Three months after Glendon and Jack had encountered Doctor Powell in
Willcox, Katherine was sitting on the porch of her home reading to
Donnie. The noise of crunching wheels sounded far down the canyon long
before a vehicle came into sight between the dense mesquite brush.
It was Doctor Powell who had returned from a trip to Willcox. Katherine
watched her husband receive his mail, but she was not aware that the
eyes of the two men met with unconcealed antagonism, and the
conversation was as curt as possible.
No whisper of the affair in Willcox had reached the ears of Glendon's
wife. She had no knowledge that her husband had borrowed money to send
to the Judge without a word of thanks to his unknown benefactor. The
money had been forwarded to Powell by the Judge. The other fine was sent
the Judge by Three-fingered Jack, accompanied by a badly scrawled note
of thanks addressed to the Justice of Peace and asking that the man who
had paid the fine be told that it was appreciated, and that if he ever
needed any help to call on Three-fingered Jack.
Aware of Glendon's dislike, Powell's visits to the Circle Cross had
ceased some time previous to the Willcox trouble, but Katherine ascribed
the doctor's aloofness to his knowledge of her husband's habits. Though
she missed the infrequent visits, she did not resent it. She knew that
the two men had nothing in common to make them congenial.
The doctor, seeing Katherine and Donnie on the porch, hesitated as he
was about to drive away. He glanced at them, and with a touch of his hat
in greeting, stepped into the buggy and went on his way. The happy
light faded from Donnie's eyes, but without a word he slipped down again
beside his mother, his arm about Tatters' neck.
Glendon came slowly to the porch with the canvas mail-pouch on his arm.
He threw off his broad-brimmed Stetson, unbuckled his spurs and sat down
to read his letters without vouchsafing a word to his wife.
"Is there nothing for me?" she asked finally, hesitating to take the
sack from his lap and sort its contents.
"Only papers and some of your fool magazines," he snapped. "Seems to me
you are old enough to get over reading sentimental trash."
Unmindful of his words she reached for the books he tossed angrily
toward her. Books were the only antidote for the mental atrophy she
dreaded. Rising, she picked them up, but paused as Glendon glanced
impatiently from a letter in his hands.
"Wait, can't you? Or is the 'continued in our next' too important?" he
demanded.
She did not reply, but seated herself quietly. Her eyes were unusually
bright, for on a page of the magazine she held, she had seen a title. A
thrill akin to that when she had first held Donnie in her arms, made her
heart throb quickly.
Donnie had been flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone; but this, the
first-born of her brain, had come through travail of her very soul. It
was not necessary for her to read the eight lines of the poem; they were
indelibly imprinted on her memory. A mother cannot forget the face of
her child, and though it be commonplace and unattractive to all the
world, in her eyes it is beautiful.
Glendon's voice brought her back from her world of dreams.
"I wish you'd stop sitting there staring like a locoed calf, and pay
attention to what I have to say."