After leaving Atlanta, with only her normal strength and flesh to
regain, Jane Hemingway returned to her mountain home in most excellent
spirits. She had heartily enjoyed her stay, and was quite in her best
mood before the eager group of neighbors who gathered at her cottage the
afternoon of her return.
"What _I_ can't understand," remarked old Mrs. Penuckle, "is why you
don't say more about the cutting. Why, the knife wasn't going into _me_
at all, and yet on the day I thought the doctors would be at work on you
I couldn't eat my dinner. I went around shuddering, fancying I could
feel the blade rake, rake through my vitals. Wasn't you awfully afraid?"
"Bless your soul, no!" Jane laughed merrily. "There wasn't a bit more of
a quiver on me than there is right now. We was all talking in a funny
sort of way and passing jokes to the last minute before they gave me
ether. They gave it to me in a tin thing full of cotton that they
clapped over my mouth and nose. I had to laugh, I remember, for, just as
he got ready, Dr. Putnam said, with his sly grin, 'Look here, I'm going
to muzzle you, old lady, so you can't talk any more about your
neighbors.'"
"Well, he certainly give you a bliff there without knowing it," remarked
Sam Hemingway, dryly. "But he's a fool if he thinks a tin thing full o'
drugs would do that."
"Oh, go on and tell us about the cutting," said Mrs. Penuckle, wholly
oblivious of Sam's sarcasm. "That's what _I_ come to hear about."
"Well, I reckon getting under that ether was the toughest part of the
job," Jane smiled. "I took one deep whiff of it, and I give you my word
I thought the pesky stuff had burnt the lining out of my windpipe. But
Dr. Putnam told me he'd give it to me more gradual, and he did. It still
burnt some, but it begun to get easy, and I drifted off into the
pleasantest sleep, I reckon, I ever had. When I come to and found nobody
in the room but a girl in a white apron and a granny's cap, I was afraid
they had decided not to operate, and, when I asked her if there'd been
any hitch, she smiled and said it was all over, and I wouldn't have
nothing to do but lie still and pick up."
"It's wonderful how fine they've got things down these days," commented
Sam. "Ten years ago folks looked on an operation like that as next to a
funeral, but it's been about the only picnic Jane's had since she was
flying around with the boys."
The subject of this jest joined the others in a good-natured laugh.
"There was just one thing on my mind to bother me," she said, somewhat
more seriously, "and that was wondering who gave that money to Virginia.
Naturally a thing like that would pester a person, especially where it
was such a big benefit. I've been at Virginia to tell me, or give me
some hint so I could find out myself, but the poor child looks awfully
embarrassed, and keeps reminding me of her promise. I reckon there isn't
but one thing to do, and that is to let it rest."
"There's only one person round here that's _got_ any spare money," said
Sam Hemingway, quite with a straight face, "and it happens, too, that
she'd like to have a thing like that done."
"Why, who do you mean, Sam?" His sister-in-law fell into his trap, as
she sat staring at him blandly.
"Why, it's Ann Boyd--old Sister Ann. She'd pay for a job like that on
the bare chance of the saw-bones making a miss-lick and cutting too
deep, or blood-pizen settin' in."
"Don't mention that woman's name to me!" Jane said, angrily. "You know
it makes me mad, and that's why you do it. I tried to keep a humble and
contrite heart in me down there; but, folks, I'm going to confess to you
all that the chief joy I felt in getting my health back was on account
of that woman's disappointment. I never mentioned it till now, but that
meddlesome old hag actually knew about my ailment long before I let it
out to a soul. Like a fool, I bought some fake medicine from a tramp
peddler one day, and let him examine me. He went straight over to Ann
Boyd's and told her. Oh, I know he did, for she met me at the wash-hole,
during the hot spell, when water was scarce, and actually gloated over
my coming misfortune. She wouldn't say what the ill-luck was, but I knew
what she was talking about and where she got her information."
