CAME TO WEEP.
Old Mrs. Barker, true to instinct, hastened to put on her saddest
bonnet, kept in an old chest at the demand of funerals, and with all
speed set out for the afflicted home. Margaret was feeding the chickens
when this consoling stimulator of grief arrived, and what little sun was
left, immediately went down.
Beneath the mantle-piece there was no blaze, the weather being hot, so
they could not sit down "and weep the fire out," but they could hover
over old ashes and weep them wet. The real griefs in old Mrs. Barker's
life had been but few. It was a mercy-shaft that had shot Old Barker
down; rheumatic cripple, he had beaten her with his crutch, and at his
death she could not from her rebellious eye wring out a tear. No
offspring had she over whose death to mourn, and now she was put to for
a companion piece to sorrow. But her mind flew back to a time when there
died a man whom she could have loved, and her tears came full with the
memory of a blissful morning when at church he had tied her horse and
walked with her to the door. She had forgotten his name, if indeed she
had ever been possessed of it, but she spoke of him as "he" as fast as
her tears were falling.
"Ah, Lord, Sister Starbuck, I don't want to question the ways of
Providence, but it do appear that we have staid here too long. I ought
to have been taken when he left."
"You mean Barker, Sister?"
"Oh, no, I mean 'he'. I can remember how his hair waved, though I wasn't
but sixteen at the time; and the day when he hitched my hoss for me, all
the girls looked down-trod. It was more than fifty year ago."
"Of course I am a much younger woman," replied Sister Starbuck, "and I
can't look back an' see no man but J--J--Jasper."
They returned to their silent weeping, and after a time a cup of coffee
was suggested. Sister Barker objected. Her mind was so full of the past
that she had no heart to swallow the devices of the present, but upon
persuasion she yielded; and when the coffee was drunk, pipes were
lighted and comfortably back they sat and talked about the neighbors.
After a while an old carryall wobbled up to the gate and out got Mrs.
Spencer. By the time she reached the door-step fresh tears were falling.
"Come right in," said Margaret. "I am so glad to see you at this time."
"And what do you want with me--to set down an' help you cry? Wall, I
ain't of the cryin' sort. I put my cryin' aside when I got outen the
cradle." She sat down and with a palm-leaf fanned herself. "It's a plum
outrage," she said. "An' what's the matter with you, Miz Barker? Ain't
lost a cow, have you? Why, yo' face looks like a old rock atter a heavy
dew."
Mrs. Barker--they were not sisters now--wiped away her yellowish tears.
"I have the right to cry if I feel like it," she replied. "I was a
thinkin' of he."
"A thinkin' of the cat's foot," the old "heroic" snapped. "You mean that
journeyman hatter that you've talked about so much? He was drunk half
the time an' wan't worth the attention it would take to shove him into
the river. Conscience alive, you have shed enough tears over him to
drown him. Now quit it an' let's talk business. They've got our folks in
jail an' they air goin' to keep 'em there the Lord knows how long. An'
if the law didn't have some little jestice on its side I'd take an axe
an' go down there an' break down that jail door. But you know that
Jasper _has_ laid himse'f liable an' so has my boy, for knowin' of the
fact--an' so have we all, for that matter. Hah, I was jest a thinkin'
when Spencer had the fight at Pettigrew's mill. Them Sarver boys--ez
triflin' a lot ez ever lived--had him down when I rid up on a hoss. An'
the fust thing they know'd I stobbed one of 'em between the shoulder
blades--an' they thought he never would git well."
"An' they killed Spencer right there," said Margaret.
