Will N. Harben

“ You are a great woman, Aunt Ann, but you still believe that the only way to fight is to hit back. You have been hitting back for years, and may keep on at it for a while, but you'll see the truth one of these days, and you'll actually love your neighbors—even your vilest enemies. You'll come to see—your big brain will simply have to grasp it—that your retaliation, being obedient to bad life-laws, is as blamable as the antagonism of your enemies. The time will come when your very suffering will be the medium through which you will view and pity their sordid narrowness. ”

“ Virginia withdrew her hand and swept it across her face, as if to brush away the flush upon it.
"I can never be his wife," she faltered. She paused, turned her face away, and said, in a low tone: "I am not good enough. I deliberately flirted with Langdon Chester. I used to love to have him say sweet things to me, and I led him on. I've no excuse to make. If I had been good enough to be the wife of a man like Luke King, I'd never have been caught in that trap, even to save my mother, for if I'd acted differently he'd never have done what he did. It's all my fault. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ann's face was hard as stone. Her eyes, resting on the far-off blue mountains and foot-hills, flashed like spiritual fires. It was at such moments that the weaker woman feared her, and Mrs. Waycroft's glance was almost apologetic. However, Ann spoke first.
"You may as well tell me, Mary Waycroft," she faltered, "exactly what you had in mind. I know you are a friend. You are a friend if there ever was one to a friendless woman. What was you thinking about? Don't be afraid to tell me. You could not hurt my feelings to save your life."
"Well, then, I will be plain, Ann," returned the widow. ”

“ Ann said, goaded to anger. "I don't have to tell you all I know and think. Now, you go on about your business, Jane Hemingway, and let me alone."
"I'll never let you alone as long as there's a breath left in my body," Jane snarled. "You know what you are; you are a disgrace to the county. You are a close-fisted, bad woman—as bad as they make them. You ought to be drummed out of the community, and you would be, too, if you didn't have so much ill-gotten gains laid up."
There was a pause, for Jane was out of breath. Ann leaned over the fence, crushing her sheet of paper in her tense fingers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I may be a she-devil, but I was made one by circumstances as naturally as a foul weed is made to grow high and strong by the manure around its root. And yet, I reckon, there must be some dregs of good left in my cup, for I felt like strangling that scamp a minute ago. But that may have been because I forgot and thought he was his daddy, and the girl was me on the brink of that chasm twenty years wide and deeper than the mystery of the grave of mankind. I don't know much, but I know I'm going to fight Jane Hemingway as long as I live. ”

“ Ann suddenly crouched down till she could peer between the lower rails of the fence. She held her breath while the girl was passing, then she clasped her hands over her knees and chuckled. "It's her!" she whispered. "It's her, and she's headed for everlasting doom if ever a creature walked into a net of damnation."
When Virginia was thirty or forty yards away, Ann cautiously climbed over the fence, almost swearing in impatience as she pulled her skirts from the detaining clutch of thorns, briers, and splinters, and with her head down she followed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Virginia said, almost fiercely. "It can never be while life lasts. You and I are as wide apart as the farthest ends of the earth."
He bowed his head and stood silent for a moment, then he sighed as he looked at her again. "I've thought about life a good deal, Virginia," he said, "and I've almost come to the conclusion that a great tragedy must tear the soul of every person destined for spiritual growth. This may be my tragedy, Virginia; I know something of the tragedy that lifted Ann Boyd to the skies, but her neighbors don't see it. ”

“ It was Ann Boyd driving her cow home, her heavy skirts pinned up half-way to her stout knees. With one sharp, steady stare at them, Ann, without greeting of any kind, lowered her bare, dew-damp head and trudged on.
"It's that miserly old hag, Ann Boyd," Langdon said, lightly. "I don't like her any more than she does me. I reckon that old woman has circulated more lies about me than all the rest of the country put together."
At the first sight of Ann, Virginia had withdrawn her hand from Langdon's arm and passionate clasp of fingers, but the action had not escaped Ann's lynx eyes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do you know, madam, that you'd never hear of so many cancers and tumors, that are dragging weary folks to early graves hereabouts, if this medicine had been used in time?"
"Cancer?" The widow's voice had fallen, and she looked towards Ann Boyd's house, and then more furtively over her shoulder towards her own, as if to be sure of not being observed. "That's what I've always wondered at, how is anybody to know whether a—a thing is a cancer or not without going to a doctor, and, as you say, even then they may not tell you the truth? ”

“ 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. ”

“ She's the whole world to me. She's young; she may be thoughtless; her final character is just forming; but she is destined to be the grandest, loveliest woman on the face of the earth. She is to be my wife, Aunt Ann—my wife!"
Ann's head sank till her massive brow touched her crossed arms; he could see that she was quivering from head to foot. There was a long pause, then the woman looked up, faint defiance struggling in her face.
"You are a fool," she said. "A great, big, whimpering fool of a man. She's the only one, eh? Jane Hemingway's daughter is an angel on earth, above all the rest. ”

“ XXI Left alone, still crouching on her door-step, Ann, with fixed eyes and a face like carved stone, watched him move away in the soft moonlight, the very embodiment of youth and faith. She twisted her cold hands between her knees and moaned. What was the matter with her, anyway? Was it possible that the recent raging fires of her life's triumph were already smouldering embers, half covered with the ashes of cowardly indecision? Was she to sit quaking like that because a mere youth wanted his toy? Was she not entitled to the sweet spoils of victory, after her long struggle and defence? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jane began, but went no further.
Virginia turned in the doorway and stood still; a look of resigned despair was on her. "You may as well know all the truth," she said. "I promised not to tell, but you really ought to know this, too. Mother, Ann Boyd, gave me the money. The woman you are still hounding and hating earned the money by the sweat of her brow that saved your life."
"Ann Boyd! Oh, my God, and to think you can stand there and tell me that! Get out of my sight. You have acted the fool all along, and humiliated me in the dust by your conduct. You are no child of mine. ”

“ You are worse than a thief—than a negro thief that steals corn from a crib at night, or meat from a smoke-house. You are a low-lived, plotting liar. For years you have railed out against my character. I was a bad woman because I admitted my one fault of girlhood, but you married a man and went to bed with him that you didn't love a speck. You did that to try to hide a real love for another man who was another woman's legal husband. Are you listening?—I say, are you listening?"
"Yes, I'm listening," faltered Jane Hemingway, her face hidden under her bonnet. ”