"I never thought that old wench was as black as she was painted," Sam
declared, with as much firmness as he could command in the presence of
so much femininity. "If this had been a community of men, instead of
three-fourths the other sort, she'd have been reinstated long before
this. I'll bet, if the Scriptural injunction for the innocent to cast
the first stone was obeyed, there wouldn't be no hail-storm o' rocks in
this neighborhood."
"Oh, she would just suit a lot of men!" Jane said, in a tone which
indicated the very lowest estimation of her brother-in-law's opinion.
"It takes women to size up women. I want to meet the old thing now, just
to show her that I'm still alive and kicking."
Jane had this opportunity sooner than she expected. Dr. Putnam had
enjoined upon her a certain amount of physical exercise, and so one
afternoon, shortly after getting back, she walked slowly down to
Wilson's store. It was on her return homeward, while passing a portion
of Ann's pasture, where the latter, with pencil and paper in hand, was
laying out some ditches for drainage, that she saw her opportunity.
"Now, if she don't turn and run, I'll get a whack at her," she chuckled.
"It will literally kill the old thing to see me walking so spry."
Thereupon, in advancing, Jane quickened her step, putting a sort of
jaunty swing to her whole gaunt frame. With only the worm fence and its
rough clothing of wild vines and briers between them, the women met face
to face. There was a strange, unaggressive wavering in Ann's eyes, but
her enemy did not heed it.
"Ah ha!" she cried. "I reckon this is some surprise to you, Ann Boyd! I
reckon you won't brag about being such a wonderful health prophet now! I
was told down in Atlanta--by _experts_, mind you--that my heart and
lungs were as sound as a dollar, and that, counting on the long lives of
my folks on both sides, I'm good for fifty years yet."
"Huh! I never gave any opinion on how long you'd live, that I know of,"
Ann said, sharply.
"You didn't, heigh? You didn't, that day at the wash-place when you
stood over me and shook your finger in my face and said you knew what my
trouble was, and was waiting to see it get me down? Now, I reckon you
remember!"
"I don't remember saying one word about your cancer, if that's what you
are talking about," Ann sniffed. "I couldn't 'a' said anything about it,
for I didn't know you had it."
"Now, I know _that's_ not so; you are just trying to take backwater,
because you are beat. That peddler that examined me and sold me a bottle
of medicine went right to your house, and you pumped him dry as to my
condition."
"Huh! he said you just had a stiff arm," said Ann. "I wasn't alluding to
that at all."
"You say you wasn't, then what was you talking about? I'd like to know."
"Well, that's for me to know and you to find out," Ann said, goaded to
anger. "I don't have to tell you all I know and think. Now, you go on
about your business, Jane Hemingway, and let me alone."
"I'll never let you alone as long as there's a breath left in my body,"
Jane snarled. "You know what you are; you are a disgrace to the county.
You are a close-fisted, bad woman--as bad as they make them. You ought
to be drummed out of the community, and you would be, too, if you didn't
have so much ill-gotten gains laid up."
There was a pause, for Jane was out of breath. Ann leaned over the
fence, crushing her sheet of paper in her tense fingers. "I'll tell you
something," she said, her face white, her eyes flashing like those of a
powerful beast goaded to desperation by an animal too small and agile to
reach--"I'll tell you one thing. For reasons of my own I've tried to
listen to certain spiritual advice about loving enemies. Jesus Christ
laid the law down, but He lived before you was born, Jane Hemingway.
There isn't an angel at God's throne to-day that could love you. I'd as
soon try to love a hissing rattlesnake, standing coiled in my path, as
such a dried-up bundle of devilment as you are. Could I hit back at you
now? _Could_ I? Huh! I could tell you something, you old fool, that
would humble you in the dust at my feet and make you crawl home with
your nose to the earth like a whipped dog. And I reckon I'm a fool not
to do it, when you are pushing me this way. You come to gloat over me
because your rotten body feels a little bit stronger than it did. I
could make you forget your dirty carcass. I could make you so sick at
the soul you'd vomit a prayer for mercy every minute the rest of your
life. But I won't do it, as mad as I am. I'll not do it. You go your
way, and I'll go mine."