"That's true enough, but they'd a killed him quicker if I hadn't got
there. Ah, laws a massy, the meanness of this world. An' what did they
try to do with me? Hauled me up befo' cou't, an' thar I went with little
Laz in my arms, an' they tried me fur--'sault, I think them fetch-taked
lawyers called it. An' I says 'salt or sugar, I'm here, an' what air you
goin' to do about it?' They fotch money again' me, an' the lawyers they
jawed an' they palarvered; an' finally I got a chance to speak to that
weak-kneed jedge, I did, an' I says, 'Look here, I've a longer knife,
an' if you tell this jury to convict me, I'll put about a foot an' a
half of it under yo' rusty ribs.' An' you better believe he smiled on
me. Margaret, there ain't no use to set around here an' grieve. In this
here world grief never counted fur nuthin' yit. Stir about an' take care
of yo' stock an' you'll feel better. Miz Barker, I seed you a comin' an'
I know'd you'd make things worse, so I come to off-set you. An' now, if
we air goin' to be good friends, let's talk of somethin' pleasant.
Anybody dead over yo' way, Miz Barker--I mean anybody that ought to be?"
This interested Mrs. Barker, and upon the head she tapped into sloth her
rising resentment. "Nobody dead," she said, with a smack of the mouth,
"but Liza Pruitt ain't expected to git well."
"Oh, is that the one they had the talk about consarnin' of the
preacher?"
"Yes, Brother Lane."
"Brother Fool. But atter all, not half as big a fool as she was. I do
think of all the fools in the world the woman that gives the opportunity
for 'em to hitch up her name with a preacher's--she's the biggest. Why,
don't a woman know that everybody is a watchin' of a preacher? But he
feels himself safer than any man in the world. Befo' I was married there
was a preacher named Collier used to come to see me. I 'lowed he was a
single man, an' when I found he wan't I handed him his hat an' I says, I
does, 'Here, put this on an' see if it'll fit you.' He declared that it
was a past'ral call, an' I says, 'Well, then, go out in the pasture.'
Now let's put things in order for I'm goin' to stay all night."
She was imperious, but not without generosity, for she granted to
Margaret the right to look sad. But she would brook no demonstration,
and when Mrs. Barker sought to lead Margaret back for a hiccoughey
stroll along the dew-dripping path, she turned upon her with a snap.
"Miz Barker, putty soon you'll force me to wring you an' hang you out
to dry."
And what were the antecedents of this crankish old woman? Her
grandfather was hanged, one of John A. Murrell's robbers; and when she
was a girl, her father fortified his log house and fought the law that
strove to oust him for lack of title. She had moulded bullets; and when
both her father and mother had been wounded, she thrust a blunderbuss
through the window and with buck-shot swept a bloody road. But her
generous heart had kept her poor, and her back was bending with years
made heavy by loss of sleep, sitting up, nursing the sick.
While she was stirring about, making ready for supper, Margaret, giving
to herself a sudden straightening, stepped forward and remarked:
"Now, Miz Spencer, you air mistaken if you think you air any gamer than
I am. Why, if necessity demanded, I could load a shot-gun with tears an'
scald a enemy to death. I don't know quite as much about my folks as you
do yourn, but I kin ricolleck a red puddle on the doorstep. So now, we
air standin' on equal ground. Miz Barker, I reckon it's yo' nature to
cry, so jest pitch in an' cry all you want to while we air gittin'
supper; an' then in the night, I'll change yo' pillow every time it gits
too wet fur you."
"Gracious me, I don't want to cry that bad," Mrs. Barker replied.
"There's a time for all things, an' I'm from a fightin' fam'ly, too,
I'll give you to understand. Have you got any right young pigs? If you
have, suppose we kill one an' roast it--'twon't take long."
This suggestion met with approval, and with the help of Kintchin,
helloaed out of a nap behind the smoke-house, a pig was slaughtered and
barbecued. In Old Jasper's house that night there was a feast--a strange
picture, three old women at table and an old negro, with watery mouth,
standing in the door.
With the coming of daylight Margaret arose while yet the others slept,
and breakfast was ready with the rising of the sun.
"You must be plannin' a big day's work," said Mrs. Spencer, and Margaret
replied: "Yes, for I can't see the end of it. Kintchin, ketch the gray
mare an' put the side saddle on her. An' now, you folks kin stay here
jest as long as you please."
"Why, where air you goin'?" Mrs. Barker inquired; and Margaret, putting
a pistol in the pocket of her dress, dropped a courtesy and said:
"To the jail."