"She can"t get away. See! Oh, boys, don"t let them--"
Ben pushed his way toward her, his face set in a fierce frown, bitter, desperate.
Grace stood silently beside one of the elders; a woman exhorter stood before her. Conrad, overawed, had fallen into a trembling stupor; Grace was defenseless.
The elder"s hand hovered over her head, on her face a deadly pallor had settled, her eyes were cast down, she breathed painfully and trembled from head to foot. She was about to fall, when Ben set his eyes upon her.
"Get out o" my way," he shouted, shouldering up the aisle. His words had oaths, his fists were like mauls.
"Grace!" he cried, and she heard. She looked up and saw him coming; the red flamed over her face.
The power of the preacher was gone.
"Let me go," she cried, trying to wring herself loose.
"You are going to h.e.l.l. You are lost if you do not--"
"G.o.d d.a.m.n ye. Get out o" way. I"ll kill ye if you lay a hand on her."
With one thrust Ben cleared her tormentor from her arm. For one moment the wordless young man looked into her eyes; then she staggered toward him. He faced the preacher.
"I"d smash h.e.l.l out o" you for a leather cent," he said. In the tumult his words were lost, but the look on his face was enough. The exhorter fell away.
Their retreat was unnoted in the tumult. At the door they looked back for an instant at the scene.
At the mourners" bench were six victims in all stages of induced catalepsy, one man with head flung back, one with his hands pointing, fixed in furious appeal. Another with bowed head was being worked upon by a brother of hypnotic appeal. He struck with downward, positive gestures on either side of the victim"s head.
Over another the negress towered, screaming with panther-like ferocity:--
"Git under de blood! Git under de blood!"
As she screamed she struck down at the mourner with her clenched fist.
On her face was the grin of a wildcat.
Out under the cool, lofty oaks, the outcry was more inexpressibly h.e.l.lish, because overhead the wind rustled the sweet green leaves, crickets were chirping, and the scent of flowering fields of buckwheat was in the air.
Grace grew calmer, but she clung with strange weakness to her lover. She felt he had saved her from something, she did not know what, but it was something terrifying to look back upon.
Conrad was forgotten--set aside. Ben bundled him into the carryall and took his place with Grace. He no longer hesitated, argued, or apologized. He had claimed his own.
On the long ride home, Grace lay within his right arm, and the young man"s tongue was unchained. He talked, and his spirit grew tender and manly and husbandlike, as he told his plans and his hopes. h.e.l.l was very far away, and Heaven was very near.
LUCRETIA BURNS
I
Lucretia Burns had never been handsome, even in her days of early girlhood, and now she was middle-aged, distorted with work and child-bearing, and looking faded and worn as one of the boulders that lay beside the pasture fence near where she sat milking a large white cow.
She had no shawl or hat and no shoes, for it was still muddy in the little yard, where the cattle stood patiently fighting the flies and mosquitoes swarming into their skins, already wet with blood. The evening was oppressive with its heat, and a ring of just-seen thunderheads gave premonitions of an approaching storm.
She rose from the cow"s side at last, and, taking her pails of foaming milk, staggered toward the gate. The two pails hung from her lean arms, her bare feet slipped on the filthy ground, her greasy and faded calico dress showed her tired and swollen ankles, and the mosquitoes swarmed mercilessly on her neck and bedded themselves in her colorless hair.
The children were quarrelling at the well, and the sound of blows could be heard. Calves were querulously calling for their milk, and little turkeys, lost in a tangle of gra.s.s, were piping plaintively.
The sun just setting struck through a long, low rift, like a boy peeping beneath the eaves of a huge roof. Its light brought out Lucretia"s face as she leaned her sallow forehead on the top bar of the gate and looked toward the west.
It was a pitifully worn, almost tragic face--long, thin, sallow, hollow-eyed. The mouth had long since lost the power to shape itself into a kiss, and had a droop at the corners which seemed to announce a breaking-down at any moment into a despairing wail. The collarless neck and sharp shoulders showed painfully.
She felt vaguely that the night was beautiful. The setting sun, the noise of frogs, the nocturnal insects beginning to pipe--all in some way called her girlhood back to her, though there was little in her girlhood to give her pleasure. Her large gray eyes grew round, deep, and wistful as she saw the illimitable craggy clouds grow crimson, roll slowly up, and fire at the top. A childish scream recalled her.
"Oh, my soul!" she half groaned, half swore, as she lifted her milk and hurried to the well. Arriving there, she cuffed the children right and left with all her remaining strength, saying in justification:--
"My soul! can"t you--you young"uns, give me a minute"s peace? Land knows, I"m almost gone up; washin", an" milkin" six cows, and tendin"
you, and cookin" f"r _him_, ought "o be enough f"r one day! Sadie, you let him drink now "r I"ll slap your head off, you hateful thing! Why can"t you behave, when you know I"m jest about dead?" She was weeping now, with nervous weakness. "Where"s y"r pa?" she asked after a moment, wiping her eyes with her ap.r.o.n.
One of the group, the one cuffed last, sniffed out, in rage and grief:--
"He"s in the corn-field; where"d ye s"pose he was?"
"Good land! why don"t the man work all night? Sile, you put that dipper in that milk agin, an" I"ll whack you till your head"ll swim! Sadie, le"
go Pet, an" go "n get them turkeys out of the gra.s.s "fore it gits dark!
Bob, you go tell y"r dad if he wants the rest o" them cows milked he"s got "o do it himself. I jest can"t, and what"s more, I _won"t_," she ended, rebelliously.
Having strained the milk and fed the children, she took some skimmed milk from the cans and started to feed the calves bawling strenuously behind the barn. The eager and unruly brutes pushed and struggled to get into the pails all at once, and in consequence spilt nearly all of the milk on the ground. This was the last trial; the woman fell down on the damp gra.s.s and moaned and sobbed like a crazed thing. The children came to seek her and stood around like little partridges, looking at her in scared silence, till at last the little one began to wail. Then the mother rose wearily to her feet, and walked slowly back toward the house.
She heard Burns threshing his team at the well, with the sound of oaths.
He was tired, hungry, and ill-tempered, but she was too desperate to care. His poor, overworked team did not move quickly enough for him, and his extra long turn in the corn had made him dangerous. His eyes gleamed wrathfully from his dust-laid face.
"Supper ready?" he growled.
"Yes, two hours ago."
"Well, I can"t help it!" he said, understanding her reproach. "That devilish corn is gettin" too tall to plough again, and I"ve got "o go through it to-morrow or not at all. Cows milked?"
"Part of "em."
"How many left?"
"Three."
"h.e.l.l! Which three?"
"Spot, and Brin, and Cherry."
"_Of_ course, left the three worst ones. I"ll be d.a.m.ned if I milk a cow to-night. I don"t see why you play out jest the nights I need ye most."