often declared it was so, and then—"
She broke off, her color rising slightly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"And, then, Virginia—?" he reminded her, eagerly.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I really thought if you <em class="italics">had</em> been alive
you'd have come back to your mother. You would
have written, anyway. She's been in a pitiful condition,
Mr. King."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk that way," the
girl answered. "It would make her so happy to
have help from you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, in my eyes it is the first, almost the <em class="italics">whole</em>
of one's duty in life," Virginia replied. "I hardly
have a moment's happiness now, owing to my mother's
failing health."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, I was sorry to hear she was afflicted," said
King. "She's up and about, though, I believe."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I got interested in looking over the Dickerson
farm," he replied, "and before I realized it the sun
was almost down."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, I did. The fact is, Dickerson remembered
me, and made me go to dinner with him; but I'm
ready to eat again."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">There was a queer, boyish tremor in Luke King's
voice when he began to speak, and it vibrated there
till he had finished.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">I</em> kin read
writin'."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Is that you, mother?" he asked.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"It's all right," he assured her. "I wasn't asleep,
anyway."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Somehow you keep talkin' like you don't intend
to stay long," she said, tentatively.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, she's a good woman, mother."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xvii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id18">XVII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Open the door, Ann," he said, simply. "I want
to see you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Huh, you <em class="italics">do</em>, 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I want to see you, Ann," he repeated, simply.
"I've been riding since dinner, and just got here;
my hoss is lame."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, it's about the child!" Ann breathed more
freely. "Well, wait a minute, till I make a light."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Let the door stand open," she said, harshly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh," he grunted, stupidly, "I didn't know but
somebody passin' along the road might—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">me</em>."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You said it was about the child," Ann reminded
him. "Ain't she well?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, what is it?" Ann asked.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"<em class="italics">Yes, you took her off!</em>" Ann straightened up,
and a sneer touched her set features; there was a
sarcastic, almost triumphant cry of vindictiveness in
her tone.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, I see!" said Ann. "She's going about, too,
with—she's bein' courted by some feller or other."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You thought I could help her out in her courting?"
Ann sneered, and yet beneath her sneer lay
an almost eager curiosity.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">business</em> woman, and a <em class="italics">successful</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, <em class="italics">won't</em> it?" Ann demanded.</p>
<p class="pnext">Boyd lowered his shaggy head. There was a
piteous flicker of despair in the lashes of the eyes
Ann had once loved so well.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">my</em> fault."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">The farmer raised a pair of shifting eyes to the
piercing orbs above him, and then looked down.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I believe she did something of the sort, Ann," he
said, reluctantly, "but, you see—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I see nothing but <em class="italics">this</em>," 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I didn't say <em class="italics">that</em>," Boyd said, heavily stricken
by the combined force of her tone and words. "The—the
whole thing's for <em class="italics">you</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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. <em class="italics">His</em> cup! What <em class="italics">was</em> His cup? Just death—that's
all; but <em class="italics">this</em> 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 <em class="italics">does</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, I know all that, Ann, but this is no time or
place to—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"But it's <em class="italics">got</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I suppose so." Ann's lips were white; there was
a wild, hunted look in her great, staring eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Hold on!" Boyd said, turning his slow glance
upon her. "Excuse me, but there's one thing we
haven't thought of."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann looked up from the paper questioningly.
"What is that?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I understand," Ann broke in—"they would know
I had a hand in it."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, they would know that, of course, if I made
use of that particular check."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't <em class="italics">usually</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">He obeyed, rising stiffly from his chair and reaching
for his worn slouch hat.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Good-bye, Ann," he grunted, as he mounted his
horse. "I'll see that this matter goes through
right."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xviii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id19">XVIII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You did that, father? Why—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Of course I did it. I can't put up with your
extravagance and damnable habits, and I don't intend
to."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<hr class="docutils"/>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Come out here," he said, in a soft, guarded
voice. "I want to see you."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"It must be lonely," Virginia said, trying to be
pleasant and to throw off her despondency.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried, "if he only <em class="italics">would</em>!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"When do you—you think your father will
write?" she asked, her voice low, her soul almost
shrieking in joy.</p>
<p class="pnext">"That depends," said Chester. "You see, he
may not get at the matter <em class="italics">the very day</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">is</em> 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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">your</em> 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—<em class="italics">exactly
to a gnat's heel</em>!"</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xix">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id20">XIX</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Huh, I reckon so!" Ann ejaculated, off her usual
guard, and then she lapsed into discreet silence again.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Huh! he's got no money to give away," slipped
again from Ann's too facile lips, "and if he <em class="italics">did</em> have
it, he wouldn't—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">does</em> mean to marry her."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I reckon so," Ann said. "I reckon so. Such
things have been known to happen."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, that wasn't the end," she said, tentatively.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I'll not talk it," Ann said. "It will be safe
with me."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">bet I'll</em> call. I'll send in <em class="italics">my</em> card. Me'n'
you'll be on a level then, and we'll owe it to the
self-same high and mighty source."</p>
<p class="pnext">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—</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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
<em class="italics">was</em> 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 <em class="italics">her</em>!"
she whispered. "It's her, and she's headed for
everlasting doom if ever a creature walked into a
net of damnation."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xx">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id21">XX</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, it's you, Luke!" Ann cried, trying to collect
herself, after the start he had given her.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">was</em> scared.