Jane Hemingway stared wildly. The light of triumph had died out in her
thin, superstitious face. She leaned, as if for needed support, on the
fence only a few feet from her enemy. Superstition was her weakest
point, and it was only natural now for her to fall under its spell. She
recalled Ann's fierce words prophesying some mysterious calamity which
was to overtake her, and placed them beside the words she had just had
hurled at her, and their combined effect was deadening.
"You think you know lots," she found herself saying, mechanically.
"Well, I know what I _know_!" Ann retorted, still furious. "You go on
about your business. You'd better let me alone, woman. Some day I may
fasten these two hands around that scrawny neck of yours and shake some
decency into you."
Jane shrank back instinctively. She was less influenced, however, by the
threat of bodily harm than by the sinister hint, now looming large in
her imagination, that had preceded it. Ann was moving away, and she soon
found herself left alone with thoughts which made any but agreeable
companions.
"What can the woman mean?" she muttered, as she slowly pursued her way.
"Maybe she's just doing that to worry me. But no, she was in
earnest--dead in earnest--both times. She never says things haphazard;
she's no fool, either. It must be something simply awful or she wouldn't
mention it just that way. Now, I'm going to let _this_ take hold of me
and worry me night and day like the cancer did."
She paused and stood in the road panting, her hand, by force of habit,
resting on her breast. Looking across the meadow, she saw Ann Boyd
sturdily trudging homeward through the waist-high bulrushes. The
slanting rays of the sun struck the broad back of the hardy outcast and
illumined the brown cotton-land which stretched on beyond her to the
foot of the mountain. Jane Hemingway caught her breath and moved on
homeward, pondering over the mystery which was now running rife in her
throbbing brain. Yes, it was undoubtedly something terrible--but what?
That was the question--what?
Reaching home, she was met at the door by Virginia, who came forward
solicitously to take her shawl. A big log-fire, burning in the wide
chimney of the sitting-room, lighted it up with a red glow. Jane sank
into her favorite chair, listlessly holding in her hands the small
parcel of green coffee she had bought at the store.
"Let me have it," Virginia said. "I must parch it and grind it for
supper. The coffee is all out."
As the girl moved away with the parcel, Jane's eyes followed her.
"Should she tell her daughter what had taken place?" she asked herself.
Perhaps a younger, fresher mind could unravel the grave puzzle. But how
could she bring up the matter without betraying the fact that she had
been the aggressor? No, she must simply nurse her new fears in secret
for a while and hope for--well, what could she hope for, anyway? She
lowered her head, her sharp elbows on her knees, and stared into the
fire. Surely fate was against her, and it was never intended for her to
get the best of Ann Boyd in any encounter. Through all her illness she
had been buoyed up by the triumphant picture of Ann Boyd's chagrin at
seeing her sound of body again, and this had been the result. Instead of
humiliating Ann, Ann had filled her quaking soul with a thousand
intangible, rapidly augmenting fears. The cloud of impending disaster
stretched black and lowering across Jane Hemingway's horizon.
Sam came in with a bundle of roots in his arms, and laid them carefully
on a shelf. "I've dug me some sassafras of the good, red variety," he
said, over his shoulder, to her. "You folks that want to can spend money
at drug stores, but in the fall of the year, if I drink plenty of
sassafras tea instead of coffee, it thins my blood and puts me in
apple-pie order. But I reckon you don't want _your_ blood any thinner
than them doctors left it. Right now you look as flabby and limber as a
wet rag. What ails you, _anyway_?"
"I reckon I walked too far, right at the start," Jane managed to fish
from her confused mind. "I'm going to be more careful in the future."
"Well, you'd better," Sam opined. "You may not find folks as ready to
invest in your burial outfit as they was to prevent you from needing
one."