Her three hundred and fifty pounds were soon at Tesney's bedside. Tesney
was flighty. George and the preacher came. George held her hand while
the preacher asked questions. George answered for himself, and Agnes
answered for Tesney.
A week passed. Tesney arose from her pillow and said to Agnes: "Are you
here?"
"Yes, chile," answered Agnes; "an' George, yo' husban', is heah, too."
"George, my husband!" ejaculated Tesney.
"Yes, child," said the preacher, who happened to be present, "I married
you to him a week ago."
Tesney swooned, and fell back upon her pillow. When next conscious of
her surroundings, Tesney found herself in bed in a log cabin, with her
three-hundred-and-fifty-pound tormentor still at her side.
From that time until her death she was a prisoner. Not more than a dozen
times did she seem sane. She would stand before the glass and ask for
her old self. Sometimes she called Agnes a girl. Then she would call her
a woman.
"Agnes," said she, on one occasion, "here is a rope. Let us skip."
When Tesney's baby boy was between three and four weeks old George was
killed in a drunken brawl. Two days afterward he was buried, a short
distance from the house. Tesney was in bed. Agnes did not go to the
grave. She dragged her three hundred and fifty pounds out doors to cool,
cry, and repent.
Tesney took a looking-glass from under her pillow and looked at herself.
"Tesney has come back again," she said. "This is her face. This is her
hair. Tesney has come back again." Then turning to the wasting child at
her side, she said: "Don't cry, little rascal. You are a George, like
your father. Little fool, don't cry. Night will soon come. You may go
then. Cry, cry, little George! Stop! Stop!"
Tesney fell asleep. After several hours she was awakened by the crying
of her baby. It was night. She took the baby in her arms and stole
softly out of the house in her bare feet. She went straight to George's
grave and sat down upon it.
"Little rascal," said she to the baby, "your father is in the ground and
can't steal me any more. Agnes can't follow me. You must not be a big
George. How you are growing! Stop! I'll hold your legs and arms. Stop!
You won't? You must!"
She dug a hole in the top of the grave with her hands. She placed the
baby in it, and covered it as well as she could. She then sat on a stump
nearby and said not a word for several minutes. Tesney, sitting there,
paid no heed to the rising wind, nor the distant flash of the lightning.
Presently it thundered. She arose, put her hand to her ear, like one at
a telephone, and waited. It thundered again. She leaned to listen. There
was more lightning.
"My name?" asked she. "It is Tesney." There were renewed thunder and
lightning. "My baby?" asked she. "I sent it up. Is it there?" Again it
thundered, again the lightning flashed. "It is not there?" she asked. "I
must come with it? All right! Welcome!" She ran to the grave and
uncovered the baby. It kicked feebly and gave a faint cry. "I knew you
were still here," she said. "The Voice of the Clouds said so." A
terrible storm was breaking. "Listen, little rascal: We go together.
Listen! The Voice is coming. We go! We go!"
These were her last words. She embraced the baby and sat calmly down
upon the grave amid the raging elements. The storm's fury lasted an
hour or more. The next morning Tesney and the baby were lying dead on
George's grave.
Agnes had Tesney and the baby buried in the same grave with George.
After ten years of terrible mental and bodily suffering Agnes died. A
certain part of each day during this time she spent looking at Tesney's
ring and praying aloud. Some said that her intense agony and earnest
prayer thoroughly purged her soul of guilt. Others said not so. God
knows.