Things do once in a while happen here in the mountains,
and—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, well, nothing was the matter with me,"
Ann smiled. "Besides, I can take care of myself."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I know it, Luke, and I'm glad," Ann said, her
mind still on the things she had just witnessed.</p>
<p class="pnext">"But you haven't yet forgiven me for giving my
people that farm. I can see that by your manner."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I thought it was foolish," she replied.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">have</em> 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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Ah, I know," King sighed. "You are trying
to make yourself believe you are glad Mrs. Hemingway
is in such agony over her affliction."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I didn't say anything about her affliction."
Ann stared half fearfully into his honest face.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, is <em class="italics">that</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">here</em>, do you understand, to find
her the loveliest full-grown human flower that ever
bloomed in God's spiritual sunshine."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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,
<em class="italics">never</em>!"</p>
<p class="pnext">Their eyes met in a long, steady stare.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You love that girl!" Ann gasped; "<em class="italics">that girl!</em>"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">my wife</em>!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You <em class="italics">are</em> 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
<em class="italics">are</em> a fool—an idiot, if there ever was one!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Stop, talk sense, if you <em class="italics">will</em> 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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You wouldn't let a—a thing like that—" Ann
began, anxiously, "a thing like that ruin your whole
life, when—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Jane Hemingway's <em class="italics">daughter</em>!" Ann Boyd groaned.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"How could I help you, even—even—oh, you
don't know, you don't know that at this very
minute—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You are asking too much of me, Luke," Ann
groaned, almost in piteous appeal. "I can't do it—I
just <em class="italics">can't</em>!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxi">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id22">XXI</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">I</em> 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, <em class="italics">I won't</em>!
She can look out for herself, even if it <em class="italics">does</em> ruin an
idiot of a man and pull him—It really <em class="italics">would</em> ruin
him, though. Maybe it would ruin <em class="italics">me</em>. 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—<em class="italics">the only law of life</em>!
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
<em class="italics">want</em> to do. That's it—I don't
know which I <em class="italics">want</em> 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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Get in the rig nothing!" Masters laughed. "We
are going to spend the night here, aren't we, Dick?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Thank God," Ann said, aloud.</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia heard, sat as if stunned for an instant,
and then with a stare of bewilderment looked up.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh!" she gasped. "I thought it was—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, how can you ask me such an
awful—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia rose to her feet and clutched Ann's
strong arm convulsively.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, if you only knew <em class="italics">why</em> I came, you'd not have
the heart to think me absolutely bad. Mrs. Boyd,
as God is my Judge, I came because he—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">They had reached the threshold of the chamber
when Virginia drew back suddenly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">he</em> locked the door!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I know that, too," Ann retorted, impatiently.
"Didn't I have to turn the key to get in? But we've
<em class="italics">got</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Go back to your game, boys!" Langdon commanded,
with desperate coolness. "I'll show you
the house after a while. Finish your game!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"He threatened you with this, didn't he?" Ann
asked, holding it before her with the easy clasp of
an expert.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, Mrs. Boyd—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann broke off to listen. The door of the drawing-room
seemed to be opened again, and as quickly
closed.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia caught Ann's arm. "You are not going
to shoot—" she began, nervously.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Not unless I <em class="italics">have</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Thank God," Ann muttered, as if to herself.
"Now come on, let's hustle out into the shelter of
the woods."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Never you mind what <em class="italics">I</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">knew</em>—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">did</em> risk it, and
have come away empty-handed. I'm safe, but my
poor mother—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"And you never thought of yourself, poor child!"
slipped impulsively from Ann's firm lips. "Yes,
yes, I believe that."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But, Mrs. Boyd, I—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia hesitated for a moment, and then, without
speaking again, and with her head hanging down,
she turned homeward.</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id23">XXII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">As Ann Boyd reached the veranda, on
her return to the house, loud and
angry voices came from the parlor
through an open window.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Blast you, I believe it <em class="italics">was</em> 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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Look here, Masters," a new voice broke in, "you
<em class="italics">are</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Take him on, take him on!" cried Chester.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, I'm going all right!" growled Masters.
