_Thursday Evening._
I went to the jail to see Blant this morning,--but was almost sorry that
I did so. He sits there in his cell, speechless, despairing, refusing
food or rest, hearing and seeing nothing. In vain the jail-keeper and I
attempted to talk to him and tell him he must not reproach himself so
bitterly, or give way to such utter despair, since he was in no way to
blame for the death of his friend. He looked agonizingly beyond us,
evidently not conscious that we were talking.
The worst of it is that circuit court will not sit here again until
early April,--two and a half months, and his suffering must be cruelly
protracted.
After this visit it was almost impossible for me to go in and talk and
read cheerfully to Nucky, and make plausible excuses for Blant's
non-appearance, which is worrying him a great deal.
"I had news from Trigger yesterday," I told him, "Todd has gone away, so
there will probably be peace for a long while."
"Where has he gone to?" he asked.
"I am unable to say," I replied.
_Monday._
Blant continues to refuse all food, and to maintain his terrible
silence. He sits with his head in his hands all day long, oblivious of
everything around him. The kind-hearted keeper stays in his cell with
him at night. "I know he haint in no fix to stand lonesomeness," he said
to me to-day; "even if he don't pay no attention to me, I allow it's
some comfort to him to have a human nigh." Then he added, "If he haint
able to speak out his grief before long, it's liable to strike in and
kill him. Something ought to be done to rouse him."
"What?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't rightly know. But he's turnt loose all holts on life;
something to grapple him to it again is needed."
Knowing their love for each other, my first thought of course was to
bring Nucky; but the terrible story could have only disastrous effects
upon him at present, so that is not to be considered.
_Thursday._
The mail-carrier stopped at the gate yesterday to say, "I hear tell that
Blant haint toch a morsel of vittles sence he shot Rich. Neither has the
babe, sence he left it, to speak of,--the pore little creetur just
whimps and pines for him continual, and won't scacely tech the food its
pap gives it. Minervy Saxby's been over trying to peaceify it,--but in
vain. It was allus purely silly about Blant, allowing he's its maw.
When a babe gits its mind sot thataway on a proposition, there haint no
help for it but to give it what it craves. It's likely to pine away if
you don't."
I did not tell Blant of this when I stopped by the jail this
afternoon,--I hope it will not reach him, as it could only add to his
misery. I was thankful when I arrived to find him out in the common
room, where all the prisoners stay during the day, even though he sat in
a corner and did not seem to see the others.
The keeper followed me out again, and talked a while on the steps, "I
got Blant started on a few vittles to-day, after nine days of starving,"
he said. "The way I done it was to make out I thought he was trying to
cheat the gallows. Then he called for meat and bread. 'Pears like the
gallows is the onliest prospect he is able to take any comfort in, and I
hold it before him constant, to sort of keep his sperrits up. Though God
knows I'm a-acting the black hypocrite when I do it, when there haint
the least grain of a show for him to get a death sentence. There's a
strong prejudyce again' hanging in this country,--not a jury ever set in
this court-house that pronounced a death sentence,--Blant would a-knowed
it if he had stopped to think. But even if the prejudyce didn't exist,
why Blant haint done nothing to earn the gallows,--you might say he
haint done anything for the law to take hold of. Of course everybody
knows his shooting of Rich was the worst kind of accident; and as for
the Cheevers he has killed and maimed, why, that war is really a family
affair, which the law haint got no business to meddle with. Public
sentiment is again' the law mixing up in affairs like that, and that's
the reason why no great effort haint been made to arrest Blant before
now. Folks has knowed he meant well, and was hard placed, and let it go
at that. Now he's throwed hisself into the very jaws of the law,
however, it may feel compelled to do something; but of course it won't
be nothing like no death sentence. But I haven't got the heart to tell
him so,--no, I really have not,--I believe he would dash his brains out
again' the wall if I did."
Nucky was more insistent this afternoon when I read to him (he is
sitting up now and begins to look like himself). "I know pine-blank
something is wrong on Trigger, or Blant would have been here," he said,
anxiously.
"Nothing is wrong there, except that the babe is ailing," I said, "the
mail-carrier told me yesterday she was far from well."
_First Sunday, February._
I should be quite weighed down by the Marrs troubles if it were not for
the cheerful society of the boys, whose lively and funny doings afford
some escape from tragic and depressing thoughts. This morning before
church, when I was making the usual round of the ears with soap and
wash-rag, to my utter amazement I found Philip's clean, inside and out,
behind and before. At first stricken dumb by the discovery--for I long
since abandoned the hope of reforming him in the matters of chivalry and
cleanliness--I finally inquired what was the matter.
"Nothing, I just kep' a-digging," was his careless reply.
To-night, however, when everybody was undressing, Hen slid noiselessly
into my room, mysteriously shutting the door behind him. Half clothed, I
dived into my closet, soon emerging in my wrapper. Hen himself was in
trousers and undershirt, with dangling gallusses. Planting himself on
the hearth, back to the fire, he held up first one bare foot, then the
other, to the blaze, and at last spoke in a confidential tone:
"Philip lied to you this morning when he said there wa'n't nothing the
matter with him. He knows what made him wash his years, and _I_ know."
"What was it?" I inquired, drawing up the rocker.
"He's a-courting, that's what's the matter."
"Courting!" I exclaimed, incredulously.
"Yes, courting, by grab! You mind Dilsey Warrick, that 'ere little
tow-head come in atter Christmas, from over on Wace?"
Yes, I remembered Dilsey,--a demure dove of a child, in blue home-spun
dress and red yarn stockings, with long, fair hair hanging in two
plaits, and the face of an austere little saint. She is at least three
years older and a head taller than Hen, but it pleases him to speak of
the sex in diminutives.
"You know I pack water to the big house of a morning before breakfast,"
he continued; "well, Dilsey she sweeps off the front porch over yander
then, and Philip _he_ goes round and mends the fence where the hogs
breaks in of a night."
I groaned an assent,--the neighborhood hogs are badly on the rampage,
after our mustard-and turnip-greens, which show temptingly when the snow
melts; and the fence is so frail it gives way constantly to their
assaults.
"Well," proceeded Hen, "that's as good a chanct as he wants, when thaint
nobody much around but me. But I keep my eye on him,--I tip round the
corner of the house right easy, and come up on 'em unexpected."
"You are certainly mistaken about Philip," I said decidedly, "why, he
despises girls, has no earthly use for them, in fact."
"Dag gone _me_, he's got use enough for little Dilsey, by Ned! Gee, I
never see the beat! He sot in a-courting her the day he got out from
eech, and haint stopped to ketch his breath sence. Dad swinge my hide if
that 'ere boy haint been nailing planks on that front fence with
lee-tle-bitty fourpenny nails, so's the hogs'll root 'em off sure every
night, and he'll git to work there and talk to Dilsey of a morning! I
been keeping my eye peeled for him ever sence I seed him give her a'
apple one day at recess,--I knowed then something had happened to him!"
[Illustration: "'Dag gone _me_, he's got use enough for little Dilsey,
by Ned!'"]