"Well, I _do_ say so," said Ann, in a tone which sounded strange and compromising even to herself. "I _do_ say so; I don't want your husband to lose his job. Luke wouldn't like for you to suffer, either, Mrs.

Bruce."

"Then I'll go at once and tell Willard," said the older woman. "He'll be powerful glad, Ann, and maybe he will think as I do, an' as Luke always contended against everybody, that you had a lots o' good away down inside of you."

"Tell him what you want to," Ann answered, and she returned to her house.

On the morning she was expecting Mrs. Waycroft to return, Ann rose even before daybreak, lighting an abundant supply of pine kindling-wood to drive away the moist darkness, and bustling about the house to kill time. It was the greatest crisis of her rugged life; not even the day she was wedded to Joe Boyd could equal it in impending gravity. She was on trial for her life; the jury had been in retirement two days and nights carefully weighing the evidence for and against the probability of a simple, untutored country girl's acceptance of certain luxuries dear to a woman's heart, and would shortly render a verdict.

"She will," Ann said once, as she put her ground coffee into the tin pot to boil on the coals-"she will if she's like the ordinary girl; she won't if she's as stubborn as Joe or as proud as I am. But if she does-oh! if she does, won't I love to pick out the things! She shall have the best in the land, and she can wear them and keep them in the log-cabin her father's giving her till she will be willing to come here to this comfortable house and take the best room for herself. I don't know that I'd ever feel natural with a strange young woman about, but I'd go through it. If she didn't want to stay all the time, I'd sell factory stock or town lots and give her the means to travel on. She could go out and see the world and improve like Luke King's done. I'd send her to school if she has the turn and isn't past the age. It would be a great vindication for me. Folks could say her shiftless father took her off when she was too young to decide for herself, but when she got old enough to know black from white, and right from wrong, she obeyed her heart's promptings. But what am I thinking about, when right at this minute she may-?" Ann shrugged her shoulders as she turned from the cheerful fire and looked out on her fields enfolded in the misty robe of early morning. Above the dun mountain in the east the sky was growing yellow. Ann suddenly grew despondent and heaved a deep sigh.

"Even if she _did_ come here in the end, and I tried to do all I could,"

she mused, "Jane Hemingway would begin on her and make it unpleasant.

She'd manage to keep all civilization away from the girl, and n.o.body couldn't stand that. No, I reckon the jig's up with me. I'm only floundering in a frying-pan that will cook me to a cinder in the end.

This life's given me the power of making money, but it's yellow dross, and I hate it. It isn't the means to any end for me unless-unless-unless my dau-unless she _does_ take Mrs. Waycroft's offer. Yes, she may-the girl actually may! And in that case she and I could run away from Jane Hemingway-clean off to some new place."

Ann turned back to the fireplace and filled her big delft cup to the brim with strong coffee, and, blowing upon it to cool it, she gulped it down.

"Let's see"-her musings ran on apace-"milching the three cows and feeding the cattle and horses and pigs and chickens will take an hour. I could stretch it out to that by mixing the feed-stuff for to-morrow.

Then I could go to the loom and weave up all my yarn; that would be another hour. Then I might walk down to the sugar-mill and see if they are getting it fixed for use when the sorgum's ripe, but all that wouldn't throw it later than ten o'clock at latest, and there would still be two hours. Pete McQuill is easy on horses; he'll drive slow-a regular snail's pace; it will be twelve when he gets to the store, and then the fool may stop to buy something before he brings her on."

The old-fashioned clock on the mantel-piece indicated that it was half-past eleven when Ann had done everything about the house and farm she could think of laying her hands to, and she was about to sit down in the shade of an apple-tree in the yard when she suddenly drew herself up under the inspiration of an idea. Why not start down the road to meet the wagon? No, that would not do. Even to such a close friend as Mrs.

Waycroft she could not make such an obvious confession of the impatience which was devouring her. But, and she put the after-thought into action, she would go to the farthest corner of her own land, where her premises touched the main road, and that was fully half a mile. She walked to that point across her own fields rather than run the chance of meeting any one on the road, though the way over ploughed ground, bog, fen, and through riotous growth of thistle and clinging briers was anything but an easy one. Reaching the point to which she had directed her steps, and taking a hasty survey of the road leading gradually up the mountain, she leaned despondently on her rail-fence.

"She won't, she won't-the girl won't!" she sighed. "I feel down in my heart of hearts that she won't. Joe Boyd won't let her; he'd see how ridiculous it would make him appear, and he'd die rather than give in, and yet Mary Waycroft knows something about human nature, and she said-Mary said-"

Far up the road there was a rumble of wheels. Pete McQuill would let his horses go rapidly down-hill, and that, perhaps, was his wagon. It was.

She recognized the gaunt, underfed white-and-bay pair through the trees on the mountain-side. Then Ann became all activity. She discovered that one of the rails of the panel of fence near by had quite rotted away, leaving an opening wide enough to admit of the pa.s.sage of a small pig.

To repair such a break she usually took a sound rail from some portion of the fence that was high enough to spare it, and this she now did, and was diligently at work when the wagon finally reached her. She did not look up, although she plainly heard Mrs. Waycroft's voice as she asked McQuill to stop.

"You might as well let me out here," the widow said. "I'll walk back with Mrs. Boyd."

The wagon was lumbering on its way when Ann turned her set face, down which drops of perspiration were rolling, towards her approaching friend.

"You caught me hard at it." She tried to smile casually. "Do you know patching fence is the toughest work on a farm-harder 'n splitting rails, that men complain so much about."

"It's a man's work, Ann, and a big, strong one's, too. You ought never to tax your strength like that. You don't mean to tell me you lifted that stack of rails to put in the new one."