"And I'm not drunk either. My judgment of you
is sober-headed enough. You—"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"The puppy!" Ann heard him muttering. "I
ought to have slapped his meddlesome mouth."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Marse Langdon, you dar?" a voice sounded.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, Aunt Maria." The young planter spoke
with ill-disguised impatience. "What is it?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">His hand was on the big brass handle when, in a calm
voice, Ann addressed him:</p>
<p class="pnext">"I want a word with you, Mr. Chester," she said,
and she moved towards him, the revolver hanging
at her side.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Who are you?" he managed to articulate.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I didn't want to see your father," Ann snarled,
angrily. "My business is with you, my fine young
man, and nobody else."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Me?" he gasped, in growing surprise. "Me?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">is</em> 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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Don't, don't point that thing at me!" he cried.
"I don't want trouble with you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, you get that shawl then, and be quick
about it."</p>
<p class="pnext">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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"And your hellish cake would be dough!" Ann
sneered. "Oh, I see, but that isn't getting the
shawl."</p>
<p class="pnext">He took another slow step, his eyes upon her
face, and paused.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't want to be misunderstood," Chester said,
in an all but conciliatory tone, as he took a slow,
upward step.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, you bet there's no danger of me not understanding
you," Ann sneered. "Get that shawl."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"There it is," he said, sullenly. "Leave my revolver
on the steps."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">From the window of his room above, Langdon
watched her as she passed through the gate and disappeared
on the lonely road.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxiii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id24">XXIII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I hope your mother wasn't awake last night
when you got back," Ann said.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Then she don't know," Ann put in.</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, she don't suspect, Mrs. Boyd. If she did,
she'd die, and so would I."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I don't see as she is likely to know—<em class="italics">ever</em>,
as long as she lives," Ann said, in a crude attempt
at comfort-giving.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I fancied you'd <em class="italics">want</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">that</em> do you any good? It's the same,
you see, as if it had never really taken place."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But it <em class="italics">did</em> take place!" Virginia said, despondently.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, I came to look for the cow," said Virginia.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I think I'd better take it back," Virginia replied.
"She wears it herself sometimes and might miss it."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, don't thank <em class="italics">me</em>, 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Drink this," she said. "If what I hear is true,
you don't get any too much to eat and drink over
your way."</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia took it and sipped it daintily, but with
evident relish.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh no, I thank you," Virginia protested; "I
really couldn't."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But I know you <em class="italics">can</em>," 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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I'm asking you a simple, plain question," Ann
reminded her.</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, I don't," Virginia answered, haltingly;—"that
is, not now, not—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I'm afraid, now, that I never really loved him,"
Virginia said, a catch in her voice.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"As God is my Judge, Mrs. Boyd, that's all I went
for," Virginia said, her earnest eyes staring steadily
at her companion.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Luke King!" Virginia exclaimed, softly, and
then she impulsively placed her hand on her lips
and sat staring at the speaker, almost breathlessly
alert.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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
<em class="italics">you</em>."</p>
<p class="pnext">"About <em class="italics">me</em>? Oh no," Virginia gasped.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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,
<em class="italics">me</em>, 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia rose, put the plate on the table, and, with
her face full of emotion, she impulsively put her
arms around Ann's neck.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You are the best woman on earth," she said,
huskily, "and I love you—I can't help it. I love
you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, I reckon you don't do <em class="italics">that</em>," Ann said, coloring
to the roots of her heavy hair. "That wouldn't
be possible."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But I <em class="italics">do</em>, I tell you, I <em class="italics">do</em>," 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, you let that take care of itself," Ann said,
accompanying Virginia to the door.</p>
<p class="pnext">She stood there, her red hands folded under her
apron, and watched the girl move slowly across the
meadow after the plodding cow.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Sneaking?" echoed Mrs. Waycroft.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You <em class="italics">don't say</em>! How did you drop onto that?"
gasped Mrs. Waycroft.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Huh, that <em class="italics">is</em> a surprise!" said Mrs. Waycroft.
"Well, she is fortunate, Ann. He's a fine young
man."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxiv">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id25">XXIV</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"What's the matter <em class="italics">now</em>, child?" she asked.</p>
<p class="pnext">The girl turned suddenly and flushed to the roots
of her hair, but she made no response.</p>
<p class="pnext">"What's gone wrong?" Ann pursued, anxiously.
