THE LETTER TO CRAWLEY.
Justine waited and waited patiently. His midnight visit was the most
dramatic event of her life. That he had come to kill her and then
himself she was slow in realizing. As the days and nights went by, the
real horror of his thought took root and grew. Sometimes she awakened
in the night cold with perspiration, dreading to see the white-faced
man in the doorway. In some of her dreams he stood above her, knife
uplifted, his face full of unspeakable malevolence. Waking she would
scream aloud and instinctively she would draw her baby close to her
breast as if seeking protection from this tiny guardian.
His letter, intended to inspire confidence and hope, was not skillful
enough to deceive even Justine. She could read between the lines and
there she could see that he was hiding something from her. She could
not help feeling that he was facing failure and that he was miserable.
With every mail she expected to receive a letter from him in which he
would announce that he had given up the fight, and then would come the
dispatch bearing the news that he had killed himself.
Mrs. Crane knew, of course, of Sherrod's strange visit. 'Gene Crawley
saw him but once on that occasion, looking gloomily from the window.
The two men did not speak to each other, although Crawley would have
called a greeting to him had not the man in the window turned away
abruptly as soon as he met the gaze of the one in the barnyard. The
only human creature about the little farm who did not feel the
oppressiveness was the baby, Dudley the second. He was a healthy,
happy child, and, birth-gift of tragedy though he was, he brought
sunshine to the sombre home.
One day, three weeks after Jud's visit, Justine approached 'Gene as he
crossed the lot on his way to feed the stock in the sheds. A team of
horses occupied stalls in the barn, but they were not Justine's. When
her horses had died, 'Gene, from the savings of many months, had bought
a team of his own, and his animals were doing the work on her place.
The cow and the hogs and the chickens belonged to Justine--and Jud.
Crawley observed an unusual pallor in her face and her eyes were dark
with pain and trouble.
"'Gene, I can't get it out of my mind that everything is not going well
with Jud," she said, as he came up to her.
"Wasn't he all right when he was here?" asked he, slowly. She had to
hesitate for a moment before she could answer the question. She must
choose her words.
"He has not been well, 'Gene," she said at last. "You know sickness is
a dreadfully discouraging thing in a big place like Chicago. Nobody
cares whether you get well or die, and if you get too sick to work some
one else takes your place. Jud has had a lot of bad luck and I know
he's sick and discouraged."
"He didn't look right well when he was here," admitted 'Gene. "I
wouldn't git upset about it, 'f I was you, Justine. He'll come out all
right."
"But maybe he is sick and can't do anything," she persisted. "When he
was here he said he'd been out of work and in a hospital for a long
time."
"Out of work?" repeated he, slowly.
"Yes," she went on, hurriedly, now that she had begun the confession,
"and he is in debt, too. It costs so much money to live up there, and
if one gets behind it's hard to catch up, he says. Oh, 'Gene, do you
suppose anything has happened to him? I have had no letter since last
Thursday and this is Wednesday, isn't it? I know he is sick, I know
it, 'Gene."
"Ain't he on the paper any more?"
"He has been off the paper for months."
"Doin' nothin'?"
"Some private work, but it hasn't paid well. And, besides, he hasn't
been well. That's held him back."
"What did he say when he was here? Did he have a job in view?"
"No," she answered, shame outfacing her pride. Neither spoke for a
long time. She was looking intently at the frozen ground, nervously
clasping and unclasping her fingers. His black eyes were upon the
white, drooping face, and his slow mind was beginning to see light.
His heart began to swell with rage against the man who had won this
prize and could not protect it.
With the shrewdness of the countryman, he concluded that Jud had not
been able to combat the temptations of the great city. He had failed
because he had fallen. He cast a slow glance at Justine. Her head was
bent and her hands were clasping and unclasping. He knew what it was
costing her to make confession to him and lifted his head with the joy
of feeling that she had come to him for sympathy.
"Why don't he come home if he's sick?" he asked. "He could rest up
down here an'--an' mebby that'd git him on his feet ag'in."
"He doesn't like to give up, that's all. You know how brave and true
he is, 'Gene. It would be awful to come back here and admit that--that
he couldn't get along up there. O, I wish he would come back, I wish
he would come back," she wailed, breaking down completely. The tears
forced themselves through the fingers that were pressed to her eyes.
"God A'mighty, how she loves him," groaned Crawley to himself. In this
moment the big blasphemer of other days loved her more deeply than ever
before in his dark, hopeless life. "Couldn't you--you write an' tell
him to come down here fer a couple of weeks or--or a month?" he
stammered, after a moment of thought.
"He wouldn't come, 'Gene, he wouldn't come," she sobbed. "He said he
would not give up until he had made a home for me up there. When he
came the last time he was discouraged, but--but he got over it
and--and--Oh, I wish he would write to me! The suspense is killing me."
Crawley had turned his back and was leaning against the fence.
"He needs me, 'Gene," she said; "he needs me to cheer him on. I ought
to be with him up there."
He started sharply and turned to her. She was looking into his eyes,
and her hands were half lifted toward him.
"He is so lonely and I'm sure he is sick. I must go to him--I must.
