Hell Fer Sartain | Page 7

they
sent things to eat to her the servant brought back word that she had
called out, `` `Set them over thar,' without so much as a thanky.'' One
message was that ``she didn' want no second-hand victuals from
nobody's table.'' Somebody suggested sending the family to the
poor-house. The mother said ``she'd go out on her crutches and hoe
corn fust, and that the people who talked 'bout sendin' her to the
po'-house had better save their breath to make prayers with.'' One day
she was hired to do some washing. The mistress of the house happened
not to rise until ten o'clock. Next morning the mountain woman did not
appear until that hour. ``She wasn't goin' to work a lick while that

woman was a-layin' in bed,'' she said, frankly. And when the lady went
down town, she too disappeared. Nor would she, she explained to
Grayson, ``while that woman was a-struttin' the streets.''
After that, one by one, they let her alone, and the woman made not a
word of complaint. Within a week she was working in the fields, when
she should have been back in bed. The result was that the child
sickened again. The old look came back to its face, and Grayson was
there night and day. He was having trouble out in Kentucky about this
time, and he went to the Blue Grass pretty often. Always, however, he
left money with me to see that the child was properly buried if it should
die while he was gone; and once he telegraphed to ask how it was. He
said he was sometimes afraid to open my letters for fear that he should
read that the baby was dead. The child knew Grayson's voice, his step.
It would go to him from its own mother. When it was sickest and lying
torpid it would move the instant he stepped into the room, and, when he
spoke, would hold out its thin arms, without opening its eyes, and for
hours Grayson would walk the floor with the troubled little baby over
his shoulder. I thought several times it would die when, on one trip,
Grayson was away for two weeks. One midnight, indeed, I found the
mother moaning, and three female harpies about the cradle. The baby
was dying this time, and I ran back for a flask of whiskey. Ten minutes
late with the whiskey that night would have been too late. The baby got
to know me and my voice during that fortnight, but it was still in
danger when Grayson got back, and we went to see it together. It was
very weak, and we both leaned over the cradle, from either side, and I
saw the pity and affection--yes, hungry, half-shamed affection--in
Grayson's face. The child opened its eyes, looked from one to the other,
and held out its arms to ME. Grayson should have known that the child
forgot--that it would forget its own mother. He turned sharply, and his
face was a little pale. He gave something to the woman, and not till
then did I notice that her soft black eyes never left him while he was in
the cabin. The child got well; but Grayson never went to the shack
again, and he said nothing when I came in one night and told him that
some mountaineer --a long, dark fellow-had taken the woman, the
children, and the household gods of the shack back into the mountains.

``They don't grieve long,'' I said, ``these people.''
But long afterwards I saw the woman again along the dusty road that
leads into the Gap. She had heard over in the mountains that Grayson
was dead, and had walked for two days to learn if it was true. I pointed
back towards Bee Rock, and told her that he had fallen from a cliff
back there. She did not move, nor did her look change. Moreover, she
said nothing, and, being in a hurry, I had to ride on.
At the foot-bridge over Roaring Fork I looked back. The woman was
still there, under the hot mid-day sun and in the dust of the road,
motionless.

COURTIN' ON CUTSHIN
Hit was this way, stranger. When hit comes to handlin' a right peert gal,
Jeb Somers air about the porest man on Fryin' Pan, I reckon; an' Polly
Ann Sturgill have got the vineg'rest tongue on Cutshin or any other
crick.
So the boys over on Fryin' Pan made it up to git 'em together. Abe
Shivers--you've heerd tell o' Abe-- tol' Jeb that Polly Ann had seed him
in Hazlan (which she hadn't, of co'se), an' had said p'int-blank that he
was the likeliest feller she'd seed in them mountains. An' he tol' Polly
Ann that Jeb was ravin' crazy