"Don't tell me your mother has found out
about—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"She hain't worse, is she?" Ann asked.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"And the cost, if I understood right," said Ann—"the
cost, first and last, would foot up to about a
hundred dollars."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, that's what it would take," Virginia sighed.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You ought to be ashamed to be in it, when she's
down," said Virginia, warmly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I <em class="italics">am</em>," Ann admitted. "I <em class="italics">am</em>. 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"To think this would come to me!" she muttered
once. "<em class="italics">Me!</em> God knows it looks like my work
t'other night was far enough out of my regular
track without—huh!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">full</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann paused; she was holding something tightly
clasped in her hand, and not looking at Virginia.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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, <em class="italics">and that person is me</em>."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You? Oh no, Mrs. Boyd!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I couldn't think of—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I'll do that," Virginia finally agreed. "I
know I can do that."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">me</em>—never while the sun shines from the
sky."</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, she won't suspect you," Virginia admitted,
and with a grateful, backward look she moved
away.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">me!</em> huh! when it's been <em class="italics">her</em> all this time that
has been at the bottom of the devilment."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxv">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id26">XXV</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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 <em class="italics">me</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.'"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, what did the person tell you?" Sam asked,
as both he and the bowed wreck at the fire stared
through the red glow.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Crazy?" he said. "I <em class="italics">know</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"It looks and feels like money!" panted the widow.
"Hurry up with the light. I wonder if my
prayer has been heard at last."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Hearing it and answering are two different
things; the whole neighborhood has <em class="italics">heard</em> it often
enough," growled Sam, as he fumed impatiently
over the hot coals, fairly hidden in a stifling cloud
of tallow-smoke.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Ten-dollar bills!" she cried. "Oh, count 'em,
Sam! I can't. They stick together, she's wadded
'em so tight."</p>
<p class="pnext">With almost painful deliberation Sam counted
the money, licking his rough thumb as he raised
each bill.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Virginia, who gave you this money?" Mrs.
Hemingway asked, her face abeam, her eyes gleaming
with joy.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You do?" exclaimed the widow. "Who do you
think it was, Sam?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">did</em> have
a hankering for Virginia, anyway. Hain't I seen
them two—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">While the girl was busy preparing the cornmeal
dough in a wooden bread-tray, her mother walked
about excitedly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">me</em> a cancer,
and talk about it till folks pay me to hush."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxvi">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id27">XXVI</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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:</p>
<p class="pnext">"Wait, Virginia! Don't run. I have a message
for you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"For me?" she faltered, and with unaccountable
misgivings she stood still.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, you saw her, then!" Virginia said, more at
ease.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, that was very good of you!" Virginia said.
"I'm so glad you met her."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">They were now in the house, and Virginia had
lighted a candle and he had taken a seat near the
open door.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"If <em class="italics">anybody</em> can?—yes," she sighed.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Your own mother was not quite well recently,"
Virginia said, considerately. "I hope she is no
worse."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, she's on her feet again," he laughed, "as
lively as a cricket, moving about bossing that big
place."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, I thought, seeing you back so—so soon,"
the girl stammered; "I thought that you had perhaps
heard—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">There was a moment's hesitation on his part;
then he raised his head and looked frankly into her
eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">did</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"And you did all that simply to tell me about my
mother?" Virginia said. "Why, she could have
written."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I'm glad to hear from her," said Virginia. "It
is only because I did not want to put you to so
much trouble."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, I remember," Virginia answered, almost
oblivious of the clinging, invisible current which
seemed to be sweeping them together.</p>
<p class="pnext">He drew a deep breath, as if to take in courage for
what he had to say, and then went on:</p>
<p class="pnext">"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
<em class="italics">you</em>."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Then she turned towards him. She seemed to
have grown older and stronger since he began speaking
so earnestly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You must not think of me that way any longer,"
she sighed. "You mustn't neglect your work to
come to see me, either."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You will never be my wife, then, Virginia?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, I could never be that, Luke—no, not that—never
on earth."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You have a good reason, I am sure of that,"
he said, huskily.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I'm glad to hear you say that," King said. "I
knew if anybody did her justice it would be you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You think you know!" she whispered.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Good-bye," he said, from the gate.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Good-bye, Luke," she said, impulsively.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"He thinks he knows," she muttered, "but he
doesn't dream the <em class="italics">whole</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxvii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id28">XXVII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I meant no harm," he found himself articulating,
almost in utter bewilderment. "I only
thought that somebody passing might—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I didn't mean to offend you," he stammered, at
the end of his resources; "but I've been utterly
miserable, Virginia."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh! is that so?" she sneered.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"In the name of Heaven, stop!" Virginia cried.
"I simply will not stand here and talk about that."</p>
<p class="pnext">"But I have the money still," he said, feebly.