"Yes, but what's that?" Ann smiled. "I shouldered a hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of salt the other day, and it was as hard as a block of stone. I'm used to anything. But I'm through now. Let's walk on home and have a bite to eat."

"You don't seem to care much whether-" Mrs. Waycroft paused and started again. "You haven't forgotten what I said I'd try to find out over there, have you, Ann?"

"Me? Oh no, but I reckon I'm about pegged out with all I've done this morning. Don't I look tired?"

"You don't looked tired-you look worried, Ann. I know you; you needn't try to hide your feelings from me. We are both women. When you are suffering the most you beat about the bush more than any other time.

That's why this is going to be so hard for me."

"It's going to be _hard_ for you, then?" Ann's impulsive voice sounded hollow; her face had suddenly grown pale. "I know what _that_ means. It means that Joe set his foot down against me and-"

"I wish I could tell you all, every blessed word, Ann, but you've already had too much trouble in this life, and I feel like I was such a big, ignorant fool to get this thing up and make such a mess of it."

Ann climbed over the fence and stood in the road beside her companion.

Her face was twisted awry by some force bound up within her. She laid her big, toil-worn hand on Mrs. Waycroft's shoulder.

"Now, looky here," she said, harshly. "I'm going to hear every word and know everything that took place. You must not leave out one single item.

I've got the right to know it all, and I will. Now, you start in."

"I hardly know how, Ann," the other woman faltered. "I didn't know folks in this world could have so little human pity or forgiveness."

"You go ahead, do you hear me? You blaze away. I can stand under fire.

I'm no kitten. Go ahead, I tell you."

"Well, Ann, I met Joe and Nettie day before yesterday at bush-arbor meeting. Joe was there, and looked slouchier and more downhearted than he ever did in his life, and Nettie was there with the young man she is about to marry-a tall, serious-faced, parson-like young man, a Mr.

Lawson. Well, after meeting, while he was off feeding his horse, I made a break and got the girl by herself. Well, Ann, from all I could gather, she-well, she didn't look at it favorably."

"Stop!" Ann cried, peremptorily, "I don't want any shirking. I want to hear actually every word she said. This thing may never come up between you and me again while the sun shines, and I want the truth. You are not toting fair. I want the facts-_every word the girl said_, every look, every bat of the eye, every sneer. I'm prepared. You talk plain-_plain_, I tell you!"

"I see I'll _have_ to," sighed Mrs. Waycroft, her eyes averted from the awful stare in Ann's eyes. "The truth is, Ann, Nettie's been thinking all her life, till just about a month ago, that you were-dead. Joe Boyd told her you was dead and buried, and got all the neighbors to keep the truth from her. It leaked out when she got engaged to young Lawson; his folks, Ann, they are as hide-bound and narrow as the worst hard-sh.e.l.l Baptists here-his folks raised objections and tried to break it off."

"On account of me?" said Ann, under her breath.

"Well, they tried to break it off," evaded Mrs. Waycroft, "and, in all the trouble over it, Nettie found out the facts-Joe finally told her.

They say, Ann, that it brought her down to a sick-bed. She's a queer sort of selfish girl, that had always held her head too high, and the discovery went hard with her. Then, Ann, the meanest thing that was ever done by a human being took place. Jane Hemingway was over there visiting a preacher's wife she used to know, and she set in circulation the blackest lie that was ever afloat. Ann, she told over there that all your means-all the land and money you have made by hard toil, big brain, and saving-come to you underhand."

"Underhand?" Ann exclaimed. "What did she mean by that, pray? What could the old she-cat mean by-"

Mrs. Waycroft drew her sun-bonnet down over her eyes. She took a deep breath. "Ann, she's a _terrible_ woman. I used to think maybe you went too far in hating her so much, but I don't blame you now one bit. On the way over the mountain, I looked all the circ.u.mstances over, and actually made up my mind that you'd almost be justified in killing her, law or no law. Ann, she circulated a report over there that all you own in the world was given to you by Colonel Chester."

"Ugh! Oh, my G.o.d!" Ann groaned like a strong man in sudden pain; and then, with her face hidden by her poke-bonnet, she trudged heavily along by her companion in total silence.

"I've told you the worst now," Mrs. Waycroft said. "Nettie had heard all that, and so had Lawson. His folks finally agreed to raise no objections to the match if she'd never mention your name. Naturally, when I told her about what I thought _maybe_-you understand, _maybe_-you'd be willing to do she was actually scared. She cried pitifully, and begged me never to allow you to bother her. She said-I told you she looked like a selfish creature-that if the Lawsons were to find out that you'd been sending her messages it might spoil all. I told her it was all a lie of Jane Hemingway's making out of whole cloth, but the silly girl wouldn't listen. I thought she was going to have a spasm."

They had reached the gate, and, with a firm, steady hand, Ann opened it and held it ajar for her guest to enter before her.

They trudged along the gravel walk, bordered with uneven stones, to the porch and went in. On entering the house Ann always took off her bonnet.

She seemed to forget its existence now.

"Yes, I hate that woman," Mrs. Waycroft heard her mutter, "and if the Lord doesn't furnish me with some way of getting even I'll die a miserable death. I could willingly see her writhe on a bed of live coals. No h.e.l.l could be hot enough for that woman." Ann paused suddenly at the door, and gazed across the green expanse towards Jane's house.

Mrs. Waycroft heard her utter a sudden, harsh laugh. "And I think I see her punishment on the way. I see it-I see it!"

"What is it you say you see?" the visitor asked, curiously.

"Oh, nothing!" Ann said, and she sat down heavily in her chair and tightly locked her calloused hands in front of her.

XI