Jack grinned. "No, but I was just a-goin' to when Bill belted you one,"
was the frank and convincing reply.
Jim got up slowly and faced Bill. "Well, that settles it; it's all
right! You're a better man than I am. That's all I've got to say."
He climbed back over the fence and led the way down to dinner without
looking back.
"What give ye that lick on the side o' the head, Jim?" his wife asked,
when he sat down at the dinner-table.
"Never you mind," he replied surlily, but he added, "Ike's axe come off,
and give me a side-winder."
Bill carefully removed all marks of his struggle and walked into dinner
shamefacedly, all muscle gone out of his bulk of fat. His sudden return
to primeval savagery grew monstrous in the cheerful kitchen, with its
noise of hearty children, sizzling meat, and the clatter of dishes.
The stove was not drawing well and Sarah did not notice anything out of
the way with Bill.
"I never see such a hateful thing in all my life," she said, referring
to the stove. "That rhubarb duff won't be fit for a hog to eat; the
undercrust ain't baked the least bit yet, and I have had it in there
since fifteen minutes after 'leven."
Bill said generously, "Oh, well, never mind, Serry; we'll worry it down
some way."
V
All through July and August Mrs. Jim Harkey seemed to renew her
endeavors to keep the sisters apart; she still carried spiteful tales to
and fro, amplifying them with an irresistible histronic tendency. It had
become a matter of self-exoneration with her then. She could not stop
now without seeming to admit she had been mischief-making in the past.
If the sisters should come together, her lies would instantly appear.
Emma grew morose, irritable, and melancholy; she was suffering for her
sister's wholesome presence, and yet, being under the dominion of the
mischief-maker, dared not send word or even mention the name of her
sister in the presence of the Harkeys.
Mrs. Jim came up to the house to stay as Emma got too ill to work, and
took charge of the house. The children hated her fiercely, and there
were noisy battles in the kitchen constantly wearing upon the nerves of
the sick woman who lay in the restricted gloom of the sitting room
bed-chamber, within hearing of every squall.
There were moments of peace only when Ike was in the house. Smooth as he
was, Jim's wife was afraid of him. There was something compelling in his
low-toned voice; his presence subdued but did not remove strife.
His silencing of the tumult hardly arose out of any consideration for
his wife, but rather from his inability to enjoy his paper while the
clamor of war was going on about him.
He was not a tender man, and yet he prided himself on being a very calm
and even-tempered man. He kept out of Bill's way, and considered himself
entirely justified in his position regarding the cow-bell. It is
doubtful if he would have accepted an apology.
Emma suffered acutely from Mrs. Harkey's visits. Something mean and
wearying went out from her presence, and her sharp, bold face was a
constant irritation. Sometimes when she thought herself alone, Emma
crawled to the window which looked up the Coolly, toward Sarah's home,
and sat there silently longing to send out a cry for help. But at the
sound of Jane Harkey's step she fled back into bed like a frightened
child.
She became more and more childish and more flighty in her thoughts as
her time of trial drew near, and she became more subject to her jailer.
She grew morbidly silent, and her large eyes were restless and full of
pleading.
One day she heard Mrs. Smith talking out in the kitchen.
"How is Emmy to-day, Mrs. Jim?"
"Well, not extry. She ain't likely to come out as well as usual this
time, I don't think," was the brutally incautious reply; "she's pretty
well run down, and I wouldn't be surprised if she had some trouble."
"I suppose Sarah will be down to help you," said Mrs. Smith.
"Well, I guess not--not after what she's told."
"What has she told?" asked Mrs. Smith, in her sweet and friendly voice.
"Why, she said she wouldn't set foot in this house if we all _died_."
"I never heard her say that, and I don't believe she ever _did_ say it,"
said Mrs. Smith, firmly.
Emma's heart glowed with a swift rush of affection toward her sister and
Mrs. Smith; she wanted to cry out her faith in Sarah, but she dared not.
Mrs. Harkey slammed the oven door viciously. "Well, you can believe it
or not, just as you like; I heard her say it."