"You kept your word in coming for it, and I want
to keep mine."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">did</em> 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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">She suddenly covered her impassioned face with
her hands and shook convulsively from head to
foot.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"That's all <em class="italics">you</em> 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 <em class="italics">to get your
money</em>, I did what I'll never wipe from my memory."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">that</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Chester drew his brows together in sudden suspicion.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">He was now white with rage. His lower lip hung
and twitched nervously.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxviii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id29">XXVIII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Ah, just in time!" Ann held the sheet in her
tense hands for a moment, and then crushed it into
her capacious lap. "Then <em class="italics">she's</em> all right."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">you</em>, 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia sank into a chair. She was flushed from
her white, rounded neck to the roots of her hair.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann suddenly raised her sheet and folded it in her
lap. Her face had softened; there was a wonderful
spiritual radiance in her eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You have <em class="italics">made</em> me love you," Virginia said,
simply. "I could not help myself."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann looked straight at the girl from her moist,
beaming eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">own</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"That <em class="italics">is</em> queer," said Virginia, thoughtfully.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You know why I refused him," Virginia said,
in a low voice. "You, of all persons, will know that."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Love him? I loathe him!" burst passionately
from Virginia's lips.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Then what under the sun made you treat Luke
King as you did?" asked Ann, almost sternly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, <em class="italics">that's</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You told me everything that happened that
night, if I remember right," she said, tentatively.
"In fact, I know you did."</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia said nothing; her thoughts seemed elsewhere.</p>
<p class="pnext">Leaning the tongs against the fireplace, Ann came
forward and bent over her almost excitedly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Look here, child," she said, "you told me that—that
I got there in time. You told me—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 '<em class="italics">a promise</em>,' and I said
yes again. Then he asked me, Mrs. Boyd, he asked
me—"</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia's voice died out. She fell to quivering
from head to foot.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, well, go on!" Ann said, under her breath.
"Go on. What did he ask you?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You did?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes. I did—there, <em class="italics">in his room</em>!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I'm glad you told me that," Ann breathed,
deeply. "I think I understand it better now. I
understand how you feel."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann locked her big hands in her lap and bent
forward.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">bodies</em> and so little of the strength of
their <em class="italics">souls</em>. 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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxix">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id30">XXIX</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why did you think that?" Langdon asked, after
the negro had put down his bag and gone.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"We didn't actually have the <em class="italics">row</em>," 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, what do you mean?" the bachelor asked,
in alarm. "He looked all right when he got here."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, of course," Sively said; "and where did he
go?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Have you any idea where he is now?" Sively
inquired, anxiously.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Drinking?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxx">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id31">XXX</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, you are back, are you?" he said, awkwardly,
flicking the ashes of his cigar over a tray.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, I see," said Sively, who was too deeply
versed in human nature to be misled.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"There," he smiled, "this will suit you better,
I know."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Nervous? Do you think so? Do I look it?"
Chester asked.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Certainly, sir."</p>
<p class="pnext">Langdon, with widening eyes, watched the negro
as he went out and closed the door, then he glanced
at his cousin inquiringly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Me? Good gracious!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">Langdon flushed and stared defiantly across the
table into the fixed eyes of his cousin for a moment,
and then he looked down.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Then, as I supposed, it is <em class="italics">not</em> your father," said
Sively.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"What's the trouble, my boy?" pursued Sively.
"I want to befriend you if I can. I'm older than
you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I <em class="italics">am</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Great God!" he exclaimed; "and it was <em class="italics">that</em> girl—that
particular one—Jane Hemingway's daughter!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"You've seen her, then?" Langdon said, in
awakening surprise.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't exactly see—I don't understand—"
Langdon began, but his cousin interrupted him.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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. <em class="italics">Crime!</em>—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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, don't be a fool, Langdon!" Sively said,
suddenly pulled around. "Never think of such a
thing again. When a man that <em class="italics">is</em> a man does a
wrong, there is only one thing for him to do, and
that is to set it right."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Set it right? But how?" Langdon cried, almost
eagerly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">love</em> that girl, really and
genuinely <em class="italics">love</em> her?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, I think I do," said Langdon; "in fact, I
now <em class="italics">know</em> it; if I didn't, why should I be here miserable
enough to die about what has happened and
her later treatment of me?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't know what <em class="italics">she'd</em> 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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">asking</em> to be introduced to him,
and—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"But why are you telling all this stuff to me?"
Langdon thundered, as he rose angrily to signify
that he was ready to go.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why do I?" Sively said, pacifically. "Because
you've simply got to know the genuine strength of
your rival, if he <em class="italics">is</em> 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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"What do you mean? What did you start to
say?" Langdon glared down at his cousin.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, the whole thing lies with you," said Sively.
"The girl must have cared <em class="italics">something</em> 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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxi">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id32">XXXI</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"What <em class="italics">I</em> can't understand," remarked old Mrs.
Penuckle, "is why you don't say more about the
cutting. Why, the knife wasn't going into <em class="italics">me</em> 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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.'"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, go on and tell us about the cutting," said
Mrs. Penuckle, wholly oblivious of Sam's sarcasm.
