A week from that day, one sultry afternoon near sunset, a tall
mountaineer, very poorly clad, and his wife came past Wilson's store.
They paused to purchase a five-cent plug of tobacco, and then walked
slowly along the road in a dust that rose as lightly as down at the
slightest foot-fall, till they reached Ann Boyd's house.
"I'll stay out here at the gate," the man said. "You'll have to do all
the talking. As Willard said, she will do more for Luke King's mother
than she would for anybody else, and you remember how she backed the boy
up in his objections to me as a step-daddy."
"Well, I'll do what I can," the woman said, plaintively. "You stay here
behind the bushes. I don't blame you for not wanting to ask a favor of
her, after all she said when we were married. She may spit in my
face--they say she's so cantankerous."
Seating himself on a flat stone, the man cut the corner off of his
tobacco-plug and began to chew it, while his wife, a woman about
sixty-five years of age, and somewhat enfeebled, opened the gate and
went in. Mrs. Boyd answered the gentle rap and appeared at the door.
"Howdy do, Mrs. Boyd," the caller began. "I reckon old age hasn't
changed me so you won't know me, although it's been ten years since me
'n' you met. I'm Mrs. Mark Bruce, that used to be Mrs. King. I'm Luke's
mother, Mrs. Boyd."
"I knew you when you and Mark Bruce turned the bend in the road a
quarter of a mile away," said Ann, sharply, "but, the Lord knows, I
didn't think you'd have the cheek to open my front gate and stalk right
into my yard after all you've said and done against me."
The eyes of the visitor fell to her worn shoe, through which her bare
toes were protruding. "I had no idea I'd ever do such a thing myself
until about two hours ago," she said, firmly; "but folks will do a lots,
in a pinch, that they won't ordinarily. You may think I've come to beg
you to tell me if you know where Luke is, but I hain't. Of course, I'd
like to know--any mother would--but he said he'd never darken a door
that his step-father went through, and I told 'im, I did, that he could
go, and I'd never ask about 'im. Some say you get letters from him. I
don't know--that, I reckon, is your business."
"You didn't come to inquire about your boy, then?" Ann said, curiously,
"and yet here you are."
"It's about your law-suit with Gus Willard that I've come, Ann. He told
you, it seems, that he was going to fight it to the bitter end, and he
_did_ call in a lawyer, but the lawyer told him thar was no two ways
about it. If his mill-pond backed water on your land to the extent of
covering five acres, why, you could make him shet the mill up, even if
he lost all his custom. Gus sees different now, like most of us when our
substance is about to take wings and fly off. He sees now that you've
been powerful indulgent all them years in letting him back water on your
property to its heavy damagement, and he says, moreover, that, to save
his neck from the halter, he cayn't blame you fer the action. He says he
_did_ uphold Brother Bazemore in what he said about burning the bench
that was consecrated till you besmirched it, and he admits he talked it
here an' yan considerably. He said, an' Gus was mighty nigh shedding
tears, in the sad plight he's in, that you had the whip in hand now, and
that his back was bare, an' ef you chose to lay on the lash, why, he was
powerless, for, said he, he struck the fust lick at you, but he was
doin' it, he thought, for the benefit of the community."
"But," and the eyes of Ann Boyd flashed ominously, "what have _you_ come
for? Not, surely, to stand in my door and preach to me."
"Oh no, Ann, that hain't it," said the caller, calmly. "You see, Gus is
at the end of his tether; he's in an awful fix with his wife and gals in
tears, and he's plumb desperate. He says you hain't the kind of woman to
be bent one way or another by begging--that is, when you are a-dealing
with folks that have been out open agin you; but now, as it stands, this
thing is agoing to damage me and Mark awfully, fer Mark gets five
dollars a month for helping about the mill on grinding days, and when
the mill shets down he'll be plumb out of a job."
"Oh, I see!" and Ann Boyd smiled impulsively.
"Yes, that's the way of it," went on Mrs. Bruce, "and so Gus, about two
hours ago, come over to our cabin with what he called his only hope, and
that was for me to come and tell you about Mark's job, and how helpless
we'll be when it's gone, and that--well, Ann, to put it in Gus's own
words, he said you wouldn't see Luke King's mother suffer as I will have
to suffer, for, Ann, we are having the hardest time to get along in the
world. I was at meeting that day, and I thought what Bazemore said was
purty hard on any woman, but I was mad at you, and so I set and
listened. I'm no coward. If you do this thing you'll do it of your own
accord. I cayn't get down on my knees to you, and I won't."
"I see." Ann's face was serious. She looked past the woman down the
dust-clouded road along which a man was driving a herd of sheep. "I
don't want you on your knees to me, Cynthia Bruce. I want simple
justice. I was doing the best I could when Bazemore and the community
began to drive me to the wall, then I determined to have my
rights--that's all; I'll have my legal rights for a while and see what
impression it will make on you all. You can tell Gus Willard that I will
give him till the first of July to drain the water from my land, and if
he doesn't do it he will regret it."
"That's all you'll say, then?" said the woman at the step.
"That's all I'll say."
"Well, I reckon you are right, Ann Boyd. I sorter begin to see what
you've been put to all on account of that one false step away back when,
I reckon, like all gals, you was jest l'arnin' what life was. Well, as
that's over and done with, I wonder if you would mind telling me if you
know anything about Luke. Me 'n' him split purty wide before he left,
and I try to be unconcerned about him, but I cayn't. I lie awake at
night thinking about him. You see, all the rest of my children are
around me."
"I'll say this much," said Ann, in a softened tone, "and that is that he
is well and doing well, but I don't feel at liberty to say more."
"Well, it's a comfort to know _that_ much," said Mrs. Bruce, softly.
"And it's nothing but just to you for me to say that it's due to you.
The education you paid fer is what gave him his start in life, and I'll
always be grateful to you fer it. It was something I never could have
given him, and something none of the rest of my children got."
Mrs. Boyd stood motionless in the door, her eyes on the backs of the
pathetic pair as they trudged slowly homeward, the red sunset like a
world in conflagration beyond them.
"Yes, she's the boy's mother," she mused, "and the day will come when
Luke will be glad I helped her, as he would if he could see the poor
thing now. Gus Willard is no mean judge of human nature. I'll let him
stew awhile, but the mill may run on. I can't fight _everybody_. Gus
Willard is my enemy, but he's open and above-board."