That's what I want to talk to you about. How am I to go to him? What
shall I do? I can't bear it any longer. My place is with him."
"If he ain't got a job, Justine, you'll--you'll be----"
"You want to say that I'll be a burden to him, that's it, isn't it?
But I'll work for him. I'll do anything. If he's sick, I'll wash and
iron and sew and scrub and--oh, anything. I've been thinking about it
since last night, and you must not consider me foolish when I tell you
what I want to do. I want to borrow some money on the place."
"You mean you want to put a morgidge on the--on the farm?" he asked,
slowly.
"How else can I get the money, 'Gene? A small mortgage won't be so
bad, will it? What is the farm worth?" She was feverish with
excitement.
"It's not the best of land, you know, and there ain't no improvements,"
he said, still more deliberately. "You might sell the place for $800,
but I doubt it."
"I won't sell it; it must be kept for my boy. But I can borrow a
little on it, can't I? Wouldn't David Strong let me have $200 on it?"
"Good Lord, Justine, don't put a morgidge on the place!" he cried.
"That will be the end of it. It's the way it always goes. Don't do
anything like that."
"There is no other way to get the money and I--I am going to Jud," she
said, determinedly, and he saw the light in her eye.
In the end he promised to secure the money for her, and he did. The
next day Martin Grimes loaned Eugene Crawley $150, taking a chattel
mortgage on a farm wagon and harness and the two big bay horses that
stood in Justine's barn. At first she refused to take the money, but
his insistence prevailed, and three days later she and her boy left
Glenville for Chicago and Jud. She promised to acquaint Crawley with
Jud's true condition and their plans for the future.
Crawley said good-bye to her as she climbed into Harve Crose's wagon on
the day of departure. He wished her luck in a harsh, unnatural tone,
and abruptly turned to the barn. For hours he sat in the cold mow,
disconsolate, exalted. His horses stamping below were mortgaged! Lost
to him, no doubt, but he gloried in the sacrifice. He had given his
fortune to gratify her longing to be with the man she loved.
At sunset he trudged to the tollgate. An unreasoning longing filled
his lonely heart. When he asked for the mail there was uppermost in
his mind the hope of a letter from her, although she had been gone not
more than five hours. His loneliness increased when Mrs. Hardesty said
that there was no mail for him or Justine. For the first time in
months he felt the old longing for drink.
"Jestine gone to Chickago fer a visit er to stay?" asked Jim Hardesty,
when Crawley joined the crowd that lounged about the big sheet-iron
stove in the store.
'Gene did some very quick thinking in the next few minutes. He
realized that her departure had been the subject of comment and
speculation, and that it would be necessary for him to resort to
something he knew nothing about--diplomacy. Had he been an observing
man he would have noticed the sudden cessation of talk about the stove
when he first entered the toll house. The loungers had been discussing
her departure, and there would have been a murderer in their midst had
'Gene Crawley heard the remark that fell from Luther Hitchcock's lips.
"Don't know how long she'll stay," responded 'Gene, briefly. He leaned
against the counter, crossing his legs.
"How's Jed gittin' 'long up yander?" continued Jim.
"All right, I reckon."
"Justine hain't been lookin' very well lately," said Link Overshine,
from the nail-keg.
"Hain't looked herself sence the kid come," added Hitchcock.
"When did she last hear from Jud?" asked Link.
"Talkin' to me?" asked Crawley.
"Yes."
"Well, how do you s'pose I know anything about her letters?"
"Don't you git the mail?"
"Harve Crose leaves it as he goes by, an' you know it, Overshine."
"She ain't had a letter from him in more'n a week," volunteered the
postmaster. "He don't write very reg'lar here of late."
"Does the gover'ment hire you to tell who gits letters through this
office an' when they git 'em?" demanded Crawley, sharply. Jim hitched
back in his chair nervously.
"Why, they ain't no harm in that," explained he.
"You talk too much fer a job like this, Jim," said Crawley.
There followed a few moments of silence.
"One of Grimes' men says you morgidged your team to the old man," began
Overshine.
"Which one of Grimes' men said that?" asked 'Gene, quietly.
"Why, I--er--lemme see, who did say it?" floundered Link, in distress.
"Oh, it don't matter," said 'Gene, carelessly. "I just asked."
The subject was dropped at once. The crowd watched him leave the place
and conversation was stagnant until Hardesty, who was near the window,
remarked that 'Gene was walking pretty rapidly down the road. With the
knowledge that he was out of sight and hearing, the loungers discussed
him and his affairs freely.
It was not until the fourth day that he received a letter from Chicago,
directed in strange handwriting. A number of men were in the store
when the epistle was handed out to him by Mrs. Hardesty. Without
hesitation he tore open the envelope and began to read. The letter was
for him, beyond a doubt, but Justine had not addressed the envelope.
What had happened to her?
He read the letter with at least a dozen eyes watching him closely, but
his dark face betrayed no sign of emotion. At the end he calmly
replaced the note in the envelope and strolled off homeward. Once out
of the hearing of the curious, he leaned against a fence, read it
again, folded it carefully, opened it and read it again, and then
lowered his hands and gazed out over the fields.