"That's what <em class="italics">I</em> come to hear about."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"There's only one person round here that's <em class="italics">got</em>
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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, who do you mean, Sam?" His sister-in-law
fell into his trap, as she sat staring at him
blandly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">experts</em>, 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Huh! I never gave any opinion on how long
you'd live, that I know of," Ann said, sharply.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Now, I know <em class="italics">that's</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Huh! he said you just had a stiff arm," said Ann.
"I wasn't alluding to that at all."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You say you wasn't, then what was you talking
about? I'd like to know."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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? <em class="italics">Could</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You think you know lots," she found herself
saying, mechanically.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I know what I <em class="italics">know</em>!" 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">this</em> take hold of
me and worry me night and day like the cancer
did."</p>
<p class="pnext">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?</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Let me have it," Virginia said. "I must parch
it and grind it for supper. The coffee is all out."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">your</em> blood any
thinner than them doctors left it. Right now you
look as flabby and limber as a wet rag. What ails
you, <em class="italics">anyway</em>?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id33">XXXII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Don't run, Virginia—for God's sake don't run!"
he said, humbly. "I simply <em class="italics">must</em> speak to you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"To be your wife!" she gasped. "Me—you—<em class="italics">we</em>
marry—you and I? Live together, as—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">He advanced towards her, his hand extended to
clasp hers, but she suddenly drew back.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I couldn't think of marrying you," she said,
almost under her breath. "I couldn't under any
possible circumstances."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"That's the way <em class="italics">you</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">are</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I'll look after <em class="italics">that</em> 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. <em class="italics">I'll</em> open his eyes."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">seen</em> her; but <em class="italics">shall</em>
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 <em class="italics">once</em>,
but she won't <em class="italics">now</em>. 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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxiii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id34">XXXIII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I happened to see you leave your house and
come this way," Virginia said, somewhat embarrassed,
"and so I—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I see; I reckon your mother—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, it's not about her," Virginia interrupted.
"In fact, it's something that I could not confide in
her."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann hung her head for a moment, almost sheepishly
kicking a cotton-stalk from its mellow hill
with the toe of her shoe.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Don't bother about that," Virginia said, sweetly.
"I know how she can exasperate any one."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I wanted to tell you," Virginia said, "that ever
since Langdon Chester got back from Atlanta he
has been trying to meet me, and—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"The dirty scamp!" Ann broke in, angrily. "I
told him if he ever dared to—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Marry him? Why, child, you don't mean <em class="italics">that</em>—surely
you don't mean—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">foul</em> 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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, I refused him," Virginia answered.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You did? You don't tell me! And how did his
high and mighty lordship take that, I wonder?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"You couldn't do a wrong thing to save your
life," said Virginia, putting out her hand and taking
that of her companion.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 '<em class="italics">somebody</em>'
could possibly be Luke King?"</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia flushed and nodded. "He seemed to
think so, Mrs. Boyd."</p>
<p class="pnext">Ann sighed. She was still holding Virginia's hand,
and she now began timidly to caress it as it lay on
her knee.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia withdrew her hand and swept it across
her face, as if to brush away the flush upon it.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxiv">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id35">XXXIV</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"What are you about now?" his sister-in-law
asked, as she appeared in the doorway of the
kitchen.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Sam, what do you mean?" The widow, in no
little alarm, came towards him, her eyes fixed
steadily on his.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't believe a word of it," Jane gasped, turning
pale. "It might have been Virginia with somebody
else, but not <em class="italics">that</em> woman."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">get killed</em>, you may go
look for yourself. If you'll slip through the thicket,
you can come up on 'em unbeknownst."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">do,
do</em> let me!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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—<em class="italics">mine</em>, 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Never you mind about that," Jane said. "You
remember what I said and don't meddle with what
doesn't concern you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxv">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id36">XXXV</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Is there anything I can do, mother?" she inquired.</p>
<p class="pnext">There was a pause. Mrs. Hemingway did not
look up. In some surprise, Virginia repeated her
question, and then Jane said, calmly and deliberately:</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes; there is something you can do. You can
get out of my sight, and <em class="italics">keep</em> out of it. When I
want anything from you, I'll call on you."</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia paused, dumfounded, and then passed
out into the yard and approached her uncle.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Can you tell me," she asked, "if anything has
gone wrong with mother?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't think that's it," said Sam, impulsively;
"the truth is, Virginia, she—" He pulled himself up.
"But maybe that <em class="italics">is</em> it. Anyway, I'd let her alone."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Supper is on the table, mother," she said; "do
you want anything?"</p>
<p class="pnext">There was a sudden creaking of the bed-slats, a
pause, then, in a sullen, husky voice, Jane answered,
"No, I <em class="italics">don't</em>; you leave me alone!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"All right, mother; I'm sorry to have disturbed
you. Good-night."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I know you are not asleep, mother," she said,
tremulously. "I've heard you rolling and tossing
ever since I went to bed."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, I couldn't for thinking about you," Virginia
replied, gently, as she sat down on the foot of the
bed.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You couldn't, huh! I say!" Jane sneered.