"Well, I didn't, so I can't believe it."
When Mrs. Smith came in, Emma was ready to weep, so sweet and cheery was
her visitor's face.
She found no chance to talk with her, however, for Mrs. Harkey kept near
them during her visit. Once, while Mrs. Jim ran out to look at the pies,
Mrs. Smith whispered: "Don't you believe what they say about Sarah.
She's just as kind as can be--I know she is. She's looking down this
way every day, and I know she'd come down instanter if you'd send for
her. I'm going up that way, and--"
She found no further chance to say anything, but from that moment Emma
began to think of letting Sarah know how much she needed her. She
planned to hang out the cloth as she used to. She exaggerated its
importance in the way of an invalid, until it attained the significance
of an act of treason. She felt like a criminal even in thinking about
it.
Several times in the night she dreamed she had put the cloth out and
that Jim and his wife had seen it and torn it down. She awoke two or
three times to find herself sitting up in bed staring out of the window,
through which the moon shone and the multitudinous sounds of the
mid-summer insects came sonorously.
Once her husband said, "What's the matter? It seems to me you'd rest
better if you'd lay down and keep quiet." His voice was low enough, but
it had a peculiar inflection, which made her sink back into bed by his
side, shivering with fear and weeping silently.
The next day Jim and her husband both went off to town, and Jim's wife,
after about ten o'clock, said:--
"Now, Emmy, I'm going down to Smith's to get a dress pattern, and I want
you to keep quiet right here in bed. I'll be right back; I'll set some
water here, and I guess you won't want anything else until I get back.
I'll run right down and right back."
After hearing the door close, Emma lay for a few minutes listening,
waiting until she felt sure Mrs. Harkey was well out of the yard, then
she crept out of bed and crawled to the window. Mrs. Jim was far down
the road; she could see her blue dress and her pink sunbonnet.
The sick woman seized the sheet and pulled it from the bed; the clothes
came with it, but she did not mind that. She pulled herself painfully up
the stairway and across the rough floor of the chamber to the window
which looked toward her sister's house, and with a wild exultation flung
the sheet far out and dropped on her knees beside the open window.
She moaned and cried wildly as she waved the sheet. The note of a scared
child was in her voice.
"Oh, Serry, come quick! Oh, I _need_ you, Serry! I didn't mean to be
mean; I want to see you _so_! Oh, dear, oh, dear! Oh, Serry, come
quick!"
Then space and the world slipped away, and she knew nothing of time
again until she heard the anxious voice of Sarah below.
"Emmy, where _are_ you, Emmy?"
"Here I be, Serry."
With swift, heavy tread Sarah hurried up the stairs, and the dear old
face shone upon her again; those kind gray eyes full of anxiety and of
love.
Emma looked up like a child entreating to be lifted. Her look so
pitifully eager went to the younger sister's maternal heart.
"You poor, dear soul! Why didn't you send for me before?"
"Oh, Serry, don't leave me again, will you?"
When Mrs. Harkey returned she found Sarah sitting by Emma's side in the
bed-chamber. Sarah looked at her with all the grimness her jolly fat
face could express.
"You ain't needed _here_," she said coldly. "If you want to do anything,
find a man and send him for the Doctor--quick. If she dies you'll be her
murderer."
Mrs. Harkey was subdued by the bitterness of accusation in Sarah's face
as well as by Emma's condition. She hurried down the Coolly and sent a
boy wildly galloping toward the town. Then she went home and sat down by
her own hearthstone feeling deeply injured.
When the Doctor came he found a poor little boy baby crying in Sarah's
arms. It was Emma's seventh child, but the ever sufficing mother-love
looked from her eyes undimmed, limitless as the air.
"Will it live, Doctor? It's so little," she said, with a sigh.
"Oh, yes, I suppose so!" said the Doctor, as if its living were not
entirely a blessing to itself or others. "Yes, I've seen lots of lusty
children begin life like that. But," he said to Sarah at the door, "she
needs better care than the babe!"
"She'll git it," said Sarah, with deep solemnity, "if I have to move
over here--and live."