"Huh, <em class="italics">you</em>! It's a pity about you!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You are thinking about the debt on the farm?"
she ventured. "If that's it, mother, remember—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">whole</em> truth—was impossible.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Mother," she began, "you see—I suppose I'll
have to confess to you that Mrs. Boyd and I—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">her</em>
child, she had won over <em class="italics">mine</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Mother, stop!" Virginia turned and sat down
again on the bed. "That woman shall not have another—not
one other—<em class="italics">false</em> charge piled up around
her. God knows I don't see how I can tell you <em class="italics">all</em>
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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, my God, don't, don't, don't!" Jane groaned.
"Don't tell me that you—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">went</em>."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, God have mercy on me—mercy, mercy,
mercy!" Jane groaned. "You went there to that
man!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">bedroom</em>!" she said,
in a rasping whisper. "<em class="italics">Locked</em> you—actually <em class="italics">locked</em>
you in! Oh, Lord have mercy!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"A hand was laid on my head," Virginia went on.
"I heard a voice—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"The fiend from hell!" Jane raised her haggard
face and glaring eyes. "Don't, don't tell me that
he dared to—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"It was Mrs. Boyd, mother—Ann Boyd," said
Virginia.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Ann Boyd!" Jane groaned. "I see it now; <em class="italics">she</em>
was at the bottom of it; it was all <em class="italics">her</em> doing. <em class="italics">That</em>
was her plot. Ah, God, I see it now!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"In time—oh, my God, did you say <em class="italics">in time</em>?"
Jane gasped, again clutching her daughter's ankles
and holding desperately to them.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"In time—oh, my God, in <em class="italics">time</em>!" 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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">me</em>. 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Very well, mother." Virginia moved to the
door. Her hand was on the latch, when, with a
startled gasp, her mother called out:</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"No, I refused to take it," Virginia said. "He
came to me afterwards and begged me to accept
it, but I refused."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Then how under the sun—" Jane began, but
went no further.</p>
<p class="pnext">Virginia turned in the doorway and stood still;
a look of resigned despair was on her. "You may
as well know <em class="italics">all</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxvi">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id37">XXXVI</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">the</em> 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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxvii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id38">XXXVII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Do you think so?" Virginia said, absently.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Uncle"—Virginia's startled eyes bore down on
him suddenly—"what does it mean?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, uncle, do you suppose she is worse?" Virginia
asked, in deep concern.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't know," Sam said, seriously, "my Pinkerton
job ended with the discovery of them cat
banquets, but I've about reached <em class="italics">one</em> opinion."</p>
<p class="pnext">"And what is that?" the girl asked, anxiously,
as she bent towards her uncle.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, uncle, don't say that!" Virginia cried—"don't!
don't!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, then, you study it out," he said. "It's
too much for me."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"What you reckon?" he said. "The bird has
flown."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Mother, you mean?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, uncle, what do you think it means?" Virginia
sighed, deeply worried.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"And she didn't leave a word of directions to me?"
the girl said, sadly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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, <em class="italics">anyway</em>. 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxviii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id39">XXXVIII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I reckon you are Nettie Boyd, ain't you?" Jane
said.</p>
<p class="pnext">"I used to be," the young woman answered. "I
married a Lawson—Sam Lawson—awhile back."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, howdy do?"</p>
<p class="pnext">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?</p>
<p class="pnext">She rose and gave him her hand, and the two
stood facing each other, she speechless, he thoroughly
at his indolent ease.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes, I'm changed, and you are too, Joe," she
said, as, with a stiff hand beneath her, she sought
the chair again.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I think I know what you are going to say,"
he answered, avoiding her eyes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"You do, Joe?" she exclaimed. "Oh no, surely,
you can't know that."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"A—a—what?" he said.</p>
<p class="pnext">There was a pause. Jane Hemingway unrolled
her bonnet and put it on, pulling the hood down over
her line of vision.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, Jane, I was a fool them days," Joe Boyd
broke in, with an actual flush of shame in his tanned
face.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Don't—for the love of mercy—don't fetch that
up!" Boyd groaned.</p>
<p class="pnext">"But I <em class="italics">have</em> 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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">since</em> we married, but when
you—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"What I told you that morning, Joe, was a cold,
deliberate lie!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"A—a—" he stammered. "No, no, you don't
mean that—you can't mean—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Every—single—thing—I—told—you—that—day—was—a—lie!"
Jane said, with an emphatic
pause between each word.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, my God!" Boyd cried. "And I, all these
years I have—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">you</em> instead of <em class="italics">her</em>!
She said, with tears in her eyes, on her knees before
me, that that first mistake was all, and I told her
she lied <em class="italics">in her throat</em>, 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 <em class="italics">this</em> 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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I deserve it—talk on!" Jane Hemingway said,
as she rose and clutched her carpet-bag and held it
tremblingly.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Well, I'm going to pray for it, Joe," she said, as
she started away. "Good-bye. May the Lord
above bless you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Good-bye, Jane; do the best you can," he said,
"and I'll try to do the same."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xxxix">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id40">XXXIX</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, no, how could I? You know I said I'd
never darken that door again, after that low-lived
coward—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.'"</p>
<p class="pnext">"Huh!" Ann grunted—"huh!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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:</p>
<p class="pnext">"'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.'</p>
<p class="pnext">"'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.'</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—<em class="italics">crime!</em>
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.'"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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
<em class="italics">except</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"She talked that way?" Ann said, looking steadily
out into the sunshine through the open doorway.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes; and I reckon you have as little patience
with her message as you have with the balance,"
said the visitor.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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. <em class="italics">She</em> had a
cause. <em class="italics">She</em> 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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xl">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id41">XL</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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 <em class="italics">is</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Thank you for the implied compliment, Squire,"
Langdon said, angrily. "You are frank enough
about it, anyway."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">These thoughts were too much for him. He went
into Asque's bar, at the hotel, called for whiskey,
and remained there for hours.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Why, how are you, Chester?" he said, cordially.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">what</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I don't care who it reflects on," retorted Chester.
"You can take it any way you wish, if you have got
enough backbone."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">With a hand that was strangely steady, King
registered his name with the pen the clerk was
extending to him.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Thank you, Jim," King replied. "I'll let it rest,
if he is satisfied with what he's already had."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Going out home to-night?" the clerk asked.</p>
<p class="pnext">"If I can get a turnout at the stable," King
answered.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Then I'll stay and go out in the morning," said
King. "I'm tired, anyway, and that is a hard ride
at night."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xli">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id42">XLI</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"How is that, uncle?" Virginia asked, absent-mindedly.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, uncle, and they fought?" Virginia, pale and
trembling, gasped as she leaned for support on the
fence.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">Approaching Ann's house, she entered the gate
just as Mrs. Boyd came to the door and stood smiling
knowingly at her.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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!"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Oh, <em class="italics">that's</em> 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 <em class="italics">himself</em> 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 <em class="italics">was</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">you</em> about your business for no reason in the
world. You listen good. Maybe she'll be saying
after a while that she loved you."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I <em class="italics">did</em> 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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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:</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Don't! don't!" she said. "If you knew—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I've told him everything, Virginia," Ann broke
in. "I had to. I couldn't see my dear boy suffering
like he was, when—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"You know—" Virginia began, aghast, "you
know—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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 <em class="italics">I</em> 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—<em class="italics">this way</em>!"</p>
</div>
<div class="level-2 section" id="xlii">
<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref pginternal" href="#id43">XLII</a></h2>
<p class="pfirst">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Where did you hitch?" she asked, her voice losing
firmness.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">Joe Boyd's mild eyes wavered and sought the fire
beyond the toes of his ragged shoes.</p>
<p class="pnext">"Tell me the truth, Joe," Ann demanded. "I'm
entitled to that, anyway."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">you</em> 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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"She couldn't stomach that, I reckon?" Ann said,
in assumed calmness.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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?"</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"The poor-farm!" Ann said, half to herself. "To
think that she would consent to that, and you her
father."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I think his folks is behind it, Ann. They've got
a reason for wanting to get rid of me."</p>
<p class="pnext">"A reason, you say?" Ann was staring at him
steadily.</p>
<p class="pnext">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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Yes. You see, the Lawsons got an idea—the
old woman did, in particular, from something she'd
picked up—that it was <em class="italics">me</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"I see, I see," Ann said. "And they set about
putting you at the poor-farm."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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 <em class="italics">real</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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
<em class="italics">that's</em> what you mean, I'd have something to say
that maybe, in justice to myself, I ought to say."</p>
<p class="pnext">"<em class="italics">Would</em> 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—"</p>
<p class="pnext">"I couldn't consent to <em class="italics">that</em>, Joe—that's the point,"
Ann answered, firmly. "Anything else on earth
but <em class="italics">that</em>. 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 <em class="italics">did</em> come back, and we was married over
again, it would go out to the world that you had
taken <em class="italics">me</em> 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 <em class="italics">myself</em> 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 <em class="italics">me</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"Then I'll tell you what you let <em class="italics">me</em> 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
<em class="italics">me</em> 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."</p>
<p class="pnext">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.</p>
<p class="pnext">"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."</p>
<p class="pnext">"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.</p>
<p class="center pnext">THE END</p>
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<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37551 ***</div>
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